Good, but...

Chabad commemorated the 21st anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster by airlifting 16 Jewish children from Ukraine and Belarus Israel.

Not only is this a super-snazzy way to make aliyah (in your face, Exodus!), it's also potentially life-saving:

Chabad’s Children of Chernobyl (CCOC) airlifted 16 Jewish children from the irradiated danger zones in Belarus and Ukraine to Israel Wednesday.

“We are marking this sad anniversary by taking action,” said CCOC Director Yossie Raichik. “While the world has moved on to the latest headline, radiation from Chernobyl is still wreaking disease and death. The world has forgotten these children. Today, we gave 16 of them a healthy lease on life. We must relentlessly focus attention on their plight. Tomorrow, we must, and we will, continue to alleviate their pain.”

That's very nice, but I can't help wondering something: what about everybody else there? Do they at least get radiation suits? How about cooperating with the Ukrainians and Belarussians to help evacuate the residents of the radiation zones (whether Jewish or not) so at least they aren't getting SICKER? If this is really the humanitarian crisis you're making it out to be, why not just help them MOVE?

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate helping kids not die of radiation poisoning as much as the next guy, I just don't see why they're only saving the kids. If these areas are so dangerous, why not get everybody out of there? I assume that's what they'd do if these people were living near an active volcano.

Is the article exaggerating the actual danger in order to justify Chabad's presumably apparently extremely cost-ineffective aliyah drive (which, I'm sure entirely incidentally, makes for great publicity)? Hard to tell. I'm just saying: if it's really that bad, why aren't they taking the parents too? Why split up the families? If you're already chartering planes to Israel, why not just toss grandma in the back with the luggage? And this way, you'd save money on care-givers!

I just don't get it.