This piece originally appeared in B'nai B'rith Magazine's Winter 2017 issue. To read this and other stories from the issue, visit our magazine online here.

I’ve always thought of myself as a caring person, considerate of others and always thinking that we have a duty to be part of a society in which we respect and help one another where and when we can. Call me a do-gooder if you will, but please know that I am proud to wear that label.

With Congress back in session, I continue to be baffled by its continued attempt to turn back the clock in the face of such overwhelming evidence of the number of aging Americans who require assistance with finding a safe, secure place to live.

The United States used to have a national housing policy focusing in part on creating affordable housing for older persons of limited means. Section 202 of the Housing Act of 1959 was the only federal program that provided safe, affordable housing exclusively for low-income elderly.

The program was envisioned as a partnership between government and community-based nonprofits like B’nai B’rith to supply housing to these individuals. The government would supply the financial means to build the property, while the nonprofits would oversee the initial development and ongoing operations. Subsidies, such as Section 8 vouchers, would bridge the gap between what the tenant could afford and the cost of that apartment.

Over time, the funding mechanism for the program changed from a direct loan, with interest payments to the federal government, to a simple advance of funds for construction.
 
Since 1971, B’nai B’rith has been a partner with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in constructing and overseeing such properties. With 38 properties in 26 communities nationwide, we are the largest national Jewish sponsor of HUD-assisted senior housing. Our network comprises nearly 5,000 apartments available to more than 8,000 seniors.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the eligibility criteria were slightly refined. During the 1980s, “cost-containment” became the focus, and there was a shift to reducing the number of units being built and the overall construction cost. While budget driven, many of these decisions had an opposite effect. Having to replace and maintain systems cost more in the long term.

During the mid 1990s the program began to recognize and incorporate the physical and emotional needs of the residents, and the use of service coordinators become more prevalent.

With the aid of these professionals, residents were better able to obtain the support and services they might need to make aging-in-place more possible. HUD finally understood that providing some level of service support within the property often precluded a premature move to a more institutional setting for a resident, at a tremendous overall cost savings to society in general.
 
Even the definition of a well “independent” senior had changed. As these properties were basically apartments without medical or basic service supports when the program was initiated, one of the criteria for admittance into a HUD-assisted property was the ability to vacate your apartment in the event of an emergency. Today, residents are able to remain as long as they can direct the service supports around them to assist in vacating their apartment in the case of an emergency. Yet, today, nearly 40 percent of residents are considered frail and require assistance with some of the basic activities of daily living.

But, remaining in their homes with support beats having to move to a skilled-care or institutional facility many years before actually needing that level of medical support.

So, for a period of time, the program evolved and — despite severe budget cuts during the congressional efforts to reduce overall federal domestic spending — survive. Politicians from both sides of the aisle have taken pride in visiting these properties and publicly marvel at what they say is their tremendous value, not just for the individuals but for the whole community.

So, where do we stand now?  

We know the country is growing older. The percentage of persons 65 and up is a larger percentage of the total population, growing from 35 million (12.5 percent) in 2000 to 49.5 million in 2016 (15 percent) to an expected 71.5 million (19.4 percent) by 2030. Compounding the issue is the increase in the number of persons 85 and older — 6.2 million in 2016, projected to grow to 6.9 million by 2020 due to our increased longevity.

But, the senior population’s sustained growth has not been matched by a corresponding growth in affordable housing. Currently, data show that there are at least 10 to 12 people on a waiting list for every available subsidized unit. The funding to create more of these properties has dried up. Currently, there are no federal dollars available to create new housing for this most vulnerable, growing population.

Where we housing advocates need to expand our efforts is to combat proposals currently being introduced in Congress that would charge current residents even more of their very low income to simply stay put. Even worse are attempts to cut subsidies completely, which could effectively throw current residents out of their apartments, and potentially into the street.

Remember, older persons must already have very low-incomes to qualify — below half of the area median income. Once deemed “income eligible,” they must pay 30 percent of their adjusted gross income for rent. If they have no income, they pay no rent. And we have a number of those individuals residing in our senior housing network. Bottom line is that these applicants were either homeless, near homeless, or at best, very low-income individuals.

Congress has recently debated amendments to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill that would reduce these subsidies while increasing tenants’ contributions from 30 to 35 percent of their meager incomes and require them to pay a minimum amount of rent, or lose the apartment entirely.

