Everyday Heroes
By: Prof. Shlomo Maital 

"Show me a hero," American author F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "and I will write you a tragedy." 

There are many tragedies occurring in Israel as the global downturn hits the economy with full force. Thousands lose their jobs every month. There were 17,000 to 20,000 new registrants for unemployment in each of the past four months and those numbers are rising.

But there are also a great many quiet heroes. To the author of The Great Gatsby, I say, Scott, it's the opposite. Show me a tragedy and I will show you a hero. 

These downturn heroes are not the kind that falls on a grenade to save comrades. They are ordinary people, like you and me. They do not regard themselves as heroes. They struggle bravely against a fierce economic decline they do not fully understand, caused by a relative handful of overpaid scoundrels who violated our trust by scandalously mismanaging our money. Their heroism consists of waking up in the morning, getting out of bed, going to work if they have a job, searching for one if they don't, supporting their families as best they can, making do with what they have and sharing what they have with those who have less. 

The media focuses on the scoundrels. Almost no one writes about the quiet heroes. To remedy this, here are the stories in their own words of four everyday heroes with whom I spoke recently.

Housekeeper

I am 47 years old and have been married for 19 years. I was the eleventh of 13 children. When I was 13 my father died. My mother worked very hard to put food on the table -- that was pretty much all we could buy -- and never complained. I have three children. When my husband lost his job I went to work as a housekeeper. People in my community laughed at me. There were single moms who got big welfare checks and did not have to pay city property taxes because they were on welfare. They sat at home idle. By working hard I earned one-half of what they got by doing nothing, and on top of it I paid full taxes. This wasn't fair. They said I was stupid. But my mother taught me to work hard and we have taught this to all our children. My husband, too, shares this. He works as a cook, works long hours and gets a fraction of what those who 'manage' his kitchen, and work far less than he does, are paid. But he does not complain. In 2003 "Bibi" (Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu) became Finance Minister. He slashed welfare. The people who once laughed at me now had to go out to find work. I thought this was a good thing. I have a good life. I work hard. I'm happy. And when we have less money, we just spend less. 
    
Taxi Driver

Some drivers own their own cabs. I don't. I work on what we call "fix." Fix means you pay NIS 280 (about $70) a day to the owner of the cab and hack license to rent the cab. When you add NIS 160 ($40) in gas to that, and maybe a bite of lunch, it means that when I wake up in the morning and start my shift, I already owe more than NIS 440. To bring home even the minimum, NIS 200, to my family, I once had to work eight or 10 hours. Now I sometimes have to work 15 or even 18 hours. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping, wake up at 4 a.m and start a shift. In these hard times, people don't take cabs. Some cabbies have contracts with companies who pay on credit. They are doing O.K. But cabbies who need paying fares, they are in trouble. Sometimes I take passengers almost for nothing. Today, at 2 a.m. (Sunday morning) I took a yeshiva boy from the area of Tel Aviv bars and clubs to his yeshiva in B'nei Brak. He was wearing ordinary clothes. He said he had very little money. So I took him for the equivalent of bus fare.  

Secretary

I worked in this job for seven years. Last week I was fired. A third of the people in the office were fired. I worked for years for a very low salary, and did a lot more than my job required. When the office manager was travelling or ill, I did her job too. And I was paid a pittance. They said I could stay on, but at half time and half salary. What that means is that I will do full time work at half the salary. But I just can't afford it. I and my family can't live on half of what I earned before. I will have to find another job. And I will. I am good at what I do. One of the maintenance people who worked part-time for us was fired, and he made NIS 1,500 ($375) a month! But he has golden hands and was quickly snapped up, at a higher salary. Sometimes things work out for the best. 

High Tech Engineer

I'm almost 50 years old, out of work and who will employ me at my age? I have nearly two dozen patents. I ran Research and Development for a major company, it was acquired, and now I'm unemployed. In 2007 I made $150,000, including a $30,000 bonus. I also had stock options that were once worth potentially a quarter of a million dollars if the company's share price had remained stable. But when the stock market collapsed in 2008, the options became worthless. I know a lot of people like me, talented engineers, who are now sitting at home. Some may leave the country, though I don't know if their job prospects are any better in America or in Europe. I am not just sitting around. I have some ideas. Maybe I'll build an on-line community of engineers like me, available for contract work. That way, companies can save money and avoid the costs of social benefits (pension, health insurance, etc.). I have some savings, I have a nice home. The hard part is the mental anguish. You go overnight from being a master of the universe, creating amazing new things, to being a bum, out of work, with no self-respect. Imagine going from a warm shower to an ice-cold one in a fraction of a second. Imagine going home and telling your wife you've been fired. But I am not to blame. I will find a way to use my brains and my experience (I have a B.Sc., M.Sc. and M.B.A.). I am determined that what I know and can do will not go to waste. The Ministry of Education has offered to employ high-tech engineers as English teachers in high schools; there is a major shortage. The pay is NIS 4,000 ($1,000 a month). I am considering it. I am the kind of person who knows how to teach, how to explain. I am prepared to give up a lot of pay for job security and for the knowledge I am contributing to society, instead of sitting around whining. I will not leave Israel. I love this country. 


Media attention will continue to focus on the bad news and on the cupidity of the scoundrels who caused global collapse.    

But there is good news, vastly under-reported. It is about the nobility of everyday heroes like the housekeeper, taxi driver, secretary and high-tech engineer, that will get Israel's and the world's economy through the downturn and onward and upward to better days. I salute and embrace them.