3,000,000 Israeli New Shekel equals 831,485.59 United States Dollars.
Need I say any more? Salaries in Israel are half that of the USA, and a third of what Jews in the USA typically earn. Salaries for non-Hebrew speaking Olim are half of that. Yet, you need $800,000 for an apartment with one room for the parents, one for the girls, and one for the boys. If you have six kids, where are you going stick everyone? And when they marry, how are you going to afford the apartment that you are expected to buy them?
100 square meters is 1076 square feet. A typical American home, in say Cleveland, is 1,500 square feet with a yard. Cost? $150,000.
So let's summarize:
Beit Shemesh: 3 bedrooms, no yard, 1076 square feet, $800,000.
Cleveland Heights: 3 bedrooms, front and back yard, 1,500 square feet, $150,000. And Cleveland has much higher salaries.
As for the cynical, judgmental, ignorant and generally affluent rabbis who move to Israel and claim that anyone who doesn't want to move there simply refuses to give up his luxuries -- what do we say to such fools? Should we talk to them at all?
Why do they operate under the impression that everyone who lives in America lives in luxury? It’s because that’s the type of people they associate with. They either grew up with money or pursued gvirim for donations. Nobody else exists. What about all those humble Yidden living in apartments in Brooklyn, Lakewood, and Monsey? They aren’t big donors so they are not noticed by such rabbis. Only the fraction that live in luxury are the ones that they see. So when a Zionist tells you that people who don’t leave America or Europe refuse to give up their luxuries, he is really just talking about his rich friends. Nobody else exists to him.
As for the many humble Yidden living in Chutz, moving to Israel could very well sink their barely floating boat. But what does a rabid Zionist care about that? He cares only about his ideology, his idol.
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