500 Evicted Gush Katif Families Still Struggling Years Later

Published November 10, 2010 (Jewish Tribune)

Link to original article here.

By Atara Beck

TORONTO – To date, more than 500 working families that were evicted from their homes in Gush Katif during the expulsion of Jews from Gaza in 2005 are still struggling to support their families.

Eighty-five per cent of the 1,940 displaced families had worked within Gush Katif; therefore, 1,650 families lost their source of income. Seventy per cent (1,155 families) had been self-employed in agriculture or other local businesses.

Judy Lowy, executive director of JobKatif, a non-profit employment counseling and retraining program for former Gush Katif residents, updated the Jewish Tribune on the situation since her last visit here with Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon of Alon Shvut, founder of JobKatif, in May (see Jewish Tribune, May 6, 2010). Both will be visiting again this weekend and addressing Torontonians Friday through Sunday.

JobKatif has found employment for 1,661 people, financed retraining courses for 350 and established 172 new businesses from the Negev to the Golan, Lowy said. Yet more than 600 people are currently unemployed and less than 15 per cent of families have moved to permanent homes. In Nitzan, the largest temporary housing area for the more than 10,000 displaced individuals, 73.2 per cent of families do not earn a basic living.

Lowy gave the example of Nisanit, a yishuv (settlement) in Gush Katif, where 2.5 per cent were unemployed; today, 16.07 per cent have not found work. The average unemployment rate in Israel is 7 per cent.

As well, according to Lowy, 40 per cent of the former Gaza residents reported that the disengagement has had a negative effect on their marriages, and 20 per cent have sought professional counselling.

On Friday morning Rabbi Rimon will present a sheur (Torah lecture) to the Yeshiva University Zichron Dov study program. He will spend Shabbat in Thornhill and speak at a Friday night Oneg Shabbat. Saturday morning he is scheduled to address congregation Ayin LeZion; in the afternoon, he will deliver a lecture in Hebrew at BAYT an hour before Se’udah Shlishit (the final Shabbat meal) and in English during the meal.

On Saturday night he will participate in a panel discussion on conversion, and on Sunday morning he will speak on the halachic [Jewish legal] dilemmas of Israeli soldiers, providing a first-hand account. Both addresses will take place at Shaarei Shomayim Synagogue as part of the Torah-in-Motion program.