Jerusalem ? The Israeli government will revise a widely criticized plan to grant needy Holocaust survivors a monthly stipend of $20, officials said Friday, after survivors said the plan was laughable.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced the plan this week in response to concern about poverty among the some 240,000 Israelis who survived the Nazi genocide, saying he was “correcting a 60-year-old blight.”

But the meager sum – 83 shekels a month, or $20 – drew scorn from survivors, and after a meeting Thursday night between Olmert’s staff and survivor representatives, the sides released a joint statement saying the government would look into new solutions.

The government and the survivors “decided to set a short timetable during which the pressing matters on the agenda will be worked out,” leading up to a meeting between Olmert and the survivors next week, the statement said.