“You have no idea what the world is like fifteen minutes away,” my friend said as she walked in my door today, ”It’s a single bus ride from your home to abject poverty.” She was coming from work in the south of Tel Aviv, and she is very right – there are families living on the street here. There are people with no blankets in this cold. Hungry children. We used to have a socialist government and mentality, and we still haven’t filled in the gap that was left when the capitalists took over.
Today is International Poverty Day, and I know people who have much more money today than ever before. I don’t begrudge them the money, but I do begrudge the economic system that creates such gaps. We have a responsibility to others, and I would be much happier giving all the donations I make to a benevolent agency in the government which concentrated on equalizing the standard of living through education as well as social services.
It’s always important to remember that poverty is just down the street.
In the mean time, my friend went straight to the sink to wash up.
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