In Consulate Labor Dispute, Tourists Instructed ‘Go To Chabad’
Employees’ union of the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced Monday that it is halting virtually all consular services given to Israelis and tourists abroad as part of its labor dispute, which was declared in late March. Israeli Army Radio advised tourists in needs of assistance “go to a local Chabad House”.
Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom reported yesterday that the labor union is suspending all consular services. “Effective immediately, all consular services given by Israeli missions [worldwide] are suspended,” read a memorandum sent to all Israeli diplomats on Sunday evening.
Israeli Army Radio in turn reported that “Israeli tourists who find themselves stranded abroad are advised to turn to a local Chabad house for assistance.”
“We would be happy to assist any Israeli or Jew in need. I don’t expect we’ll be bombarded by phone calls, but we will do everything we can to help,” Rabbi Mordechai Levenhartz, who heads the Chabad house in Kiev, Ukraine, told Army Radio. “We are unable to issue visas, I’m afraid, but we can offer a comfortable place to stay and a hot meal.”
go to Chabad
Very nice. Will the Israeli government reimburse the shluchim for services rendered?
Mulik
Number 1: And why not give them a monthy stipend which they well deserve? Every Shliach has to be a glorified shnorrer in order to survive and provide all the gashmius and ruchnius to the kehillos (so many of them Israelis). So many Shluchim are living on the fringe of poverty. The I. gov. could afford a monthly stipend to lighten the burden of those who provide both the knaidlach and the Hagadah, paying back a tiny fraction of what the Rebbe did and does for Eretz Yisroel and Yidden the world over.