Moving to the secular state of israel (SSOI) - Not Kedai for most people

That's a standard aliyah propaganda line, that anybody who points out the shortcomings of life in SSOI is repeating the sin of the spies. The Jews in the Midbar were commanded by Hashem to enter the land. The spies were on a fact finding mission. They weren't supposed to sway the people against a Divine command. We do not have such a command. The mitzvah of yishuv ha'aretz in our time is optional. So says the posek HaDor Rav Moshe Feinstein who says this is the case even according to the Ramban. And the Ramban himself didn't come to EY until the last two years of his life when he escaped persecution in Spain. I'm talking about real persecution, not somebody tearing down a poster on the Columbia campus. Not only that but moving to Israel puts your obligatory mitzvahs at risk. Will you be able to learn as much Torah? Answer is no because you and your spouse will have to work six days a week. Will you be able to house guests? Usually not because you'll live in a ti

No, I'm not saying that. If you grew up there, if Hebrew is your first language, if your family is there, if your childhood friends are there, if you have childhood associations with this neighborhood or that, if you are used to cutting in line or shouting every displeasure, if you are used to the militarism, if you like soccer or are used to the amount of high culture that is there (not much), if you like smashing your buddies on the back, that's another story. Recently, I saw two Israelis shouting at each other. The yelling was so bad that I was sure a physical fight would break out. I contemplated what to do. Then, one slapped the other on the back, they broke into smiles and walking away laughing. I realized that they were friends. This is how people talk over here. If you can deal with it, fine. If you are from Minnesota, you never will get used to it. In Minnesota, if somebody yells at you, the chances are excellent that you did something wrong. Here if somebody yells, yo

This is a national sport in SSOI, calling the police on people. I have a friend who was a day late on his rent. His landlord called the police.  I was once playing whiffle ball with some kids. We had a nice game going, a whole playground with two teams. Then some teenagers came with a soccer ball and started kicking it around hitting the kids. When I asked them to stop, they screamed at me. At one point I grabbed the ball from them and they threatened to call the police.  I know a guy who married a girl who was around 18. I don't know her exact age. But a neighbor called the police on them claiming that she was underaged (according to the law), as if that mattered in his life. The policeman knocked on the door and threw him to the floor, kicking him. They then hogtied him and carried him to prison. A person in my neighborhood called the police on an outdoor minyan during the COVID craze. These men were outside and at least six feet away from one another. One guy was in the middle o

I work with two guys who are part Israeli/part American. They are Dati Leumi. And they have two personalities. There's the American personality with which they operate their business. Honest and pleasant. The Israeli personality comes out when they talk of other subjects. They regularly bash Haredim who they depict as dirty, lazy, violent, and worst of all (in their eyes) shamefully unwilling to join their ridiculous military. I ask them to stop. They keep doing it. When they tell me that Haredi neighborhoods are filthy, I open the front door of our office in a secular neighborhood and show them the pile of junk that we have been staring at for two years. I remind them of the pile of junk on the road near the office that we pass on the way to work. This doesn't affect their bad habit of sinas chinam charedim. Now a second story. One of the guys asked me if I knew of a shiduch for his older unmarried daughter. I said I'd think about it, but I could get a bracha from a tzadic

 Audio Amsterdam mayor says she regrets use of word 'pogrom' to describe attacks on Israelis Femke Halsema used the term to describe the violence which followed a football match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and the local Ajax football club. The Mayor of Amsterdam has said she regrets using the word 'pogrom' to describe the attacks on Israeli football fans in the Dutch capital following the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and AFC Ajax. Speaking at a press conference on the day following the match, Halsema had said "Boys on scooters crisscrossed the city in search of Israeli football fans, it was a hit and run. I understand very well that this brings back the memory of pogroms." But Halsema has now rowed back on her use of the term, claiming it had been manipulated to serve political agendas both nationally and internationally. "I must say that in the following days I saw how the word pogrom became very political and actually became propaganda. The Israeli gover

  "a waste of Judaism"