I’ve written about the Domari, the gypsies of East Jerusalem, on numerous occasions in this blog.  The Dom are gypsies of North Indian origin who have lived in East Jerusalem for approximately 800 years.  They currently number about 3,000 people, and a courageous woman, Amoun Sleem, leads a group of the Dom who want to break the shackles of illiteracy and subsistence living through efforts at building a community, keeping alive their ancestral shared language, and teaching adults and children computer literacy and basic self-help business skills. 

I’ve visited Amoun on numerous occasions over the past five years and met her extended family.  I celebrated my most recent birthday in Jerusalem with Amoun and Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center. Anat and her colleagues at the IRAC have actively helped the Dom for years and originally introduced me to Amoun.

Amoun and her clan have impressed me as honest, resilient people who would like to be self reliant but have fallen through the cracks of the Israeli social system.  Rejected and ignored by Israelis and Palestinians alike, most of the Dom are beggars.

I’ve attached their most recent newsletter Download domari_newlsetter_4_07.pdf which describes their current situation and how you can help.  The newsletter notes that a $10,000 matching challenge grant to help the Domari is waiting for anyone to make a tax deductible gift to help them….

The Domari are at the absolute bottom of the socio-economic ladder in Israel and they could use a helping hand.  Please join me in helping them to stand on their own. 

To find out more about how to make a tax deductible gift, you can contact drc@domresearchcenter.com or Rachel Canar at the Israel Religious Action Center at rachel@irac.org .

Related posts:

1. The Resilient Domari– Update on the Gypsies of Jerusalem
2. The Domari Jerusalem Gypsies– An Update
3. The Gypsies of Jerusalem: The Forgotten People
4. There are Gypsies in Jerusalem
5. Religious Intolerance Drives Moderate Jews Out of Jerusalem

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 9:41 pm and is filed under Interfaith Education, Israel, Jewish Arab Education, Leadership Profiles, Religion, Religious Pluralism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.