Who really shells out for Aleh?

Aleh says these are its budget sources

With very encouraging Covid-19 stats here in Israel, it is baffling that Aleh remains mum on the status of its ill residents. And infuriating that it hasn't publicly acknowledged the fact that one resident succumbed to the virus in mid April ["On sophistry and silence"].

But it has found the time to circulate its latest financial data from 2019. 

According to the report's Budget Income Sources pie, donations constitute no more than 8% of its income. Payments received for outpatient rehab treatments are 6% of the total. And the remainder is obtained directly from various government deparments i.e. OUR pockets. 

Those sources are:

• The Ministry of Education 27%
• Local Authorities 3%
• Health Care Funds 8%
• Social Welfare Ministry47%
• Other Income 1% - your guess is as good as mine

So, for all those Aleh donors who believe they are crucial to this network of large, closed institutions that isolate people with disabilities from our communities, please note: Your donations are inconsequential to Aleh's success! 

It is government funds, provided by Israeli taxpayers and quietly diverted from children with disabilities who live with their families, that are the mainstay of their business.

An Aleh update

There has still been absolutely no public mention anywhere by anyone connected to Aleh of the resident who passed away of Covid-19 back in mid-April ["Following a Covid-19 death at Aleh, a troubling silence"].

Likewise there has been no news about the five Aleh residents who were hospitalized then with the virus.

The release from hospital of four other residents several weeks ago was, predictably, announced on the Aleh Facebook page with characteristic fanfare.

Will we ever learn what became of those forgotten five?

How about some focus on SCN2A?

Image Source: PBS

Sadly, my daughter Haya's life hasn't been altered much by the Covid-19 restrictions. The parameters of her existence were extremely limited at the best of times. One exception was that weekly hour of hydrotherapy we used to give her at our local pool.

She is a superb back-floater, believe it or not. At least she was pre-Covid - and looked utterly relaxed throughout the session. She even smiled occasionally - her tiny tongue-poking-out sort of smile.

But it feels as though that happened in a previous incarnation. 

Now her only exercise is the 45 minutes of assisted walking I do with her religiously every night. I'm certain it benefits her too in myriad ways: respiratorily, cognitively, digestively. But it can't hold a candle to that water therapy. 

The pools are slated to reopen right after Shavuot. But I'm wary of bringing Haya back even then. While I haven't asked her doctors, I'd presume her genetic mutation and complex disabilities place her at high risk.

Speaking of genes, I just watched a magnificent 2020 PBS documentary, The Gene: An Intimate History which provided a history of the field and profiled several genetic breakthroughs that have transformed lives. 

It was both uplifting and depressing. The uplifting part I'm sure needs no explanation. But here's why it depressed me.  It highlighted the sad fact that Haya's mutation - SCN2A - has not benefitted from all those genetic advances.

From the series' website

I suppose the sparsity of her population is a crucial factor. There are under 1,000 documented SCN2a cases globally; Only 140 cases of the epileptic sort are born per 100,000 births. (There are additional cases where autism and intellectual disability are the symptoms.) Those numbers translate into minor financial incentive to pursue a treatment.

But the film relates the development of an astoundingly effective treatment for SMA, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a genetic condition with about the same incidentce. 

Which begs the question of why SCN2A has been ignored.

Strange (and lethal) bed-fellows

Our child's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, has a friend in Hamas poster-boy Mahmoud al-Zahar.

He has just today warned on Instagram that if Jordan acceeds to Washington's extradition demand under their 1995 treaty, this will "make it difficult to do a future prisoner exchange deal".

Al Zahar is clearly jittery over the new legislation which the US Congress passed in December 2019 and which jeapordizes Jordan's annual cash gift package from the Americans. [See "How Jordan’s refusal to extradite a convicted terrorist could imperil $1.5 billion in US aid", Bryant Harris in Al-Monitor, March 14, 2020]. 

The law empowers the US to withold financial aid allotted to any country which refuses to extradite a fugitive indicted by the US judiciary. Jordan has steadfastly harbored mass murderer Tamimi in defiance of such a demand since 2013. 

The embodiment of evil, she will undoubtedly bask in the glow of al Zahar's supportive threat.

I know of another person who will sit up and take notice of it.  Someone who is drawn to terrorist releases like a moth to flames. None other than our very own prime minister. 

In 2011, Binyamin Netanyahu released 1,027 such prisoners, among them Tamimi herself. In 2013, he released some more. And it's reported he is now itching to add a few hundred more to his tally. [here]. 