And, taking this even further, 139 House members voted for an amendment to reduce funds for project-based rental assistance by $266 million in the current fiscal year, thus jeopardizing approximately 3,000 apartments which could be affected by this action. Fortunately the amendment failed, but the threat remains.

The numbers are alarming, and the White House is threatening to make a bad situation worse. The administration’s budget proposals include the most dramatic cuts to HUD programs since the 1980s, gutting federal housing assistance and redirecting the savings to “higher priority areas.”  What could be of higher priority than making certain that vulnerable older persons of very low income status have access to safe, affordable and adequate housing?

You wouldn't know it from the Human Rights Council -- which ritualistically adopted multiple anti-Israel resolutions last week, yet only lone ones on such scenes of unsurpassed carnage and deprivation as Syria, Iran and North Korea -- but the most elemental human right of Israelis, the right to life, has been denied and threatened in a particularly relentless and vicious way for about half a year now. The council was not even embarrassed to condemn Israel for its possession of, and human rights record on, the strategically vital and essentially tranquil Golan Heights at a time when religious minorities and the U.N.'s own personnel enjoy refuge there from the bloodletting by regime forces and terrorist groups alike across the border in Syria.
 
In a true manifestation of insult added to injury, and of abdicated political and ethical leadership, apathy in Geneva to Palestinian terrorism comes as little surprise, though, since the United Nations as a whole is all but explicit in its indifference to violence against Israelis -- unless and until Israel responds forcefully, at which point Israel itself is subjected to especially wild opprobrium.
 
A running compendium by the world body, "UN Response to Acts of Terrorism," lists its reactions to acts of violence against civilians globally -- from France to Lebanon to Mali to Afghanistan to Egypt to Turkey to Belgium and beyond -- and yet manages not to note even a single one of the stabbings, shootings or car rammings that have afflicted innocent Israelis on a near-daily basis over the last six months.

This week the 60th United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is wrapping up in New York. Diplomats and NGO representatives have come from around the world to discuss gender equality and the fight against gender-based violence and discrimination. But, as is U.N. fashion, only one country will find itself on the agenda. Only one country is worthy of its own report, and only one country will be condemned in a resolution.

Though that country is situated in the Middle East, it is not one of the failed or failing states whose roiling violence is sending refugees fleeing to Europe. Nor is it one of the many dictatorships that oppress the entirety of its population, with a particular emphasis on arcane laws and rules that women must follow or face harsh punishments. There are plenty of good candidates for extra scrutiny on these issues in the Middle East, but CSW has chosen to focus, as it does every year, on Israel, the sole democratic state in the region that guarantees gender equality.

I point out the human rights records of other Middle East countries to illustrate the sheer absurdity of the situation, but Israel’s neighbors provide a low bar to pass. The truth is that on the issue of gender equality, Israel stands at or above its Western democratic peers. Israel was one of the first countries in the world to elect a female leader, Golda Meir. Dorit Beinisch was president of Israel’s Supreme Court of Justice. Women are serving as pilots in Israel’s air force and are securing Israel’s borders in combat roles in co-ed units. Women are making important contributions to Israel’s high-tech, cultural and medical fields. And Israel, in turn, is flourishing because of the freedom enjoyed by all citizens: Jews and Arabs, men and women, religious and secular, LGBT and straight. Of course, there are still many issues of inequality and discrimination and domestic violence that need to be addressed, as there are in every society. Israeli NGOs and a lively and free press, however, can be counted upon to hold the government accountable to continue to push for progress.

The singling-out of Israel at CSW is a symptom of the problem: the unending anti-Israel obsession at the U.N. This obsession produces dozens of General Assembly and Human Rights Council (HRC) resolutions yearly (compared to maybe a handful for the most egregious of abusive countries), an agenda item at the HRC dedicated solely for Israel and another one for all other countries.

It has been business as usual at the U.N. Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva this month.

​Here’s why it matters.

Notwithstanding the need for urgent attention to such serial abusers as Syria’s Assad regime, which continues to barrel-bomb its own citizens in the midst of a destructive civil war, and Iran, which most certainly vies for the lead in any number of human rights abuses, including the execution of juvenile offenders, Israel is still singled out for special opprobrium.

If this sounds like a broken record, it is. Each year, all countries up for discussion are lumped together into one agenda item, while Israel is always separated out from the rest for individual scrutiny under Item “7” which applies solely to the Jewish state, the only democracy in the Middle East. Subsumed under that item this year are a basket of separate resolutions, as well as six reports. The resolutions, which make no pretence at being objective, hammer Israel for “the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” settlements, human rights abuses in the Golan Heights and a call for Palestinian self-determination.

