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Russian Billionaire Aids Israeli Refugees Kenneth R. Timmerman, NewsMax.com NIZZANIM, Israel -- A controversial Russian-Israeli billionaire, Arkady Gaydamak, is spending millions of dollars to house and feed 6,000 Israelis who have fled their homes to escape Hezbollah rocket attacks. They are being housed in a sprawling tent city on the Mediterranean.
Just days after the rockets started hitting northern Israel on July 12, Gaydamak offered to help civilians in northern towns and villages who were too poor to flee the rocket attacks on their own.
He even called up the troops.
"I got a call on Saturday morning – the third day of the attacks – asking if I knew of a place in the Jerusalem mountains big enough to host a few thousand refugees," says Ilan Factor, a history teacher who also runs an event production company. "That evening, we decided to do it here. On Sunday morning, we started to build the camp, even as buses of refugees were on the way."
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The first tent city, built to house 3,000 refugees, went up in just over 24 hours, Factor told NewsMax during a tour of the refugee camp. It contains a synagogue, a dining area where 900 people can eat at a single serving, a full service laundry, an outdoor café, and covered game areas for children.
David Nitsani, 37, also has a party planning company, and when Gaydamak called him to set up the tent city, Nitsani got out his Rolodox to find everything from suppliers of giant tents and port-a-johns, to security companies, doctors, and entertainers. "I've never done anything on this scale," he said. "The main challenge here is maintenance – cleaning, food, garbage. Every day is a challenge."
Young couples stroll barefoot in the white sand and pose for pictures. Children jump on a moon bounce. In the distance, foaming breakers crash on the beach.
If you didn't know that the families living under the giant collective tents were fleeing for their lives, you might think you had happened upon some kind working class Club Med resort.
In the evening, some of Israel's top entertainers – singers, comics, and rock bands – donate their time to distract the tent-dwellers at a giant outdoor stage built in the dunes.
Everything is provided free of charge to the refugees, who were selected on the basis of need by the municipal services in their home towns in the north.
The city of Nizzanim is located on a pristine beach between the Israeli cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon. Ashkelon has hosted Woodstock-type music festivals in previous summers. But this year it has been taken over by Gaydamak & Co. Within days of opening, the first tent city reached capacity, so Gaydamak ordered his employees to build an exact replica a few hundred meters away, to house an additional 3,000 refugees.
"If Mr. Gaydamak was looking for publicity, he could have stopped with the first tent city. Why build the second one?" said Karen Panigel, a spokesperson for the Beitar Jerusalem soccer team which Gaydamak recently purchased.
In addition to food, laundry and entertainment, the refugees also receive health services and psychological counseling. "We have around 500 to 600 employees here," said Panigel. "Mr Gaydamak woke up one morning and decided he wanted to do this."
Gaydamak, 54, spent part of his youth in Israel, and returned after the collapse of the Soviet Union. According to news reports, he has amassed a fortune over the past 15 years worth somewhere between $2 billion and $5 billion.
Some newspapers in Israel have questioned how he made his money. The French police reportedly want to question him in relation to a complex arms-for-oil deal with Angola involving former French officials.
But to the refugees in these camps – and to the many admirers encountered by random all across northern Israel during the current crisis – the allegations against the Russian-Israeli businessman pale in comparison to his generosity in time of need.
Janet Fedida, 48, left her home in the north when a katyusha hit close to her house. "I came here with two of my children, and I thank everyone here and I thank Mr. Gaydamak for what he has done," she said. "They are the only ones who did anything to help us."
Although the camps were set up at the urging of the Jerusalem municipality, which centralized lists of the needy it received from communities in the north, Nizzanim has received no assistance from the government, said Ilan Factor.
"It would have been useful, for instance, to get information from the welfare authorities about people's medical needs, to know what type of medicine people were used to getting," he told NewsMax.
Instead, camp authorities had to wing it, bringing in their own doctors, psychiatrists, and social workers to help those in need.
Volunteers have also come to Nizzanim from Tel Aviv, to provide medical services of all kinds.
Na'ama Rotband, 13, came here with her five sisters from Rosh Pina, a small town right on the Lebanese border.
Her mother had gone to the United States before the fighting began, and her father stayed behind with the girls in the hope his factory would remain open. "When we stayed at home, we were afraid," she said.
After two weeks at Nizzanim, two of her older sisters went home overnight when Israel announced a 48-hour pause in its air campaign against Hezbollah. "Our dad wanted us all to come home," said Galia Rotband, 23. "We thought it was over. Then the alarms went off and we got scared. We took the bus back here the next day."
Eliran Trabelsi, 23, was hired by the Gaydamak companies as an children's entertainers, but says he fell in love with the kids and stayed.
"Some of these kids came from troubled backgrounds," he told NewsMax. "This is the first time they have ever seen anything as wonderful as this place. You can almost see them change in front of your eyes.
"It's a shame it took a war for them to see something better than what they have every day," he added.
Editor's note:
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