poverty in Israel

People walk through Tel Aviv’s Carmel Market, partially closed following ongoing missile attacks from Iran, June 23, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Is Israel’s genocide economy on the brink?

Economist Shir Hever explains how the Gaza war mobilization propped up a ‘zombie economy’ that appears to function but lacks any future horizon.

By Amos Brison December 16, 2025

A Black Panthers protest in Jerusalem, 1971. (Yosef Hochman, courtesy of the Yad Yaari Research and Documentation Center)

Who is reaping the fruits of the Israeli Black Panthers’ struggle?

Half a century after setting off a political earthquake from the impoverished streets of Jerusalem, the radical Mizrahi movement has been largely forgotten. A new book seeks to untangle their contested legacy.

By Ben Reiff July 26, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (photo: Activestills.org)

Why Netanyahu is so threatened by Breaking the Silence

What will the prime minister do on the day the Israeli public gets up and refuses to keep living by the sword? By Dotan Greenvald Breaking the Silence has classified information in its possession. The information is so confidential that its publication could pose a genuine threat. I hope you are sitting down, because I…

By +972 Magazine March 21, 2016

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Kibbutz Givat Haim celebrates the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.

Redistribution of wealth must begin with Israel’s kibbutzim

Instead of continuing to give benefits to Israel’s richest sector, it is time to redivide the pie and give some of that wealth to the poorest citizens. By Sigal Harush Yehonatan In the span of just one week, two separate headlines managed to demonstrate the intolerable social and economic reality in Israel. The first was…

By +972 Magazine December 18, 2015

Israel youth walk in Jerusalem's old city, as they take part in the flags march, to celebrate 48 years for the occupation of East Jerusalem May 17, 2015.

How Jerusalem makes Palestinians disappear

While the exclusion of Palestinian cab drivers from a Jerusalem megaplex is illegal and immoral, it is just the tip of the iceberg in a city that constantly tries to erase Palestinian existence. “If she wants a Jewish driver, she’ll get a Jewish driver, I don’t understand what difference it makes.” This is how Merav…

By Orly Noy May 23, 2015

House demolition in Anata, Northern Jerusalem, April 14, 2008 (Photo: Meged Gozani/Activestills.org)

Israelis have turned away from compassion

From asylum seekers to Palestinians to Holocaust survivors, the lack of compassion is appallingly evident in the way Israeli society treats the disadvantaged. In 1904, H.G. Wells published a short story entitled “The Country of the Blind.” It tells of a mountaineer whose failed attempt to climb a summit in Ecuador leads him to slide…

By Natasha Soffer-Roth April 25, 2015

Sima Kavlo, living in the apartment for 34 years, after her parent passed away. (Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Poverty kills: Survival and struggle in ‘the other Israel’

No matter how much I look, I never seem to find any news items about those whom Israeli society sacrifices on a daily basis, slowly, until they turn to dust. By Yael Cohen-Rimer (translated by Yudit Ilani and Shaked Spier) She is somewhere outside, the 13-year-old girl who was sent by welfare services to step…

By Haokets April 11, 2015

Likud MK Miri Regev (Photo by Activestills.org)

More female MKs doesn’t mean a more feminist Knesset

The fact that the 20th Knesset will have a record number of female MKs does not mean they will necessarily advance women’s rights. Some of them, in fact, may end up doing just the opposite. By Samah Salaime Now that the winds have died down completely and I have finished writing all my commentary on…

By +972 Magazine April 1, 2015

Hannah al-Naqib (right) as Israeli authorities demolish her home in Lod, February 10, 2015. (Photo by Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Demolishing Arab women’s homes is the easy way out

What are Arab citizens expected to do when the city only builds for Jews, and why do single mothers almost always pay the price? (Translated from Hebrew by Eppie Bat Ilan) On the surface, it was just another illegal dwelling demolished in the city of Lyd (“Lod” in Hebrew). The image of a violence, crime-ridden…

By Samah Salaime February 18, 2015

Eli Alaluf, head of the Alaluf Committee to Fight Poverty. (photo: Israel Prize website)

Fight Israeli poverty, not poverty statistics

Poverty in Israel is not the result of low social security transfers, it’s the result of low income. And the truth of the matter is that the issue of poverty is not high on the Israeli government’s list of priorities. By Dr. Shlomo Swirski and Attorney Noga Dagan-Buzaglo (translated from Hebrew by Noam Benishei) The Alaluf…

By Haokets September 6, 2014