JERUSALEM, Israel – Israel is leading the world in vaccinating its citizens against the coronavirus, but it also seeks to help some of the most vulnerable men and women in Jewish communities around the world – Holocaust survivors.
Israel Hayom reports that Israeli officials in the Diaspora Affairs Ministry and Health Ministry are coordinating with the Shalom Corps organization to set up vaccine centers for Holocaust survivors living outside of Israel. Those who are unable to go to a vaccine center will have the vaccine brought to them.
The campaign is in its infancy stage, but Shalom Corps has already approached several large medical shipping companies to hopefully bring the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine to Holocaust survivors.
“In a time of acute global crisis in the face of the coronavirus, we have the privilege to repay, if only slightly, Holocaust survivors who survived the inferno of the Nazi oppressor and thanks to their courage managed to protect the embers of Judaism,” Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevitch told Israel Hayom. “We have the privilege to provide them with protection against the coronavirus. This is the moral order that every Jew carries in his heart – to make sure that they never walk alone.”
More than 1.8 million Israelis have received at least the first of two doses of the coronavirus vaccine, according to the Health Ministry.
Israel aims to have at least 5.2 million of its 9 million people population vaccinated by the end of March.
Most of Israel’s vaccine drive focuses on vulnerable and at-risk populations like the elderly.
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