27 February 2008
The Finance Committee of the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has put off voting on a bill not to deduct old-age pensions from disabled Holocaust victims' stipends, despite an agreement to the contrary between Israel and Germany, according to the ‘Ha’aretz’ newspaper. The committee postponed the vote following the Treasury's objection, in violation of Israel's agreement with Germany not to tax Holocaust victims' stipend. The Disabled Victims of Nazi Persecution Law stipulates that additional income, such as an old-age pension or National Insurance allowance, is deducted from the stipend allocated to needy disabled Nazi persecution victims.
The bill, co-written by Knesset members Colette Avital and Moshe Gafni, stipulates that old-age pension and national insurance allowances would not be defined as income and therefore not be deducted from the survivors’ stipends. Some 7,000 needy disabled people live in Israel today. Avital said that the bill was to have been brought to the Knesset for second and third reading last summer. The Finance Ministry asked to postpone it, promising to address the issue in the Holocaust survivors' ‘assistance package,’ but did not do so, Avital told the newspaper.
