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Crowdfunding For Good

An Israeli anti-racism group’s campaign has raised 287,000 shekels for a Palestinian boy whose family was killed by Jewish extremists in a July arson attack

by
Yair Rosenberg
September 21, 2015
Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Israelis take part in a demonstration in Tel Aviv, two days after the death of 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha, a Palestinian toddler who was burned to death by suspected Jewish extremists, August 2, 2015. Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images
Israelis take part in a demonstration in Tel Aviv, two days after the death of 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha, a Palestinian toddler who was burned to death by suspected Jewish extremists, August 2, 2015. Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

In July, Israel was rocked by an arson attack in the West Bank village of Duma, which left three members of the Palestinian Dawabsha family dead, including an 18-month-old baby. Thought by the IDF to be the work of Jewish extremists, the incident was condemned across the Israeli political spectrum and led the government to authorize the use of administrative detention without trial for suspected Jewish terrorists. These methods, previously employed only on Palestinian terror suspects, have already led to several arrests for other hate crimes.

Israeli society, meanwhile, responded in its own way. The anti-racist organization Tag Meir, formed in 2011 by Israeli religious and cultural leaders to combat Jewish extremism, launched a crowdfunding campaign for the Dawabsha family’s only surviving member, four-year-old Ahmed. Their goal: 80,000 shekels.

24 hours later, that amount was exceeded. Today, as of this publication, with 21 days still left in the campaign, they’ve received nearly 287,000 shekels (approximately $72,000).

The money raised will go towards the care and education of Ahmed Dawabsha. “Ahmed is alone, without parents; essentially, all he has left is his grandfather,” the organization wrote in their introduction to the campaign. “In the [Hebrew] month of Elul, a month of penitential prayers and mercy, we at Tag Meir have decided to launch a campaign to build a future for the orphan Ahmed and aid the Dawabsha family.”

“We hope that together we will prove that this is not the way of Judaism and Israel,” they concluded. “Rather, our ways are those of pleasantness and all our paths are peace.” (Proverbs 3:17)

Last week, as contributions continued to roll in, Dawabsha’s grandfather, Hussein, thanked “all those behind this campaign,” adding, “we are proud of such people who support us.”

The crowdfunding drive, which is ongoing, can be found here.

Yair Rosenberg is a senior writer at Tablet. Subscribe to his newsletter, listen to his music, and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.