How will he cope if his swap-buddies, Hamas, refuse to play ball with him this time? How will he bolster his support base without it?

Well, he might be forced to heed the warnings he disseminated in his 1995 book: that refusing to release terrorists from prison was "among the most important policies that must be adopted in the face of terrorism."

He added: "The release of convicted terrorists before they have served their full sentences seems like an easy and tempting way of defusing blackmailed situations in which innocent people may lose their lives, but its utility is momentary at best..." 

These days, Netanyahu prefers momentary fixes over those ideals. His bed-fellows at Hamas hanker for them too.

On sophistry and silence

Aleh Negev announced the resumption of visits to its institutionalized children after a hiatus of some two months.

In a Facebook post preposterously entitled "Family Above All", its PR cronies described the reactions of the children as "very emotional.

The mother of one of the residents at the village (a favored Aleh euphemism) described [here] the encounter as

the most impactful she had ever experienced with her son, one which stirred many emotions in these times. We realize that a hug from a mother and father, sister or brother, is very significant and has no substitute" (my emphasis, and my Hebrew-to-English translation). 

Really?!

Is that why Aleh encourages parents to abandon their children with disabilities? To entrust them to the care of strangers in its institutions? Is that why Aleh sucks government coffers dry for financial support instead of enabling parents to receive it for care at home?

Once again, Aleh's duplicity and hypocrisy know no bounds.

Note: To date, Aleh has not aknowledged, expressed grief, or eulogized the resident who contracted Covid-19 at its Gedera branch and who passed away in mid-April [see "Following a Covid-19 death at Aleh, a troubling silence"]. On the other hand, it has eulogized on its website [here] an elderly British donor who succumbed to the virus.

The silence speaks volumes.

On Mothers Day, a mother's hopes

A friend just circulated this thirty-year-old photo to stir up some happy memories among the "gang" of Aussies who live in Israel. 

Seeing it for the first time since that Yom Ha'atzmaut picnic was a stab in the heart. That's me in the black shirt and I am cradling my precious daughter, Malki in my lap. 

Ignorant, of course, of how her life would be cut short twelve years later.

Today, as Mother's Day is celebrated in many countries around the world, I feel the loss of my sweet child profoundly. 

Meanwhile her murderer - Ahlam Tamimi - enjoys marriage and the refuge and veneration accorded her by Jordan's King Abdullah II.

The demand for her extradition to the US has been rejected by him for the past seven years!

I pray this travesty will soon end and justice will be done for Malki and the fifteen other men, women and children smitten by Jordan's "icon" Tamimi.  

After all, I only seek what any mother would for her child - the trial, conviction and imprisonment of her murderer. 

Is that too much to ask for?

A cash award for a cover up?

Screenshot from the Aleh website capturing
the parade accompanying the return of some
hospitalized residents [Facebook]

As a bereaved parent - my daughter Malki was murdered in the Hamas bombing of Sbarro in 2001 - I was disturbed by Aleh's callous use of Yom Hazikaron [Remembrance Day] to fundraise via its Facebook page.

I am equally appalled by Aleh's persistent silence about the death of one of its residents - a 41 year old woman - to Covid-19 on April 13 ["Following a Covid-19 death at Aleh, a troubling silence"]. Some sort of tribute - even a mere mention of her passing - would have been expected. But as we approach her shloshim, there has still been none.

On the other hand, a birthday party for a pre-schooler living in an Aleh institution was reported in detail [here - video] along with several photos and a video of "the event". Staff members are shown dancing around the child in her wheelchair.

Likewise, an announcement [here] of Natan Sharansky's decision [archived] to donate to Aleh, a portion of the Genesis Prize he won was publicized with accompanying photos.

But the death of a resident? It merits not a word.

Aleh has been similarly mum about several of its residents hospitalized with Covid-19. On April 13,  nine were reported on Ynet as being treated in hospitals scattered around the country

On April 22, Aleh's PR lackeys posted a "ticker tape parade" that was staged to welcome four of those residents back to Aleh Gedera. The public has learned nothing about the remaining five ill residents.

I suppose Aleh presumes the public will just assume Aleh residents suffered from Covid-19 much as other residents of closed facilities where the virus spread like wildfire.

Well, some of us not only remember this cover-up. We are pushing for the changes that were long overdue here; changes that would have prevented the three - yes, three - separate outbreaks of the virus in Aleh facilities.

Were this government more attuned to the needs of people with disabilities and to the trends in care-giving that have already been adopted throughout the developed world, Aleh would not be thriving.