As part of the coalition negotiations, the departments of the Ministry of Social Equality were divided among the coalition parties.
A division that appears to be a bargaining chip: minorities and Holocaust survivors to the Prime Minister's Office, the Department for Senior Citizens and the Youth Authority to the Negev and Galilee Ministry.
The Authority for the Advancement of the Status of Women and the LGBT community remain, without demand, in the Ministry of Social Equality.
In particular, the division, Prime Minister Netanyahu, is well aware of the importance of the Ministry of Social Equality - as the one who headed the Ministry for Senior Citizens, which was established in 2006 in Olmert's government and was named the Ministry of Pensioners, and was later included in the Ministry of Social Equality that operated in Netanyahu's 34th government.
The ministry gathered other populations under it, but its main activity was and remains a lobby for senior citizens among government ministers.
And why do the senior citizens need a lobby?
Because the elderly in Israel is required to cross his legs between an unimaginable number of institutions, authorities and government offices precisely during the difficult times of his life: he receives the permit to employ a foreign worker from the Population and Immigration Authority;
The status of the foreign worker is required to be regulated with the Ministry of the Interior;
the old-age and nursing allowances from the National Insurance Institute under the responsibility of the Ministry of Welfare;
If he is a Holocaust survivor, he is required to serve the Authority for Holocaust Survivors;
And on the issue of nursing institutions, he should contact the Ministry of Health.
And when a reform is required for the benefit of nursing patients - the situation is even more complicated, since cooperation is required between the various ministries - the interior, welfare, health, finance - in matters of budgeting the reforms, and the Ministry of Economy, whose work branch is responsible for the rights of foreign workers.
The liaison and mediation between the various government ministries has been done by the Ministry for Social Equality for a decade and a half.
True, most of us will only be interested in this bureaucratic tangle many years from now, but then it will be too late.
Already today, the population of senior citizens in Israel numbers about 1.2 million people - more than 13% of the general population.
But with the increase in life expectancy, senior citizens are expected to make up a larger percentage, a percentage that will continue to grow over the years.
It is expected that within 20 years the veteran population will be the largest age group in Israel - about 14.3% of the citizens in the country.
The direct meaning is that any problem that was once small and solvable becomes over the years acute, such as occurs in human life.
With political wisdom, but no less with attention and direct contact with the senior citizens, the outgoing minister, Merav Cohen, managed to harness the multitude of relevant ministries for the benefit of improving the lives of the elderly.
The Ministry of Social Equality, which has the fewest powers in the government, succeeded in its short term in establishing the Cabinet of Aging, in which sat around the table all the ministers relevant to the necessary reforms and preparation for the aging of the population.
Laws were also enacted that prevent the elderly from being abused;
Reforms were made in the field of health and nursing insurance;
The ministry activated the center for senior citizens, which helps hundreds of thousands of seniors in exercising their rights;
He also transferred the Authority for Holocaust Survivors to him in order to create synergy in the service to those entitled between the Department for Senior Citizens and the Authority for Holocaust Survivors.
The Otzma Yehudit party demanded that the department for senior citizens be transferred to the Negev and Galilee.
There is no difference between the elderly in the Negev and the Galilee and those in the rest of the country, so why did the party insist on this Shatanz?
The answer, you must have guessed, is related to the division's budgets, since according to the agreement between the Likud and Otzma Yehudit, the future of the division for senior citizens will go over its budgets and standards.
The office, which was established out of political necessity, will now be disbanded because of political necessity.
And we will all pay for this need, not only with money.
My daughter came back from kindergarten this week and sang to me "It's not so easy to be a child here".
Well daughter, even being an elderly person is really not easy in Israel.
And now much more.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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