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

  I pulled up Google street view in maps and showed her the school buildings I had attended and neighborhood I had grown up in. .... “You can’t see the room I was in for first grade, because it’s below ground,” I finally found the words. “There were two windows for the classroom that opened to a courtyard below street level.” “It looks like a prison,” she observed. “Why are there bars everywhere?” .... “I happen to know the building looks even worse now,” I told her. “They’ve put tarps over the bars so you can’t even see through them.” I continue the tour, showing her all three buildings where I spent 11 years of my life. “This was where the community garbage room used to overflow, and trash would pile up right to the door of the school building.” I showed her the window I sat beside, in 8th grade. It was covered in steel mesh, further contributing to the prison chic aesthetic. “But the window pane was broken, and during the winter I froze when I sat there. I ended up getting pneum...

Today I left the house a bit later than usual, just in time for children's rush hour. That is the time when all the young people are rushing off to school. That means jam packed buses because mass transportation in Israel is underfunded and subpar like everything here. I was reminded of my commute decades ago on the #6 train on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The train was so packed, that it was impossible to cram oneself inside. Three trains would go by before there was some kind of opening. I remember once standing there, bodies  pressed all around me, when I muttered half aloud, "Why do we live like this?" A man heard me and responded, "We choose to." These children don't choose to. Most were born into it. Some were born to lunatic parents who brought them from civilized countries to Israel because they were sure that geulah had come or because enough deranged Modern Orthodox rabbis convinced them that it was their duty. The parents generally are afflue...

Friend of a friend: his kid went to the airport to pick up luggage. Face recognition alerted security that he was a draft evader. They tackled him to the floor, shackled his hands and feet, and carried him off. Same friend was in a car leaving Beitar. At the road block, a soldier ripped open his door and demanded "Papers!" All of this was at gunpoint. The soldier explained that he was looking for draft evaders. What you didn't care about treatment of the local Arabs. You were so naïve to think that the Israelis would not eventually do the same to Haredim? A different acquaintance, soldiers came to the door, demanded to see the son, and carried him off, hands and feet shackled. Haredim are being hunted here. In my view, the Haredi olam in chutz should stop coming to Israel. Don't give El Al your money. Send a message. 

Signs like this appear in the hallways in Haredi neighborhoods in Israel all the time.  Translation: Dear Neighbors On the occasion of our family celebration We seek apartments for couples to sleep For the last Shabbos of summer break Parshas Re'eh We will be happy for your assistance. Thank you With good news and happiness Good Shabbos Family ______ Here's another: and another: and another: What's going on here is that the living spaces are so small in Israel that there's no space to house guests. This is not only a problem for hachnasas orchim but even for having adult children or parents visit for Shabbos. And if you are having a simcha, like a bar mitzvah, forget about it. Then you really are in trouble. The aliyniks have a standard manipulative tool which is to claim that anybody who doesn't move to Israel resists only because he can't give up his materialism. It's obviously a ridiculous charge. Frum Jews all over Brooklyn, Lakewood, Monsey, and Monroe ...

  Rav Avigdor Miller on Distinguishing Between Jews and Israel Q: Should we be worried that the "Zionism is Racism" resolution that was just passed by the UN is going to affect the Torah world? A: There's no question that what anybody does is going to affect us to some extent.  What the State of Israel has done affects us.  And what the enemies of the State of Israel does affects us.   But let's not confuse the issues. When these countries get together and they oppose the State of Israel, let's not be in a hurry to say that they're enemies of the Jewish people.   The Zionist organizations are longing that this should be the national slogan of all Jews, so that all Jews should be roped in; we should all be in the same boat together with them and whatever happens to them should chalilah happen to us.  No. We have to dissociate ourselves from this.  It doesn't mean we have to give comfort to the enemies of Israel but when we do defend the State ...

You might think that I write here from the perspective of Haredim, but for the Modern Orthodox, the target market for the liars at Nefesh b'Nefesh, life in Israel is just wonderful. However, arguably life is even worse here for the MO than it is for Haredim. Yes, the Haredim live in poverty. Yes, they must deal with the police. A friend of mine was in Beit Shemesh this week and told me how he watched the police spraying skunk water on women who were standing on the sidewalk as the protests over the autopsy went on, how the police beat protestors with heavy sticks and launched stun grenades. It's a tough life for Haredim. But it's rough for the MO in a different way. I have talked about MO life here, how it's so much less religious, women in pants for example. I have talked about how machmir MOs from YU come here and their kids come out barely religious if religious at all. I have talked about the army ordeal, even for the MOs, and how I have been to shivas for a dozen s...

One of the many falsehoods I was told before making the mistake of aliyah was that "in Israel nobody has a long commute." I was tired of the NY commute and was told that Israelis would never put up with that. Well, my first job here consisted of a 3 hour commute each way. I made that commute along with several other men. The commute from the town in which I live to Jerusalem is an hour, to Tel Aviv more than an hour. I know people who commute to Haifa. Every day, seminary girls commute to Jerusalem. This country is full of commuters making long commutes, braving traffic especially in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. My coworker commutes an hour to Tel Aviv. Here's what a web search revealed: Israel's average commute time varies, but official data suggests around 70% of workers finish within 45 minutes, though longer commutes are common, with some studies finding averages around 52 minutes one-way, longer than many countries, with significant variation by city (e.g., Tel Aviv v...