left until the campaign ends
They survived the hunger of 1944
They may not survive the hunger of 2026
One of them, ninety-two years old, looked at the box, then at me, and quietly asked:
“Would you mind if I eat a little? I'm really hungry. I haven't eaten in a few days.”
He asked me for permission. In his own home. For food I had brought him. I said yes, and he lifted his fork, and his sleeve slid down a little. And I saw the number.
Lior Peled, IDF reservist and volunteer at Lihyot BeTov
There are 90-year-old Holocaust survivors sitting alone in their apartments, unable to manage the stairs, waiting for us to knock on the door and bring them a hot meal.
Every 24 minutes, a Holocaust survivor dies in Israel. This may be our last chance to give them something good in life.
$180 moves one Holocaust survivor from our waiting list to our delivery list: a full month of hot meals, brought to his door.
Our goal: 792 lonely Holocaust survivors waiting for a hot meal
We cook the meals ourselves and bring them to the door
and whoever delivers comes in, sits down and asks how they are
Netina BeClick, registered Israeli nonprofit No. 580776292
They will never ask you for anything
How many of them will you look after for a whole month?
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One Holocaust survivor
A whole month in which someone climbs the stairs to his door with a hot meal, and he doesn't have to decide whether to eat today or save it for tomorrow.
$180
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Most popular
Two Holocaust survivors
Two people no one has knocked on the door for in years. For a whole month, someone will climb the stairs, come in, and stay to sit with them.
$360
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Three Holocaust survivors
Three people who survived the inferno and were left to face it alone. Not one of them will go to bed hungry this month.
$540
Amounts are in US dollars ($) · Registered Israeli nonprofit No. 580776292
January 2024
150,000
Holocaust survivors
in Israel
Today
88,000
60 Holocaust survivors die in Israel every day One every 24 minutes
That gap is 62,000 people who didn't live to receive what the state owes them, and most of them had no one to come and knock on their door.
Those who remain are split in two. One group receives a monthly allowance of ₪2,617 to ₪10,702, depending on their medical condition. The other receives a single annual grant: ₪6,987 a year, less than ₪20 a day.
About 53,000 of them are not recognized under Israel's Nazi Persecution Disabled Persons Law, for one reason: they immigrated to Israel after October 1953. The same Holocaust, the same blue number on the arm, and a date on an immigration document that decided they weren't eligible.
Most of them are over ninety. The committee that is supposed to discuss this hasn't even convened, and the number above will keep falling while it deliberates. Whatever doesn't reach them this year never will.
“Sometimes I'm the only person who has touched them all month.”
They don't let go. At first I used to let go after two seconds, the way you hug someone at the door. Then I felt that the hand on my back wasn't moving.
Now I know. Seven seconds, sometimes nine. I stand there with the bag in one hand and wait as long as it takes.
Lior Peled, IDF reservist and volunteer at Lihyot BeTov
A hot meal may be their best hope: to see the kindness of another human being. A moment of comfort and of hope, for people who lived through the very worst.
You can also give any amount you choose
$180
One Holocaust survivor leaves the waiting list
No waiting for a committee, and none of them has to ask
Some of them are literally skin and bones. Seeing them today brings back the Second World War all over again: a tattooed number on a frail arm with no strength left in it.
They lived through horrors. They were torn from their families, who were murdered. They walked barefoot and starving through the snow for days, and came close to the gas chambers. All in an age when no one had even heard of PTSD.
Today, most of them feel they are still at war: the hunger, the loneliness, the fight to stay alive. For them, the Second World War has not ended yet.
Seven questions people really ask
and we answer them straight
Hunger? Really? In Israel, in 2026?
For a whole year I thought it was politeness. They never open the box while I'm there. I thought that's just how people of that generation are, they don't eat in front of a guest. Until one of them, ninety-two years old, asked me for permission to eat.
He ate fast. Not politely, not quietly. Fast. That's how you eat when someone once took your plate away and you never forgot. Eighty years later, and his body still remembers that it has to hurry.
For a whole year I thought it was politeness. It was hunger.
Lior Peled
Why doesn't the state take care of them?
About 53,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel are not recognized under the Nazi Persecution Disabled Persons Law, for one reason: they immigrated to Israel after October 1953. The same Holocaust, the same number on the arm, and a date on an immigration document decided they weren't eligible. And among those who are recognized, some receive only a single annual grant: ₪6,987 a year, less than ₪20 a day. The committee that is supposed to address this hasn't even convened, and most of them are already over ninety. Until it does, someone has to bring them food.
Don't they have family to look after them?
Everyone on our waiting list is alone in the world. They have no one left.
There are always photos in their homes. Black and white, in frames, on a dresser or stuck to the fridge. The first time, I asked who they were. He told me. I haven't asked since.
Lior Peled
Why don't they just ask for help?
They will never ask. A man who survived Auschwitz doesn't pick up the phone and say “I have nothing to eat.” He says “I'm managing.” He tells me to take the bag to the neighbor, because the neighbor has it harder. He apologizes for the mess in a living room that has no mess, because he can't see well anymore.
Then I open the fridge, because I've learned to open fridges. And there's nothing inside. Or worse, there's something that expired two weeks ago, and he's saving it.
Lior Peled
How do I know the money really gets there?
The project has its own donation link and its own budget, so not a single dollar can be moved to another project. The organization, Netina BeClick (registered Israeli nonprofit No. 580776292), holds an approved certificate of proper management and operates with full transparency.
Why now?
Because this list gets shorter on its own.
60 Holocaust survivors die in Israel every day. On the news it sounds like nothing. It sounds different when it's a name you're crossing off, and you still remember how he held the door handle.
And for some of the people we don't reach this year, there simply won't be a next year.
Lior Peled
Does $180 really change anything?
$180 won't give back eighty years. It won't bring back the people in the photos. It won't erase the number from his arm.
But it does tell one person that he can eat today. Without asking permission. And that tomorrow, someone will come to check that he's okay.
Lior Peled
With us, $180 is a full month of hot meals brought to his door. That's about $6 a day.
Every month of meals is also a month of someone knocking on their door
Hunger doesn't take a day off
So we go out to them again, every single morning
We cook the meals ourselves and bring them right to the door, because most of them can no longer stand at the stove, and a ready-to-eat meal is the difference between eating and giving up. And whoever brings the meal doesn't drop the bag and run. They come in, sit down and ask how they are. Because hunger is only half the story. The other half is that for years, no one has come.
“Lihyot BeTov” operates within Netina BeClick, registered Israeli nonprofit No. 580776292, which holds an approved certificate of proper management. Each project has its own budget and its own donation link, so every dollar goes only to the cause you chose.