The Health Ministry has cut the 2023 budget of ERAN (Emotional First AID) from NIS 1.7 million to NIS 1.6 million even though it is receiving many more calls –130,000 from January through June – than in previous years, according to the non-profit organization.
Asked to comment, the Health Ministry spokeswoman office said that “the ministry doesn’t support non-profit organizations but activities that provide psychological first aid. The amount of support provided by the ministry to the subject, minus the COVID-19 supplements, remains unchanged. Over the years, additional associations dealing in the field have been added, and the total amount is divided among them according to the established standards for this purpose.” The ministry did not provide the names of the other organizations or other details when asked.
The Jerusalem Post has learnt that the ministry is using the money debited from ERAN’s allocation to allocate this year NIS 100,000 to NIS 150,000 to each of 10 very small ultra-Orthodox (haredi) groups that claim to provide emotional help. Unlike them, ERAN is not sectorial but listens to and advises anyone in Israel who calls for help.
The ministry is headed by the haredi Shas party MK Moshe Arbel, who is also interior minister.
The ministry budget for ERAN was NIS 1.7 million in the year before the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused great panic and loneliness due to isolation; during the pandemic, the voluntary organization’s budget was raised to NIS 5.9, but now it has been drastically reduced to less than it was before COVID-19. ERAN looks to donors for financial help to cover its NIS 12 million budget, but this is now very difficult.
The important work of ERAN
Supporters of the organization, which aims at preventing suicide and in providing emotional support and reducing loneliness among callers from around the country, point to the Netanyahu’s government budgeting of NIS 14 billion to ultra-Orthodox (haredi) institutions and schools as the main reason its budget, along with many other social services, has been cut.
ERAN doesn’t get funded according to the number of calls for help it receives and the number of individuals it helps. It received 204,000 pleas for help in 2019 and over 300,000 in 2022. It is now getting 900 appeals for help on an average day.
Founded in 1971, ERAN has hundreds of volunteers who are trained and backed up by professionals. Volunteers can work from any of 19 branches or from their homes. The organization is now short 400 volunteers but lacksthe budget to train them.
Its phone number is 1201 at any time of the day or night, 365 days a year or via its website.
ERAN reported last June that the chaos caused by conflicts over the coalition’s judicial overhaul has not only hurt the economy, solidarity, and order and encouraged Israel’s enemies – it has caused sleeplessness and emotional anguish among ordinary citizens.
David Koren, ERAN’s CEO, said then that “as a voluntary organization that provides psychological assistance to everyone all year round, we continue during this period distress is increasing on both sides of the line. Our volunteers face a complex mental challenge themselves, and, at the same time, they those who turn to us. In fact, these days we hear many voices calling for dialogue and hope for calm.”
The feeling is that the threads that have woven Israeli society over the years are slowly being unraveled and rifts are being created between groups and individuals, Koren continued. “This feeling undermines and harms mental well-being in a way that requires rehabilitation and recovery, healing of the damaged trust. The feeling of rejection that people experience these days, along with the loneliness and alienation and the loss of the most basic sense of acceptance and appreciation undermine everything we have known and given us security and lead to real existential anxiety.”