The special reports include updates on the infamous Goldstone Commission Report, which was written in the wake of the 2009 Gaza war, and which suggested Israel might be guilty of war crimes. Judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired the group which wrote the report, ultimately backed away from its one-sided findings. In the U.N. system, however, vituperation against Israel has a life of its own, so the report lives on.

What does all of this have to do with the real world in 2016? The Middle East is not only in chaos, it is in meltdown mode in Iraq and Syria. Libya has now become the new ISIS target of opportunity. Iran, soon to be flush with cash from the nuclear deal with the P5+1, sends its Revolutionary Guards to Syria, along with its wholly-owned subsidiary Hezbollah, the terrorist organization that has taken over control of Lebanon, to back the Assad regime. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost in this conflict, Christians and Yazidis have been massacred and subject to humiliation, eviction and dispersal, with millions becoming part of the biggest refugee migration in decades.

This situation has received scant attention from a U.N. body “re-formed and reformed” 10 years ago to address real human rights crises. Its 47 members have really done no such thing. It is dominated by countries from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement, and something called the Like-Minded Group of Developing Countries, said to represent 50 percent of the world’s population, whose worldview includes protecting many of those countries who are in the first line of human rights abusers.

This session, as a result of membership rotation, the United States is not on the Council. Nevertheless, it has spoken out strongly against the double standard Israel receives at the hands of the members of the body. Neither is Canada, which has been a staunch defender of Israel over the past decade. The EU countries choose not to participate in the debate on Item 7, though several of its member states, critical of Israel, find a way to do so. The EU could act more forcefully against this on-going diplomatic charade, but it refrains from doing that—another example of how its actions often don’t measure up to the values it claims to uphold.

As for the Palestinians it once again proves that, though largely crowded out of the news because of events in the region, their ability to manipulate the U.N. system continues. Whether it was attaining full membership at UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), non-member state status at the General Assembly, or getting its flag flown in front of the U.N. in New York and other U.N. venues (including Geneva), they continue to plug away, not feeling any pressure to return to the negotiating table with Israel. And why should they? The Palestinians feel they have the international community’s blindly supportive wind at their back—even at a time when the Middle East neighborhood in which the Palestinians are based, is imploding.

One European diplomat I met in Geneva, after a spirited discussion about how annual denunciations of Israel only embolden the Palestinians and discourage the Israelis, told me point blank that if they were to say “no’ to Item 7, “the Palestinian door would be closed to us.” My rejoinder was that if the EU—which has often been the Palestinians’ friend in court and which has for years funded the salaries of Palestinian Authority (PA) civil servants—really sought to help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian issue, they would spend their time urging the PA to move to the negotiating table, rather than allow this yearly lacerating of Israel to continue.

So as the Middle East burns, Nero—in this case—the Human Rights Council, fiddles. An aversion to doubling down on real abusers of human rights, and a propensity to let the anti-Israel rhetoric flow in Item 7 and its accompanying reports, speaks to the hypocrisy and emptiness of the Council and the system that has produced it.

Living in a time where, from our smart phone screens we can learn, real time, about the abuses of human rights everywhere, a global conscience is AWOL. Each day it stays that way, real opportunities to help those who suffer, pass. Instead, at the Human Rights Council and elsewhere, there is always time to unfairly castigate Israel.
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What a terrible waste.

B'nai B'rith International Deputy Director of the International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy Eric Fusfield discusses the 75th anniversary of the Iasi Pogrom in Romania and how his family was directly affected.

This even helps to keep snow removal in mind in long term urban planning (like making sure there is space between the sidewalk and the road for that snow to get shoved). The issue is on the table in many communities, including mine. In Montgomery County, Maryland (where I live), the county almost got a pedestrian friendly plan that would have increased the county’s obligation to remove snow from pedestrian pathways, but it was never signed by a county executive. Montgomery County also has an advisory committee that recently did a pedestrian “walk about” tour of the area and developed more pedestrian friendly guidelines that you can read about here.

Other groups including disability groups have developed excellent resources, like Easter Seals’ Project Action, where I found a guide on pedestrian/disability friendly snow removal policies and planning. 
 
