The Bottom 10 Percent Needs the Top 10 Percent: Social Welfare Services in Israel

The Bottom 10 Percent Needs the Barbara Swirski and Top 10 Percent: Miri Endeweld-Sabag Social Welfare Services in Israel August, 2024 The Bottom 10 Percent Needs the Top 10 Percent: Social Welfare Services in Israel 1 The following essay will deal with a number of issues (but certainly not all) affecting Israel’s social welfare system: • The type of ideology and praxis guiding the social welfare. [...] (Hebrew) The Bottom 10 Percent Needs the Top 10 Percent: Social Welfare Services in Israel 3 In Israel, 2002 marked the decisive victory of what has come to resemble the neo- liberal model of a welfare state, over the more generous, social-democratic model -- against the background of the second Intifada, increased terrorist activity, an economic crisis, and what Maron and Shalev term “an unusuall. [...] The Bottom 10 Percent Needs the Top 10 Percent: Social Welfare Services in Israel 5 Under the new model, potential recipients of “social welfare services” no longer referred to the majority of the population, who in accordance with the idea of social democracy were to receive from the state or the local authority services, subsidies and monetary transfers in accordance with need; rather, “social w. [...] The Bottom 10 Percent Needs the Top 10 Percent: Social Welfare Services in Israel 8 In addition, legislation of the Law of Social Welfare Services for Disabled Persons -2022 established the rights of the disabled to social welfare services in acordance with their needs. [...] Social Workers: The Mainstay of the Social Welfare System Social workers constitute the mainstay of the social welfare services.