Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs

The ministry combines central policy-setting with decentralized service delivery. It seeks to promote personal and socioeconomic well-being, rehabilitate individuals and families, advance communities, and support development of the social-security system. Its services are delivered through ministry agencies, local authorities, public institutions, and volunteers, and its stated client groups include people in need, people with disabilities, older adults, ill people, children, teenagers, working poor people, unemployed people, and their families.[1]

This institutional model places national eligibility rules and funding alongside local implementation. Local authorities operate many programs, apply ministry criteria, assemble benefit packages established by law, and provide social services for rehabilitation and adjustment, while the central government funds most income-insurance spending and services for special population groups.[6]

The institutional foundations of Israel's welfare system predate statehood by nearly two decades. The Ministry of Social Welfare began its work in June 1948, continuing the mission of the Social Welfare Department established in 1931 under the British Mandate.[4] The Welfare Department of the Vaad Haleumi — the Jewish National Council — had been created during the Mandate period to assist Jews in the Yishuv who could not manage without help, and it operated on a residual model: social services were activated when other institutions failed to address particular problems.[7]

Henrietta Szold embodied the personal and professional energy of that pre-state effort. As head of social welfare at the time of the 1931 National Council elections, she established local social-affairs offices in National Council-funded local councils and oversaw the training and competence of social workers, setting a professional standard that the later ministry would carry forward.[3]

Following the establishment of the state, two landmark laws expanded the statutory basis of welfare programs. The National Insurance Act of 1953 and the Social Welfare Service Law of 1958 authorized programs including old-age and survivors' pensions, maternity insurance, workers' compensation provisions, and special allowances for large families.[4] The Welfare Service Law of 1958 defined the operating principles of Israel's personal social-service system, whose foundations had been laid in the 1930s.[8] The Histadrut labor federation also served as a principal provider of pensions and insurance during this period, situating government programs within a wider ecosystem of social provision.[4]

From the establishment of the state until 1977, the Ministry of Welfare operated personal social services independently. In 1977, following the political change known as "the upheaval," the ministry was merged with the Ministry of Labor to form the Ministry of Labor and Welfare.[9] In 2003, the labor portfolio was separated and transferred to the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Employment, returning welfare functions to a dedicated ministry.[9] The Central Bureau of Statistics records that in 2016 the name changed from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services to the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs and Social Services, and that on June 13, 2021, the current name — Ministry of Welfare and Social Affairs — was adopted when the Directorate General of Labor moved to the Ministry of Economy and Industry.[5]

In the early years after statehood, welfare bureaus provided financial assistance directly to poor people. Responsibility for income-support payments shifted substantially to the National Insurance Institute with the adoption of the Income Support program in the 1980s, and policy changes beginning in the early 2000s reduced assistance levels and the number of eligible people while emphasizing labor-market entry.[10] A poverty-policy account recorded that 160,000 Israeli households relied on welfare payments at the time of its reporting, compared with 75,000 in 1995 and 25,000 in 1985, reflecting the scale of growth in caseloads over that period; it also reported that social services' share of the government budget fell from 57 percent to 51 percent between 2002 and 2005, while per-capita expenditure on income-support benefits declined by 18 percent in real terms.[11]

The ministry operates through a cooperative relationship between the central government and local authorities. Local authorities run programs that are funded wholly or partly by the ministry, while the central government funds most spending on income insurance and services for special population groups. The ministry sets eligibility criteria; local authorities apply them, assemble benefit packages under programs established by law, and provide social services to help families with rehabilitation or adjustment.[6]

The ministry's published organizational chart identifies several main service administrations and divisions: Personal and Social Services, Community Resources and Services, Correctional Services, Senior Citizens, Disabilities, and Local Authorities. Functions and services enumerated in the chart include juvenile and adult probation, addiction therapy, adoption, foster care, social work, and out-of-home residential frameworks.[12] The ministry also funds and runs nationwide services including adoption, probation frameworks, and residential institutions for people with developmental disabilities.[2]

The National Insurance Institute functions as an autonomous state agency operating under the supervision of the Minister of Welfare. It maintains national insurance schemes and non-contributory income-maintenance programs, with schemes covering old-age and survivors, maternity, unemployment, work injury, and general disability insurance.[8] A poverty-policy study similarly identifies the ministry as responsible for welfare support and allowances providing for poor people's basic needs and describes the National Insurance Institute as the autonomous government body under the ministry's supervision that executes government policy on income-support benefits.[11]

