PROGRESS IN ISRAEL
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1995:
Nina Natelson of Concern for
Helping Animals in Israel saw “a lot of
improvement” in animal care and control
arrangements this winter compared with
last winter, she told ANIMAL PEOPLE.
An experienced shelter manager,
South African emigre Glenda Ford, now
heads the Beresheva shelter, Natelson
said, and has cut the number of resident
dogs from 500 to 100, “which is still too
many for the facilities,” Natelson contin-
ued, “but it’s going in the right direction.”
Earlier the shelter fended off a takeover
bid from Benny Schesinger of Let The
Animals Live (see Court Calendar).
CHAI has pledged to help the Beresheva
shelter raise the $20,000 it needs to start a
low-cost neutering clinic.
“In Tiberius,” Natelson added,
“the shelter we’re helping looks good, but
it serves a large Moroccan immigrant pop-
ulation, which has horrendous attitudes
toward cats. You see blind, diseased, and
dead cats everywhere. The local veteri-
narian is known for putting animals out to
‘have a chance’ instead of euthanizing
them. I spoke with him, and he said that
the community would be trying to cover
up all their trash so as to starve the cats
out. I told him we can’t just build a facili-
ty to serve equines and dogs and leave cats
out.” Low veterinary standards are a prob-
lem in Israel, where some immigrants
bring DVM degrees obtained with no
hands-on experience and re-education pro-
grams for vets practically don’t exist. Not
opposed to neuter/release in principle,
Natelson says CHAI has had to oppose it
in Israel because of the lack of coordina-
tion among rescue groups and trap-and-
euthanize groups, and the poor quality of
some of the neutering surgery. But advo-
cating euthanasia is particularly difficult in
Israel, due to psychological associations
with the Nazi extermination of Jews. In
Tel Aviv, an SPCA of Israel humane edu-
cation program that brings Arab and Israeli
children together has lost Jewish partici-
pants, Natelson said, when they’ve
learned the SPCA euthanizes.
