AS Mount Sinai College year 6 students Talia Kaplan and Vivien Fainerman proudly sang Hatikvah in front of more than 600 people – including former Israeli defence minister and aspiring prime minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon – at the combined WIZO/The Joint major fundraising dinner in Sydney on August 24, attention quickly turned to the children of Israel – 890,000 of whom live without basic necessities.
Silence filled the Randwick Racecourse ballroom when a short documentary was shown featuring a low-income family of seven living in a two-bedroom rented apartment in Ofakim.
The mother told of having to split two eggs into five portions so her kids could have lunch, until her youngest were accepted into a WIZO daycare centre and provided three free meals per day.
The significance of the night – announcing a historic fundraising partnership between WIZO and The Joint to tackle increasing poverty throughout Israel – was not lost on The Joint Australia’s president Eva Fischl or WIZO NSW president Anat Vidor.
Read the story by Shane Desiatnik in the Australian Jewish News.