Southern Israel Tour

Having lived among the well heeled of Tel Aviv for over a year, I wasn’t sure what to expect when YEDID invited me to tour southern Israel. I braced myself for an experience unlike any I’d seen before, and that’s exactly what I got.

First up was the Bedouin community of Rahat. Honestly, and probably ignorantly, I expected a lot of tents. There were some tents, but mostly run-down housing units lining barely paved, unnamed streets. Ran, my guide, pointed out some recent advances the city had secured from the government, things as basic as proper bus shelters, where before were just metal poles. On a late Monday morning, I was struck by the number of kids out and about – playing soccer in a dusty abandoned lot, or tagging along with their mothers en route to a cramped market. For sure I thought most of these kids should be in a classroom somewhere, but this is not a town that places a premium on education, despite over half of its residents aged 18 and under.

At the YEDID volunteer center, I met Raida and Ilham. I asked what a typical day at the center involves, and their passion for their work was immediately evident as they argued over whose reluctant English should go first. In a nutshell, this is a center run by women, for women. Females are the backbone of this community and they want to provide for their families as independently as possible. No small task for Muslim women in a society where men are the undisputed heads of household. Ilham and Raida teach the basics of running a small business and managing money to the women who visit the center. But they are also working against cultural forces that inhibit the progress one might find in such a program elsewhere. There is an inherent distrust of the government here that drives a desire to do business under the table, and run un-registered, tax-evading enterprises. This practice excludes these small businesses from the right to seek state-supported aid, which in many cases is available and immensely valuable. Raida and Ilham are not teaching your average ‘personal finance 101’. They are simultaneously amateur psychologists, convincing a population deeply rooted in its own antiquated traditions, to think outside the only bounds it has ever known in the pursuit of a better life. A tall order for a few women in a town of over fifty thousand, working out of a building no bigger than 1000 square feet. And yet they’ve taken the task upon themselves with determination and grace.

We head north to Kiryat Gat to sit in on a different kind of personal finance class. YEDID volunteer Yahalom was holding court in a group of women who had gathered to learn strategies for managing finances on a fixed income. I found myself lost in translation again, as my Hebrew doesn’t extend much past ‘Shalom.’ But soon enough, the tone of the conversation changed. I don’t need to know Hebrew to understand the universal language of frustration, and that’s what was being spoken now. Ran explained that the conversation had shifted to sharing experiences with the customer service department of the electric company over bill disputes. Now everyone had something to say, and all expressed intense disappointment over the bureaucracy encountered when trying to get simple answers to straightforward questions. Yahalom calmly offered her advice on dealing with cranky representatives. It was a fresh reminder for me that unnecessary red tape and disgruntled employees are not uniquely American.

Our last stop was Kiryat Malachi, which we mostly toured by car. We pulled into a parking lot in a neighborhood of public housing projects. A baby-faced boy no more than 13 took a long look into my eyes through our window, and a longer drag on the cigarette between his fingers. The first impression I got from this small city was that it seemed like a half-dead, listless, place to live. I wondered what a young child of immigrants who’s already taken up tobacco as a grade school habit finds to do here. Poverty and boredom can be a lethal combination. I think of his lifeless gaze and hope the best for him.

I left southern Israel with a newfound respect and appreciation for the work that YEDID volunteers put in daily. My tour of the south was one I’ll never forget, and I’m anxious to see more of this amazing nation through the eyes of this amazing organization.