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.