Hazon Yeshaya
Israel
| Community/Family
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Hazon Yeshaya Humanitarian Network is leading the fight against poverty in Israel today. We operate Israel's most efficient network of soup kitchens, vocational training courses, free dental clinics and food distribution centers, with help from teams of volunteers. Hazon Yeshaya was established in 1997 by Abraham Israel, a successful businessman from New York who was born in Egypt. As a child, after the Suez War of 1956, when the situation for Jews in Egypt worsened, he and his family had to flee the country to escape persecution. On relocating with his family to Israel, Abraham chanced upon a destitute woman in Israel, with empty shelves in her kitchen and no idea where her next meal would come from. He was astounded by her situation, and even more so when he learned that there are hundreds of thousands of sick and elderly Jews and children living in unbelievable poverty in Israel. This was the turning point in Abraham's life when he resolved to help as many as he could, in order to pay forward the kindness that he and his family had received in France. He opened a small kitchen with his own funds to feed 17 starving Jerusalem residents, and this has grown to become the largest soup kitchen network in Israel.