The federal government has money (called Section 5310) allocated to efforts on disability transportation, including pedestrians. While I would like to say that includes a resource listing the right phone numbers to call for every city or county when you see an impediment to pedestrian travel or a mobility challenge, it doesn’t mean that. We do have regional contacts and state contacts listed together and the National Center for Mobility Management, and that gets you off to a good start. You can find other related resources on their main page. The Federal emphasis on transportation planning for people with mobility challenges has produced some excellent planning tools and raised awareness about best practices. 

So how are we doing at actually implementing pedestrian/aging/disability friendly transportation plans? Not great. It has been clear during this week’s “snowzilla” how much tension remains between the need to plow roads and the need to maintain sidewalks. And the sidewalks often lose.  We’ve seen pedestrian access to public transportation (Metro) limited because the parking lot’s snow got dumped on the sidewalks leading to the stations. In my neighborhood—already a hot spot for pedestrians being struck by cars—bus stops have been obliterated, the bus shelters are half filled with snow and often there is nowhere for riders to stand but in the slick, snow-banked roadways.  So far no pedestrians have been injured in my neighborhood, but I am frankly almost as surprised as I am relieved.

But advocates know it takes more than having information about how best to do things to get them actually done. I guess we all know that. 

So what do we do? Three things come to mind. First, do your part. Shovel your sidewalk as soon as you can after a storm. It’s required by law most places, and is neighborly.  If you can’t shovel, ask a neighbor to help. If you can, shovel for the neighbor you know can’t. Local governments often need to do more to make sure that commercial and public areas (where no homeowner is responsible) are also plowed.  In good weather, don’t block sidewalk access with a vehicle, trash can, etc., especially the curb cuts designed to let wheelchairs ease from sidewalk to street.  As a driver remember that pedestrians have rights, and are easy to injure. Remember that not all pedestrians are STANDING, and some may be seated and harder to see. Be aware. 

Second, if you see something wrong, tell someone. If the sidewalk is blocked, report it.  If stores plowed snow into the handicapped spots, tweet about it.  If you see people walking on a snowy roadway because there is no sidewalk to be found, call your city or county.  

And third, after you figure out how to report these problems, think about getting more involved.  Ask how you can become part of an advisory committee on transportation issues. Transportation planning is a big deal for most states and municipalities, and advocates for the elderly and disabled have made it a particular point to make sure those concerns are part of all planning, whether it’s public transportation, new road designs or services especially for the disabled. And there is plenty of information available about how planning can be done to accommodate the needs of people with mobility challenges—and how to keep the snow from trapping them at home or making them unsafe when they are out. 

Last year we participated in the once-a-decade White House Conference on Aging, and the final report calls for more planning and coordination on transportation issues.  Cities, states and the federal government are always planning transportation initiatives, from maintaining what exists to expanding mass transit and building new highways.  All that planning needs to take into account the needs of people with mobility challenges. It was great to hear last year about the $2.5 million allocated for a plan to launch the National Aging and Disability Transportation Center at the U.S. Department of Transportation,  which will “provide technical assistance to improve the availability and accessibility of transportation options that serve the needs of people with disabilities, seniors, and caregivers.” 

But the kind of planning—and frankly pressure—required to make sure seniors, the disabled and pedestrians are not left out of the future of our roads and bridges requires us to get involved. There are so many issues at play, and so many future consequences of today’s decisions, that we have to make sure we represent these issues at the table. If you want to learn more about volunteering your insights, start at the National Center for Disability Management. Or call a disability rights group. Or call us—we’ll help you find the right access point for wherever you live. 

Even those of us who don’t have any mobility challenges (yet) are sometimes pedestrians.  It can be complicated to sort out how to support growth and safety, roads and sidewalks.
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And, if you see a sidewalk covered in a snow mountain made by a snow plow, take a picture and send it to us.  ​

Sienna Girgenti is the Assistant Director for the International Center for Human Rights and Public Policy at B'nai B'rith International. To view some of her additional content, Click Here.

“This latest Palestinian uprising is a Facebook intifada” (USA Today 10/15/15) mimics the Palestinian narrative instead of presenting the facts.

The article ignores organized incitement from Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas and others at the top levels of the PA and in the terrorist group Hamas. Instead, it explains away the latest murderous attacks on the Jews of Israel in the gentlest terms.

The report states: "Like the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011 and the recruitment success of the Islamic State, the spreading violence against Israelis in recent weeks seems to have been sparked by spontaneous combustion on Twitter and Facebook, rather than by organized political groups.”

