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Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (file)
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| By Israel Insider staff August 5, 2007 |
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Holocaust survivor advocates and the survivors themselves are set to march on Jerusalem today in what they have termed the "March of the Living." The activists are protesting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's proposal to grant survivors a monthly stipend of roughly $20, in what survivors and rights organizations believe is a gross underpayment. Some 5,000 participants are expected.
Olmert and several other officials have condemned the protest, in which participants will be dressed like prisoners of the Holocaust, saying that such a move will descrate the memory of the Holocaust.
"Anyone who sends a picture of a woman in a [prisoner's uniform] and a yellow star, explaining that it is a picture of a woman trying on [a uniform] ahead of Sunday's demonstration, lowers the debate to an unacceptable level," the prime minister said, referring to pre-protest campaigning.
The prime minister's brother Amram also criticized the protest, claiming that it exploited holocaust symbolism.
"When they march today; if they march - and I do hope that common sense will make a last minute appearance - at this march of the living, with costumes like those worn during the Holocaust?it [will be] a mockery of the [Holocaust]," he told Army Radio, according to the Haaretz.
In an interview with Israel Radio, the welfare minister,Yitzhak Herzog said "a march in which survivors will wear prisoners' clothes and yellow patches, all in the name of a financial dispute with the government, is an insult to the collective memory of the Holocaust." He called upon the group to "use judgment and responsibility in their methods of objection."
The protest, organized by Holocaust Survivors' Welfare Fund and Tafnit, is the culmination of more than a week of outrage at the meager stipend Olmert offered, a sum that came out to much less than expected, the survivors so they can "live in dignity."
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