On January 16, MK Yuri Stern passed away after a long illness. He was a different kind of Knesset member - one that did not run to the press promoting every little speech he had made or telling the nation about activities that would never turn into anything concrete. Stern was different. He was a true representative of some of the most neglected groups of Israeli society.

One of those groups is the half million Holocaust survivors living in Israel today. Most of them are in their 80s, some of them are poor and do not have any income, medical insurance that covers serious illnesses, or anybody who can take care of them. Stern was the only member of Knesset who was ready to speak and act for the Holocaust survivors in Israel. In 2005, he tried to pass a law to provide benefits to Holocaust survivors. This law would give survivors defined as "survivors in need"  a 75% reduction in the purchase of medicines, an exemption from the annual TV tax, and help in getting government housing. Basically, Stern's law aimed to give Holocaust survivors the same benefits that are given to veterans of World War II.

The first half of the law also tried to define who is a Holocaust survivor - something that the State of Israel has never done.

This law would cost the state about  65 million shekels per year, according to estimates.  Stern did not manage to get the Knesset to pass it in 2005. The  Israeli Finance Ministry opposed the law and was willing  to allocate only NIS 7 million for this purpose.

The Finance Ministry's audacity is amazing. In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel received enormous sums of money from Germany as compensation for the Holocaust. Even though many of the survivors and their representatives wanted the money to be put into a special "Survivors Bank" so that it could be used to help survivors, the government of Israel  managed to thwart this attempt and have the money paid directly to the Finance Ministry.

Fifty years later, this ministry refused to allocate NIS 65 million to help the poorest of the Holocaust survivors so that, after surviving the Nazis, they would be able to end their days in dignity.

On January 2, 2007, Yuri Stern, ill and hardly able to function, managed to get his law passed. Two weeks later, he passed away at the age of 58.