You are the ones who should apologize ›

Israelis place flowers on the grave of Moshe Silman at the end of his funeral in Holon on July 22, 2012. Moshe Silman died from severe burns after he set himself on fire during a social justice demonstration in Tel Aviv on July 14. Photo by: Oren Ziv/ Actviestills.org

Moshe Silman’s act presents us all with a burning mirror, a shocking reflection of the existing policy. The protest has a duty to demand policy changes. The establishment and supporters of the present system attack Moshe Silman for daring to set himself on fire.  Afterwards, they attack us, his friends, for failing to help him in spite of all our attempts.  Now they blame the social protest, those who demand change. They attack us as if Moshe was not one of us. As if we should accept everything that happened as the order of the day.

Moshe Silman set himself on fire during a demonstration to mark a year of the social protest. He took the last and final step. In the letter he left, he blames the government ofIsraeland the welfare authorities for bringing him to the brink to making him homeless. Moshe was proud but poor. He was not ready to accede to the terms for receiving assistance from the state, to give up his last remaining asset – his self-respect. But the state, with its unending impermeability, threw him down the steps.

We met Moshe Silman a year ago, in the tent set up in Auditorium square in Haifa, at the beginning of the social protest. Moshe was the owner of a business that had gone bankrupt, and his economic situation and his health had deteriorated, leaving him with almost nothing. The combination of not having anything and the inability to work, and insufficient social security network, had brought Moshe to terrible distress. He came to the tent because of his own distress, but also with the understanding that his personal suffering was only one aspect of a wide-ranging public issue – that the state knowingly broke the unwritten bond between itself and its citizens. Moshe is an example of the common struggle of the working middle class and the weak sectors of the population.  He, of course, was not alone.

Solidarity 

Moshe found a warm home in the “Hazit Ha’Haifait,”(“the Haifa Front”) a group of protest activists which was formed last summer. His story of hardship and the unbearable treatment he had received from the bureaucratic establishment, brought him many friends who tried to help him. Rabbi Idit Lev director of social justice in the organization “Rabbis for Human Rights,” and active on the Haifa front, assisted him for a year, in his various appeals to the establishment. A friend arranged for him a place to live free for a year. Other friends helped Moshe with food, transport, repairs, and everything he needed.  An activist drove and accompanied him when necessary to appear before the medical board of Bituach Leumi.

Part of the time Moshe lived on his temporary disability allowance, and part of the time on guarantied minimal income. Last May he managed to get a disability allowance of 2,300 NIS for the following year. This too was the result of a difficult struggle, in which he was accompanied by Hahazit Hahrifait activists. This money was not enough for all Moshe’s needs: food, bills, medicines and doctors’ visits, and of course there was not enough to pay rent.

Watch: Rabbi Idit Lev talks with the press after Moshe Silman died in the hospital:

For almost a year, four different people from RHR dealt with this case. Rabbi Idit Lev accompanied him on a daily basis.  Lawyer Becky Cohen-Keshet dealt with the legal side.  In addition,Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the executive director of the organization, and Niko Sokolovski, director of the human rights centre, assisted him as well. Member of Knesset Orly Levy-Abecassis, chairperson of the lobby for public housing, also tried to intervene on his behalf with the Ministry of Housing.

All was in vain. The Amidar official made it clear to Moshe that he was not entitled to rental assistance, because he did not meet the strict criteria. Moshe appealed again and again, and refused to accept the decision that a man in his condition was not entitled to state assistance, that would enable him to live honourably. The Ministry of Housing rejected his request for two reasons: Because in the past (ten years’ earlier)he had owned a flat, and because his sisters brought an action against Bank Hapoalim that had confiscated their inheritance, their mother’s flat. This was even though, according to the Ministry of Housing regulations, a person is not entitled to rental assistance if he has owned a flat in the last five years, and Moshe had lost his flat ten years’ earlier.  Moreover, due to his debts, even if his sisters won their appeal, he would not see even a shekel of it, and a letter from his sisters’ lawyers certifying this was sent to the Housing Ministry in February 2012. A month after the documents were presented for his last appeal which was discussed in June, Moshe received 100% disability from Bituach Leumi for the loss of ability to work.  According to the Housing Ministry regulations, a single man, living on a disability allowance of 75% or more, should receive rent assistance. So, Moshe and the RHR team were optimistic, and assumed he would get a positive answer.  In June 2012, however, the Housing Ministry rejected his appeal.

In spite of the concerted efforts of RHR and Member of Knesset Orly Levy-Abecassis, the Housing Ministry refused to answer the question as to whether the committee had Moshe’s disability document. So, another appeal was lodged on behalf of Moshe.  The sitting was due to take place in September 2012, but Moshe and all those trying to help him, and also the welfare authorities in Haifa and the Haifa branch of Amidar knew that in a few weeks Moshe would find himself on the street. In an attempt to avoid living on the street, Moshe turned to the department of homeless and asked for help so as not to become homeless. He told them that he was not on the street only because of the man who had given him a flat to live in for free, and that he was in fact homeless, and so he was requesting help from them.  But the response was: Come back to us when you are living on the street.