The ministry's information and assistance center is reachable by calling 118, with telephone service available 24 hours a day, seven days a week except Yom Kippur; support is provided in Hebrew, Russian, Arabic, and Amharic.[13]

In recent years, the ministry has relied extensively on tenders and external providers to operate many of its frameworks and services — including residential schools for at-risk youth, emergency facilities for children and teenagers, out-of-home settings for people with special needs, treatment services for women involved in prostitution, and addiction-rehabilitation programs. The ministry's stated rationale for this model is that flexibility allows services to be adapted to populations and operators to be replaced when necessary.[14]

The ministry's official page identifies its leading program areas as resilience and emergency response, vulnerable children, families in poverty and at risk, domestic and gender-based violence, integration of people with disabilities into community life, senior citizens, and advancement of young adults aged 18 to 25.[13] Services range from applications to social services departments and adoption-file requests to blind or visually impaired certificates and complaints to the ministry.[13]

Personal social services — care for groups experiencing difficulties in personal and social functioning — form the core of the ministry's work. Those served include people with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities, older adults, young people in distress, battered women, and neglected children at risk. These services are generally provided by professional social workers and maintained for the most part by local-authority welfare bureaus, with voluntary agencies complementing state services.[8] The ministry handles criminal investigations involving people with certain disabilities, as victims or offenders, when police request assistance, and also provides out-of-home placement and sheltered employment for people with cognitive, physical, and communication disabilities.[15]

For new immigrants, the ministry's Department of Social Services (Agaf HaRevacha) identifies welfare needs and promotes solutions tailored to immigrants' cultures and languages, providing financial and social support to those facing crisis or distress during integration in addition to standard social services. Listed programs for this population include a multilingual psychological-assistance call center, Klita Maytiva, Bema'ale for young immigrants evacuated during the Swords of Iron war, and Resilience.[16] Local-authority social services departments operate throughout the municipal authorities and respond to the needs of individuals, families, and groups, including new immigrants experiencing difficulties.[17]

In the area of poverty reduction, the ministry co-operates with the Rashi Foundation and JDC-Ashalim on the Families First program, which offers participating families intensive, holistic assistance including active take-up of rights, help with labor-market integration, material assistance, and psychosocial solutions delivered through social workers in social-service departments.[10] The "Breathing for Well-Being" program — run jointly with local government, JDC, the Rashi Foundation, and other civil-society organizations — aims to improve the circumstances of families and individuals living in poverty through dedicated social-work intervention and a broad set of services, including strengthening personal and family resilience, helping people exercise their rights, supporting employment, addressing financial distress, and assisting with debt arrangements. That program operates in 113 local authorities, and the ministry invests approximately NIS 120 million annually in programs intended to help people exit poverty.[18]

The Poverty-Aware Paradigm, implemented in Israel's welfare services by the ministry, has targeted more than 14,000 service users. A review examining 25 evaluations of five programs found quantitative samples including 4,612 service users and 1,363 professionals, and qualitative samples of 420 service users and 424 professionals.[19]

In the area of domestic violence, the ministry has expanded support to civil-society organizations that prevent domestic violence or assist survivors through counseling, support, accompaniment, support groups, mentors, emergency assistance, and training for care staff and volunteers. The ministry opened Aluma emergency centers operating around the clock and established apartments for men removed from their homes because of violence. The budget for this service area rose from NIS 55 million to approximately NIS 290 million, and an existing annual allocation of approximately NIS 9 million is directed to sexual-assault crisis centers.[20]

For child protection, the ministry leads the interministerial 360° — National Program for Children and Youth at Risk — which began in 2008 and works with the education, health, immigration and absorption, and public security ministries as well as nongovernmental bodies. The program aims to reduce situations endangering children and youth and sets goals for improving their circumstances and for upgrading services.[21] A locality information system called TMI, developed in 2011, supports data-based decisions, transparency, and shared responsibility among participating authorities, and the ministry administers information about children and youth at risk and works with other services to identify needs and develop responses.[21] The National Headquarters for Protection of Children in the Internet, established as a police-civilian body in January 2016, lists the Ministry of Labor, Welfare and Social Services among its participating bodies alongside the police and the ministries of public security, education, health, and justice.[21]

