Spring for Holocaust Survivors is a completely free service based in Israel. The founder, Aviva Silberman, has been working since 1992 to ensure that all holocaust survivors get the financial support that they need.
Many survivors are eligible for financial help, but don’t know it.
The Jerusalem Post discusses the issue further:
The statistic are jarring, if not shameful: Among the approximately 180,000 elderly Holocaust survivors living in Israel, 25 percent live below the poverty line.
Perhaps more unnerving, each of them is legally entitled to an average of NIS 9,000 a month from various government funds earmarked specifically for their needs, yet half remain unaware of such life-saving resources, or encounter red tape when attempting to access the lifeline.
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Aviva Silberman, founder of Spring for Holocaust Survivors, is on a mission to change that before it’s too late.
A seasoned attorney who made aliya from Switzerland in 1988 at age 18, Silberman founded the non-profit, known in Hebrew as Aviv LeNitzolei HaShoah, in 2007 “to ensure that each and every Holocaust survivor lives with dignity and welfare.”
To streamline the process, Silberman created a website to reply to all queries, free of charge, which over 300,000 visitors, including the children of survivors, have since accessed.
Additionally, the organization has trained over 8,000 volunteers and professionals who have gone on to aid over 80,000 survivors, while responding to 40,000 aid requests.
Founder Aviva Silberman talks more about the people he helps:
“They are unaware of benefits due to them from Israel’s Finance Ministry, from Germany, from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany, from the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, and other agencies,” she said.
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“These people are old, and it’s difficult for them to understand what program and benefits are relevant to them because each program has different criteria for offering assistance. There are some attorneys in Israel who survivors turn to and the attorneys charge them as much as the law allows, and that takes important money away from them.”
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“Unfortunately, even the professionals and volunteers working with Holocaust survivors are unaware of the latter’s basic rights, and cannot guide these elderly people through the bureaucratic maze,” she lamented.
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“We are running against time, because these people are very old, and tomorrow may be too late,” she said. “We want to help them today to get the maximum, and to live a better life.”
Find out more about Spring for Holocaust Survivors here.
