Providing help for Anglos

Gil Hoffman’s “Absorption Ministry: Anglos aren’t special” (December 13) represents a first in honest reporting on the challenges confronting new immigrants from English-speaking countries.

When I moved to Israel in 2002, there was very little understanding of the struggles we faced. It was assumed that Anglo families were all affluent, successful and knowledgeable about where to turn for help. When asking Anglo parents to whom they turned when confronting challenges with their children, they almost all responded that they had no one to turn to who could provide the cultural and social sensitivity so desperately needed.

In an attempt to fill this void, I founded Kav L’Noar, a social service agency in central Jerusalem that would provide Anglo immigrant families an address to share their challenges with a staff of professionals offering them comprehensive and culturally-sensitive services in English in a safe and comfortable environment.

While many organizations have been created in the last decade that offer English-speaking olim support in different areas, it is most noteworthy that the Knesset Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, at the initiative of its current chairman, MK Abraham Neguise, has initiated a recognition of the “challenges unique to them that must be addressed.”

The response by the Aliya and Integration Ministry that “Anglo immigrants receive the same help as others who move to Israel from around the world” is not true. If, as Dr. Neguise suggests, we want to “ensure that English-speaking immigrants have a successful integration into society... to encourage more Jews from the Diaspora to make Israel their home,” our government will need to be more sensitive to their unique (not special) challenges and provide them the support for a more successful transition to their new home. RONALD WACHTEL Jerusalem