As of 2023, about 150,000 Holocaust Survivors are living in Israel, and their average age is 83. Around 45 passes away each day. The governments of Germany and Israel compensate them according to the specific “damage” caused to each one of them during the Holocaust. This compensational structure created a Hierarchical order of suffering between those who had been to the Ghettos and Camps to those who managed to flee from the Nazis and “only” lost their families and property. Unfortunately, for other reasons explained in the lecture, the second group, which is being compensated the least, is also the poorest of the two to begin with. The result is two groups of Holocaust Survivors in Israel – A poor one, mostly living in public housing and on welfare stipends, and a richer one – which gets most of the state, NGOs and media attention.

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In this talk, Nimrod explains this reality and promotes a needed change in perspective of how Israel and Israelis help its Holocaust Survivors, as well as tells the story of how good intentioned citizens, philanthropists, politicians and bureaucrats unknowingly (and a minority of them – knowingly) widen the gaps between poor and rich Holocaust Survivors living in Israel, and of how Altruism can be not only ineffective but even harmful.

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Going out of this talk, listeners will better understand life as Holocaust Survivors in Israel today, as well as the History and Politics behind the effort the amend part of the atrocities inflicted on Jews in Europe and Northern Africa by the Nazis and their allies. Sharing insights achieved by his experience as the former advisor to the General Director of the Israeli Ministry in charge of Holocaust Survivors, Nimrod uses this lecture as a uses case to the general problem of ineffective Altruism and Philanthropy.