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

A local yeshiva is sending out Succah decorations to its donors, most of whom live in America. The only donors here are a few Americans. Israelis don’t give. So the staff stuffed 300 envelopes and took them to the post office, after making an appointment as is required and waiting three days. Guess what? The post office which is located in one of those so-called Anglo communities only had thirty international stamps, each of which needed to be licked. There were no self-adhesive sticker stamps So now the yeshiva clerk must make a new appointment for when the stamps that were ordered come in. Who knows if that will happen before Succos. I asked the woman who is handling all this for the yeshiva what her view is of Hershel Schachter's declaration that Israel has "all the modern inventions." She said the following: "It's ridiculous." I asked, "Why does he say it?" She thought a moment and said tentatively, "He wants it to be true, maybe. But it i...

 

A Mississippi man served 15 years for a murder his own DNA disproved. Kennedy Brewer sat in prison since 1995. The test came back clean. Someone else's semen. Someone else's crime. The district attorney had a choice. Admit the mistake. Or protect the record. He picked a third option. An accomplice, he said. No accomplice existed. No evidence backed it. The theory kept Brewer's file — and the prosecutor's win — intact.  Psychologist Carol Tavris studies this exact moment. Not the lie people tell others. The one they tell themselves. She calls it self-justification. The DA didn't see himself as corrupt. He saw himself as right. Reality had to bend to match.   Same mechanism that buried Ignaz Semmelweis in 1847. He proved handwashing cut childbed fever deaths. Colleagues rejected the data — not from ignorance, but from the horror of admitting they'd been killing patients for years by coming to the delivery room directly from morgues without washing their hands.  Sa...

My friend called up the Qumran National Park to inquire about it's hours. He was told "I don't know," by the employee who picked up the phone. He asked for someone who would know. After a half hour wait, another person got on the phone and said, "I don't know." Welcome to Israeli customer service and pride (or lack of it) in one's work.  Welcome to the experience of trying to pursue any of your interests here. My friend, who is intellectual, also tries to order books since books in English are not sold here. However, the mail service is atrocious in Israel and it's an ordeal to have books shipped to you. You wait for months. It's also expensive, and many sellers don't sell to Israel. Most of eBay does not ship to Israel. I am trying to arrange a visit to the Rockefeller Archeology Museum in East Jerusalem. The website says "The Rockefeller Archaeological Museum is temporarily closed to visitors." The same website provides a link...

I had a dentist in America  who builds his practice around what he calls sedation dentistry. He says that people are anxious about visiting the dentist and he doesn't want fear to hold them  back from getting the care that they need. He offers sedation dentistry to improve the experience. Primary among his techniques is the use of nitrous oxide to sedate nervous patients, including those with a gag reflex. He wrote in response to my inquiry, "Yes, we can use a few different techniques for patients who have a strong gag reflex. We have many patients with this issue and we have successfully treated them for over 25 years." This dentist was my family's dentist in America. We went to him because of his dedication to sensitive care as we have sensitive children. When we told him that we were moving to Israel, he told us that his brother is a dentist in the city to where we were moving and that we could go to him. However, his brother does not practice sedation density. The...

Israeli dentists are notoriously rough, which is not who you want poking around your mouth with sharp objects. So you think, I'll hire an American dentist, assuming that you'll get American care. One such dentist recently installed mercury filled amalgam fillings into a patient without telling him, as is customary, that the fillings are 50% mercury. Dentists all over the world notify their patients about the mercury and have them sign disclosure and permission forms. Why didn't the American trained dentist do this? It's because he lives in Israel and is affected by the Israeli mentality of militarism. Call it bossiness if you will. You just order people around. There's no sense here of respect or allowing people to make their own choices. There's no sense of giving them information. You just make declarations like a military commander. That is, after all, the religion here.  The environment got to him. So don't assume that there are Anglo enclaves in Israel....

A friend of mine called a music shop in Tel Aviv. He asked for directions. Here's what followed: Israeli: Look on Google. Don't bother me. Friend: I don't have Google. I don't have Internet. Can you help me with directions? Israeli: Oh, you are Haredi. F... off. Take your 15 children and leave. We don't want you. F... off. --------------------- I have been all over the USA and Canada and to many countries in Europe. Never did I receive treatment like that for being a religious Jew. Do you want to get away from antisemitism? Don't come to Israel. Such lovely people. Welcome home to family.