Home sweet home

Everybody needs a place to rest

Everybody wants to have a home

Don't make no difference what nobody says

Ain't nobody like to be alone

So sang rock 'n roller Bruce Springsteen who grew up near Lakewood, NJ by the way. And he certainly captured a truth there. Leave it to aliyah pushers to capitalize on this sentiment by telling you to "Come Home."

Even the Xtians, who generally follow like sheep anybody else who lords over them (that's how they became Xtian in the early days), get into this.

They get that line from the aliyah pushers. 

Since everybody wants a home, the heart melts when it hears these sentimental words. You are living now in a civilized and affluent  country, but still it's goyish and their values are sinking fast. So why not "go home" to your own land and your own people?

Now Western values are sinking fast largely because of the influence of decadent secular Jews like those in Hollywood, the new Democrat party, and now the liberal parties of Europe. So why will it help to come to a country that is run by even more decadent secular Jews? Have you been to Tel Aviv or Haifa or to the secular part of Jerusalem? You'll find better morality in Dallas, Texas.

Well, the aliyah pushers show you what they want to show you, and they fail to mention this. In fact, they portray the Israeli leaders as being welcoming to religion because they light a Chanukah candle now and then while wearing a yarmulka that one of their aides popped on their heads. And since the secular leaders complain about Charedi influence all day long you actually imagine that Charedim have any influence in Israel. 

In actuality, Charedim have little power in Israel, just a bit of influence when forming government coalitions. But we see from the attempt to reduce the power of the self-appointed, tyrannical out of control court that even that doesn't amount to much. The right wing won the election with the help of the Charedim and wasn't able to change anything because the leftist heads of the corporations, military, and newspapers refused to abide by the law and the democratically elected government. The cabinet, the major corporations, the banks, insurance companies, universities, military, police, newspapers, and the courts are all run by non-religious people and sometimes with a handful of barely religious Dati Leumi. 

If you are a yeshiva man in America you get fooled as nearly every Israeli you meet is a rabbi on a fundraising mission from Jerusalem so you get this false impression that Israel is brimming with Charedim. It isn't. If you leave the Charedi enclaves, things become secular real fast and stay that way for hours and hours of driving. I once took a trip to Tel Aviv and then Haifa and saw barely a religious person. I stood in the bus stations in both cities and counted as 100 people went by. In each place, only 1 person showed any signs of religious observance. 

In Haifa I sat in the large cafeteria of an American corporation that was staffed with hundreds of secular Israelis. There wasn't a yarmulka in sight but there were plenty of glares at me for looking charedi. Why would they do that? It's because charedim don't serve in the army. They look at you and that's all they think. They are obsessed with this. Well that and their smart phones. 

Everybody at this job knew that I was a new oleh. It was announced on my first day there. I thought that meant they'd reach out to me. That didn't happen at all,. 

So are you really coming home? The Torah is home. These people don't observe the Torah and they don't care about you. That's not family. Are they family in some other way? No, not at all. Israel is full of internecine strife. The groups hate one another. Really hate. 

What about within your group, what about among Orthodox Jews? Well, the Dati Leumi and the Charedim have nothing to do with each other. And the Dati Leumi aren't going to be friendly to you. Even the olim. Olim I knew in America have never had anything to do with us, never offered any help, never had us over. There was one guy who to get me to come promised me all kinds of help "You won't believe how much help I'm going to give you," he said. He never did a thing. Never contacted me, even though I contacted him a few times. 

And even within the groups, people are not friendly. This is not a folksy, friendly place. Societies as paranoid as that of Israel are not going to be friendly places. I have been davening Scharachis in the same shul for 7 years. It's totally cold. Nobody talks to me. I talk to them, have introduced myself several times. Doesn't help.

So what about this idea in times of trouble they come together. Well that's another bit of nonsense. I have been through the COVID crisis and Oct. 7 and the year following it. People not only don't come together, they become more hostile. During COVID, they called the police on one another, they shunned one another, they shouted at one another, banned people from shuls. Post Oct 7 is no better, particularly for Charedim, those people who don't serve in the army.

So if you come without having real family here expect to be very lonely. Yeah, there are some gatherings in the frum areas, maybe a hachnachas sefer torah where you stand in the street with people who don't talk to you and watch the rolling chupah pass by. You go back to your little apartment and sit by yourself all night. It's not just me. I don't see anybody going into my neighbors' apartments either. For one thing, the apartments are so small. It's uncomfortable to visit people. Also, people work long hours, two jobs at a time. They aren't available. 

If you don't speak Hebrew well you'll be further isolated. You can't move to a country if you don't speak the language.

So maybe they are socially cold but generous? On my pilot trip, one American yeshivish rabbi told me, "They have no derech eretz here but they'll give you the shirt off their back."

Well that's another line, another lie. Even though this man says he is yeshivish, he's a zionist who lives in fantasy. Everyone who comes here is like that. Israelis for the most part won't give you the shirt off of your back. I have told stories about this elsewhere in this blog, how Israeli bus drivers kick families off the bus at 12 midnight because they don't want to finish their routes. I was once with my kids in Jerusalem late at night and a large hotel wouldn't rent me a room because they don't want kids in the hotel. They sent us back into the night. I said, here's my credit card. We'll be gone in the morning. Nope. 

I have talked about how precarious the job situation is here. How people get laid off and fired all the time. Housing is similar. If you don't own your own apartment, expect to be pushed out of your apartment again and again. There's an elderly lady who lives currently on my street. She says she has been in eight apartments. The Israelis are merciless. They just kick you out.

So forget this coming home business. The land of Israel is your home only in the abstract sense, it's a promise that's out there. It's not for today. It is not home right now. You are not coming to family. 

Now I must say that the Jews in the Charedi enclaves like Meah Shearim are much better. But that's not where you are going to live. That's not who you are going to deal with, work with if you move here.

Better to stay in America or England and send those people some tzedukah. They are really good people but they are less than 1% of the population.