Opinion | A Daycare Tragedy Opens My Eyes | Moment Magazine
Sometimes a single truth, belatedly discovered, can change one’s world view with surprising swiftness. The article that changed mine was published in Haaretz—a newspaper I never read, considering it, like most Israelis, to be far left of the Far Left. I’d only bought it because my granddaughter Matan’s photo was on the front page, part of an article about teen journal writing during COVID.
The article in question was a long interview by journalists Noa Lemone and Hilo Glazer with Anat Dayagi, founder of Parents for Infant Care, who was propelled to activism when her healthy eight-month-old son David died in a daycare center four years ago. At the time, there were eight babies in the center and only one carer, who later admitted she was “half-asleep” and did not know how to administer CPR. The carer called for an ambulance only after placing three phone calls to her husband. By the time the medics arrived, as they later told Dayagi and her husband, the baby was “blue and cold and had been dead for some time.”
Police investigators closed the case quickly, calling it a “crib death.” Dayagi investigated and was shocked to discover that no laws had been broken: Current Israeli law allows anyone to open a daycare center, without any licensing criteria, training or government inspection. “Criminals, pedophiles, drug addicts…no problem, all are welcome,” Dayagi says bitterly. No rule barred having one carer for eight babies, although accepted professional guidelines call for a one-to-three ratio.
Dayagi vowed to tighten the laws, and she made slow but steady progress getting the support of politicians and ministers—that is, until she hit the brick wall of the lobbying group Kohelet Policy Forum.
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