Emergency preparedness and community resilience constitute a distinct and substantial area of ministry responsibility. The Department of Social Services within the ministry is the central government body involved in establishing, training, and maintaining Community Emergency and Resilience Teams (CERTs), in cooperation with local authorities, which bear responsibility for maintaining the teams' professional skills.[22] Minimum team sizes are set at eight members in localities with up to 100 families and twelve members in larger localities.[22]

CERTs carry a broad set of responsibilities: opening information centers, helping local officials manage emergencies, mapping residents who may need special assistance, coordinating initial medical, physical, and logistical care, maintaining contact with residents, arranging therapeutic intervention for individuals and families, and coordinating with other local and outside organizations.[22] The underlying philosophy is that the initial and most important assistance to the community during an emergency should be provided by the residents themselves, drawing on local capacities before external support arrives.[22]

A ministry report describes a national resilience network encompassing 948 local emergency and resilience teams and 327 neighborhood emergency and resilience teams in 154 local authorities, with 23,000 residents active in community emergency teams.[13]

A distinct but related network of regional Resilience Centers was established in the communities bordering Gaza. Five such centers — in Sderot and the regional councils of Hof Ashkelon, Sdot Negev, Sha'ar Hanegev, and Eshkol — were created through cooperation among the Prime Minister's Office, the Ministry of Health, the Israel Trauma Coalition, and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Social Services, which provided professional guidance.[22] Established by government decision in 2007 and serving a population of approximately 60,000 that had faced continuing security threats since 2000, the centers offered psychological and social-welfare services encompassing emergency preparedness, community resilience, and individual treatment for anxiety.[22][23] Services reached people of all ages and from all population groups; every Israeli resident had the right to receive 12 to 18 treatments financed by the National Insurance Institute, and in 2016 more than 14,000 residents were treated at the five centers at a nominal fee.[22] The ministry is a member of the interministerial committee that supervises these centers, which provide services in both emergency and routine periods.[23]

The ministry has historically shaped the professional formation of Israeli social workers as much as it has shaped the services they deliver. During the early decades of the state, most social workers worked under the direction of the Ministry of Social Affairs, either directly or through local authorities, and many senior staff lacked formal academic training.[24] A significant proportion were graduates of the ministry's own Social Work Training Institute, known as the Machon, which had been established before Israel's independence and remained the country's sole social-work training institute until the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work opened at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1959.[24]

The Machon subsequently wound down its basic training operations in stages: Tel Aviv in 1978, Jerusalem in 1981, Haifa in 1983, and Beersheva in 1984. It continued, however, to provide continuing-education programs for ministry social workers after ceasing basic pre-service training.[24]

The ministry's structure, funding, and approach to service delivery have been the subject of sustained scholarly and policy debate since at least the 1970s. The Prime Minister's Commission on Disadvantaged Youth — the Katz Report of 1972 — recommended placing income-maintenance functions "under one roof," with uniform eligibility criteria, a single administrative staff, and national rather than local implementation. Most commission members regarded the National Insurance Institute as the appropriate institution for this consolidation, but the transfer did not occur.[7]

Eliezer D. Jaffe argues that the Ministry of Social Welfare was traditionally allocated to smaller coalition parties, usually religious or left-of-center, while larger parties did not treat welfare as a major economic portfolio, and that political considerations shaped the welfare network, including blocking the proposed transfer of public welfare payments from the Ministry of Welfare to the Ministry of Labor.[7] Jaffe's proposed restructuring would separate income maintenance from social-work services and recast the ministry as a universal, professional family and community service agency providing counseling, linking people to services, and individualized help, with national welfare funding and state administration through district offices rather than municipal administration.[7]

A 2022 long-term reform plan titled "The Right to Good Welfare," presented by researchers Johnny Gal and Shavit Madhala to Welfare Minister Meir Cohen, proposed reducing social workers' caseloads, establishing a statutory service basket for older people, setting a measurable government target for eliminating poverty, creating an interministerial committee on poverty, reviewing oversight and privatization of welfare services, expanding employment programs, and revising service funding and the division of budgetary responsibility between the ministry and local authorities. Full implementation and funding of that plan depended on a subsequent government and state budget, and its proposals had not been fully implemented at the time of reporting.[25]

The ministry's heavy use of external providers to operate residential schools, emergency facilities, treatment services, and addiction-rehabilitation programs has generated its own debate. A labor-court ruling required the state to consult workers' organizations when preparing certain tenders that could affect workers' employment conditions, and the ministry froze the relevant tender process while reviewing the ruling's implications. The tensions between operational flexibility, workers' employment security, and continuity of care for service users remain contested.[14]