Keren Hayesod gives $1m. for bomb shelters in South
'As in the past, Keren Hayesod will always stand by the State of Israel for every need,” says organization's world chairman Sandberg.
By DANIELLE ZIRICouple beds down in Beersheba bomb shelter 370(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post)
Keren Hayesod-United Israel Appeal donated $1 million to the Home Front Defense Ministry on Wednesday to help build bomb shelters and buy mobile shelters.Eliezer Sandberg, world chairman of Keren Hayesod, and Yohanna Arbib-Perugia, chairwoman of the organization’s board of trustees, handed the check to Home Front Defense Minister Avi Dichter in his Sderot office.“The donors and the activists mobilized from the very first minute,” Sandberg said. “This is the result. As in the past, Keren Hayesod will always stand by the State of Israel for every need.”“It is important that the citizens of Israel know that world Jewry stands with them, shoulder to shoulder,” Arbib-Perugia said. “Keren Hayesod is honored to make this life-saving contribution.”Arbib-Perugia then addressed residents of the South and said: “You’ve gone through 12 years of an impossible situation. We are concretely demonstrating the solidarity of the Jewish people with you.“We thank Keren Hayesod’s donors for showing solidarity, as usual, and demonstrating that we are one and stand by each other,” she added, “This is our state and our country. No one will take it from us.”Dichter thanked the organization for being “the first to identify this need” and for its contribution, which is “of crucial importance” and “vital for the State of Israel.“We will be able to put the mobile shelters where they are so badly needed. This contribution represents the solidarity of the Jewish people worldwide with the residents of the South through Keren Hayesod,” he said.
