In the video: The last residents are evacuated from Sderot/Yinir Yagana
A month before Passover, more or less, Dekla from Kiryat Shmona begins to plan the Seder night, which includes all members of the extended family who live in the city, 30 guests in total. She starts shopping for dry food, fills the freezer with meat and chicken, assigns chores to her sisters-in-law, and leaves to prepare and polish the house for the big evening.
This year Dikala and the family will celebrate Passover in a hotel in Tiberias, and not by choice. They have been there for five months, some of them are crammed four or five people into a room, some have moved in with relatives, all of them are waiting for the moment when they can return home. For Seder night, inaction and sadness are replaced. "We have nowhere to celebrate this year," she says. "I don't think they'll let us cook, and they haven't said if they'll even have a celebratory meal at the hotel.
I feel as if no one cares about us, they threw us here and forgot."
The issue of the Seder night concerns not only the evacuees, but also the hotels that host them. On the one hand, they want to give them a holiday experience, which requires a greater financial investment, and on the other hand, the state does not Ready to finance it, when the cost of a Seder night meal at the hotel ranges from NIS 400 to NIS 1,300 per person.
Teenagers are evacuated from hotels.
"I feel like nobody cares about us, they threw us here and forgot"/official website, Ministry of Welfare
Last week, hoteliers contacted the hotel association to find out whether the country would participate in at least part of the cost of the Seder dinner - and received a negative answer.
The Ministry of Finance, which is working to cancel the financing of community rooms in hotels, those designated for meetings with mental health professionals and social workers, or used as nurseries or children's and youth clubs, does not intend to bear the cost, or as the person familiar with the details put it, "The hotels have profited handsomely from the evacuees until today, which they financed The Seder night themselves. Probably the big chains."
"For the past week, this issue has occupied us," says the CEO of a small hotel. "I hear the discourse of the evacuees.
They are used to hosting, cooking.
I spoke with several other CEOs, after the Ministry of Tourism said that they don't interfere, and everyone will do what they think is right, and everyone is debating
. Serving, and not a buffet, so you have to bring in employees who cost 200%.
One of the hotels located in the kibbutz concluded that the evacuees staying there would join the kibbutz's holiday meal, at the expense of the host kibbutz.
"The CEO of a hotel in the center told me that he has evacuees and regular guests.
He is not willing to do anything and everything, and leave the evacuees outside the dining room, so he will probably have to absorb this high cost.
Another said that he would do like a normal Friday dinner, with another upgrade of salad and dish, he would arrange a Passover plate, but that's it, there would be no production.
Removes from the mind that the state is doing calculations on little things.
Give even 100 shekels per person and we will give the rest, but help us give them a holiday feeling.
They deserve this minimum," he added.
In response, the Ministry of Tourism says that they are in dialogue with the hotels to find a solution to the issue.
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