When Hamas urges Palestinians to form “stabbing squads” and then praises the attackers and honors their families, and when the head of the PA publicly denies Jewish historical ties to the land of Israel and warns Jews to get their “filthy feet” off the Temple Mount, which is considered the holiest site to Jews, that is hardly the foundation of a “spontaneous” uprising. 
Palestinian incitement has been a major obstacle to peace for decades. But that fact is not in the report.

The reporter ignores the daily reality faced by Israelis when she characterizes the “weapons of choice” in the attacks on Jews as “rocks, knives and social media.”  In reality, Palestinians are using knives and meat cleavers to repeatedly stab Jews, they have driven cars into groups of people standing at bus stops and they have used fire bombs.

The real cause of the rise in these murderous attacks is not social media. It’s deep-rooted, officially sanctioned anti-Semitism and anti-Israel fanaticism and incitement.

Daniel S. Mariaschin
B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President
Washington, D.C.

A recent international conference in Warsaw, Poland provided an opportunity to take inventory of the struggle against anti-Semitism.  While the U.S. and European governments have made progress in addressing the problem, evidence of anti-Semitism’s persistence is in ready supply.
 
2014 saw a breakthrough at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a multilateral organization charged with, among other priorities, combating anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance.  For the first time in more than a decade of tackling modern incarnations of Judeophobia, the 57 governments that make up the OSCE codified core principles of the fight against anti-Semitism in a high-level ministerial declaration.  “We reject and condemn manifestations of anti-Semitism, intolerance, and discrimination against Jews,” the document intoned.
 
2014, meanwhile, was also a year that saw a spike in anti-Semitic incidents across Europe and the former Soviet Union.  A wave of anti-Israel demonstrations has swept the OSCE region in 2014 and 2015; these gatherings typically have featured blatantly anti-Semitic themes and often have turned violent.  Attacks on Jewish individuals and institutions have increased in frequency and intensity, as the landscape from Belgium to Bulgaria, Germany to Greece, Holland to Hungary, and Ireland to Italy has witnessed violence against Jewish targets.  This spread of hatred has been accompanied by a corrosion of the public discourse with respect to Jews and Israel and has left European Jewry fearful for their safety and security.
 
The rise of anti-Jewish hatred also has resulted in a proliferation of anti-Semitic propaganda, much of which is directed against the State of Israel.  Tragically, the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state has become a daily occurrence, as Israel’s enemies repeatedly accuse it of being a Nazi-like occupier and an apartheid state that disenfranchises the Palestinians.  Falsehoods about Israel are repeated so often that they become widely accepted in the popular culture and sometimes impact government policy.  The effort by Israel’s relentless critics to denigrate the Jewish state is not only evidence that anti-Semitism is alive and well 70 years after the Holocaust—this new variation of the world’s oldest social illness actually poses a security threat to the Jewish state by intensifying its international isolation.
 
Against this backdrop, an OSCE human dimension implementation meeting that B’nai B’rith attended in Warsaw this month underscored that while much has been done to fight anti-Semitism in the past decade or more, much work remains.  The need for practical and effective strategies to combat and defeat this pathology is still crucial.
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B’nai B’rith’s recommendations to the Warsaw gathering included a call for OSCE member-states to affirm commitments made at the landmark 2004 Berlin Conference on Anti-Semitism— and reiterated in last year’s ministerial declaration—and assess the implementation of those commitments.  B’nai B’rith also urged:

• Member-states must fulfill their reporting requirements with respect to hate crimes data.  Far too few of the 57 governments have done so until now. 
• Governments should widely promote, within the OSCE, the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency’s comprehensive working definition of anti-Semitism and the U.S. State Department’s Fact Sheet on anti-Semitism.  It is crucial that governments and other institutions understand how to identify anti-Semitism in order to properly combat it. 
• The OSCE must enhance funding for the tolerance and non-discrimination unit of its Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights.  The TND unit has now become a fixed and integral part of the OSCE’s work in combating hatred.  We must enable them to sustain and expand their critical activities, which include educational programs on anti-Semitism in more than a dozen countries. 
• Finally, we must strongly reinforce the crucial principle declared at the 2004 Berlin Conference—that no political position, cause, or grievance can ever justify anti-Semitism—and make clear that the demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state is often none other than a pretext for the hatred of Jews themselves.