A warning from Moshe Silman

For a year Moshe was warning anyone who would listen, that he would not live on the street. Hints about his mental condition were being heard for a long time. Many people from the front spoke to him and tried to lift his spirits. Members of the front suggested that in the Haifa demonstration, they would call people to protest on Sunday outside the Housing Ministry. In reply, he said, in his own words, “My protest I will make alone.” The activists were worried that he was planning to do something provocative, and so some front members were asked to keep an eye on him, so that what he was planning to do, would not get out of control. He promised that he did not intend to commit suicide, and no-one believed that he would do something so terrible out of desperation. Therefore, no-one thought that he intended to travel to Tel-Aviv, far from friends, in order to act in protest in the most extreme way imaginable…

The activists of the Haifa Front did everything they could for Moshe. He had the most professional legal assistance possible, and all for nothing. He explored to every possible channel, and all for nothing. In material ways, the Front’s team took care of him – a flat, food, transport, receiving medical attention. We, activists of the Haifa Front, took on ourselves the role of the state. We managed to give Moshe another year of living decently, but we could not do what the state could – provide public housing and pay him a proper allowance.

We refuse to apologize

Adam Dovchinski, parliamentary assistant to Member of Knesset Arieh Bibi, asserts that we should apologize, because we did not issue a warning in time about Moshe’s mental state. We refuse to apologize. All the authorities knew about Moshe’s economic, health and mental state. The un hearing establishment, this was what drove him to set himself on fire, it is guilty. The government, with its clear policy of preventing people from obtaining assistance, is guilty. Members of Knesset (among them Bibi) are also guilty, for they have the power to change and correct.  They are guilty, day by day and hour by hour, for not working to prevent the next social disaster.

Kobi Arieli claims we should apologize, because we sold Moshe Silman the illusion that there was the possibility of changing his fate. Blatant demagoguery, and light years’ away from reality.  We refuse to apologize. Contrary to what he said, the protest movement is not guilty.  The protest did not sell him illusions, did not even try to. The protest people gave him a warm and supportive community.  They gave him the support and assistance that the establishment did all it could to prevent him from getting. In fact, out of all of us, Moshe was the most clear-sighted.  He was very far from Arieli’s “illusion of a revolution.”  We claimed that change is effected gradually and by discussion, by demonstrations and public pressure. He asserted heatedly that nothing would come out of verbal protests.  He demanded again and again that we go on to actions. Unfortunately , he took the ultimate step of protest.

Others claim that we should apologize because we demanded the establishment do some soul searching. We refuse to apologize. We demand the establishment apologize to us. Moshe made it clear to us that his “protest” would be carried out with a clear head, and as an act of protest at government policy that tramples on the poor and turns them into people who are ashamed of themselves. Moshe refused to be ashamed, refused to give up his honour, and gave us the job of speaking on his behalf. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu tried to minimize the act, when he said that it was a personal tragedy.  Maybe for this reason, the team appointed to examine the incident does not include the Housing Ministry, against which Moshe was protesting. It is not a personal tragedy – it is a public tragedy resulting from a clear and directed policy, of which Netanyahu is one of the leaders. Moshe did not “just” commit suicide.  He did not swallow sleeping pills in his room. Moshe performed a completely shocking act, during a mass demonstration, in the presence of the media. He did it not because he was depressed, he wanted to live. Moshe did it to effect a change. Thousands take their own lives, quietly and without pain. Moshe chose a different way. He wanted his “protest” to make a change. Therefore, to be silent, to minimize the universality of his situation, to stifle the demand for change, is no less than to betray him, his ideas and his last act.

Those who should apologize are the authorities, the authorities who rejected his requests and threw him to the dogs. Those who should apologize are the stupid adherents of a free market, those who promised him that if he only made enough of an effort, his condition would improve. The state should apologize, for making him believe that it would help him in his hour of need, after he paid taxes and contributed to the state all his life. The prime minister should apologize, for trying to minimize his act by describing it as a “personal tragedy,” for trying to put him in a small announcement at the bottom of page 14…

Moshe Silman’s act presents us all with a burning mirror, a shocking reflection of the existing policy. The protest has a duty to demand policy changes. The establishment and supporters of the present system attack Moshe Silman for daring to set himself on fire.  Afterwards, they attack us, his friends, for failing to help him in spite of all our attempts.  Now they blame the social protest, those who demand change. They attack us as if Moshe was not one of us. As if we should accept everything that happened as the order of the day.

We refuse to apologize. We refuse to shout in silence.

Dror Dvir is a hi-tech entrepreneur, active in the Haifa Front, who knew Moshe personally.

Rabbi Idit Lev is director of social and economic justice for Rabbis for Human Rights, who personally helped Moshe.

The article was first published in “Haoketz” and The main protest site