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

Today my wife is taking my daughter to see the surgeon that operated on her toe that got banged up in a swimming pool. The toe nail was damaged that's all. The doctor is in Jerusalem, which means a full day trip. The doctor isn't the best, sort of marginally qualified like most doctors in Israel. If we lived in America, a much better surgeon would be a 10 minute drive away.  I'll add that we had to be put on a six month waiting list to have the surgery in first place. She hopped around for six months. On my pilot trip, a former American neighbour of mine, a Zionist and a dentist, told me that Israeli health care was just as good as American, only free. I trusted him since he's a health practitioner, and since I knew him. A dentist is also a doctor.  He lied to me for the cause of getting me to Israel, which he needs for his own ideology of all Jews being in Israel. He lied about the quality, the availability, and even the cost. We recently received an emergency room bil...

My brother joins the Israeli military tomorrow. My main emotion is sadness, which is saying a lot because I don’t usually let myself feel much sadness. Yosef is joining a special-forces unit, which means he’ll be doing harder, more brutal training, get exposed to more dangerous situations, and do all this for an extra year longer than most Israelis. I’m sad because I don’t want him to lose four years of his life to an institution, where you alternate between sheer boredom and risking your life, emerging at the age when most Americans have graduated college with nothing to show but trauma and a burning desire to get of Israel, at least for a while. I’m sad because of the training he’ll be going through. Another brother who also served, was traumatized just by the training. Of crawling until you bleed. Of soldiers crawling through their own vomit. I have no desire to see the army make a man out of my brother. I prefer he stay the boy, the joker, the computer game playing socialite that I...

Last night a Haredi woman was assaulted by two teenage female chilonim in Beit Shemesh, They pepper sprayed her and beat her head against the pavement as people walked by. Finally, my friend's American wife ran towards them and they fled after stealing her purse. The military trains them to abuse Arabs, and that violence finds its way into Jewish Israel.  Zionists close their eyes to the violence against Arabs, accusing all claims of such to be "lies." But they are not lies, and we see the results in Jewish Israel. 

For an arid climate, much of the place desert, SSOI gets an awful lot of water damage. Ceilings leak, mold grows everywhere. You better be able to deal with moldy, crusty walls if you live here. All of this water damage has been repaired numerous times! But the mold and leakage just keeps coming back. Why? Because the apartments are not build well. America and England have far wetter climates where you don't see this in homes. The plumbing here is lame as is the construction of walls and roofs.  The issue isn't just living with fungus on your walls, which can be toxic, but it's dealing with people who don't take much pride in their work, or who do but work with materials made by people who don't take pride in their work. 

I know a rabbi who advises all olim to stay two years in Israel because you can’t see if won’t work out in less than two years. This to me is an example of how yeshiva guys turn everything into a formula that is presented as if it's from the Gemara. What is the basis for this two year rule? If you get to Israel and realize that you have been utterly lied to by aliyah evangelists, then two years isn’t going to change anything. If you have health issues and discover that the Israeli health care system isn’t 10% of what the American system is, then you need to leave now. That’s not going to improve. If you realize that you don’t like the culture, don’t like Israelis, then leave now. Because you are not going to like them in two years. They will still be obnoxious in two years. Now if your only issue is finding a parnassah or community or learning the language, two years might help. But if you come without money and find out that apartments cost $800,000 a piece and that you are never ...

  This is the kind of job olim get in Israel if they are lucky! 9,000 NIS a month is is $2,500 which is $30,000 a year. Monthly rent in the city where this job is offered will run you at least 6,000 NIS. That leaves you $847 a month for food, clothing, tuition, transportation costs, etc. Don't assume that this will all happen in a modern office. You will be packed into a room with ten other guys. You will work 40 hours a week. Any lunch breaks will be on top of that. I had a job here where I was required to clock out if I took a 10 minute break. So you'll be in the office 45 hours a week. 

Look at the hostility to Haredim and the dishonesty in the portrayal of them in this Times of Israel article:   Study: Ultra-Orthodox only pay 4% of total national taxes, costing economy billions Non-Haredi workers set to pay an additional average NIS 3,540 in taxes in 2025 due to low ultra-Orthodox employment, researcher finds     https://www.timesofisrael.com/study-ultra-orthodox-only-pay-4-of-total-national-taxes-costing-economy-billions/       “Despite constituting 14 percent of the working-age population, the ultra-Orthodox community generated only four percent of Israeli tax revenues in 2023, costing the government billions and adding thousands of shekels to the average non-Haredi worker’s annual tax burden, a study by the Israel Democracy Institute has found.”     And what’s the reason for this?     “According to the study — which was based on data from the Central Bureau of Statistics, Tax Authority, Population Authority, and Nat...

  Shortly before I moved to Israel an American Zionist living in the New York area told me that I'd find the most idealistic Jews in Israel. He was referring to olim. I have found quite the opposite, that the olim aren't really even Orthodox Jews. All they care about is living on the land. If their kids are killed in Gaza, no matter they are living on the land. If their kids go off the derech, no matter they are living on the land. The land, the land. It all reminds me of Westerns and stories of shotgun bearing hicks from Appalachia declaring "Get off my land." "You are on my land sheriff. I suggest you leave." It's all one big macho, gentile ego trip. At least the shotgun carrier in West Virginia is a farmer. He actually has some connection to the land. With the so-called olim it's conceptual. That's why it's a false religion. It's a worship of a notion about a thing. Could have been JC. Could have been a stone. It is a stone. That's...

All day long like this, every day. They won't serve, they won't serve, those terrible Haredim. Massive kerfuffle coming in Israel Ultra-Orthodox Jews vote for nationalism and then refuse to fight. Their growing numbers make this untenable. Outrage is mounting as an April deadline looms. It will surprise few to learn that the costly war in Gaza is causing political upheavals in Israel. But the main issue is not what most might expect — future arrangements with the Palestinians. Rather, it involves outrage over the ultra-Orthodox population’s widespread refusal to serve in the military. An April deadline looms. There is almost never an attempt to understand the Haredi perspective, that the army is secular yet tyrannical for example. Almost never will you hear this. The message is Haredim are bad, they are selfish, they are hypocritical, they are parasites. It's Nazi talk. And it's relentless.  You want more articles? That's easy. I'll just go right now to Israeli...

A former Israeli captive has admitted that she felt more safe and protected in Gaza than in Israel, the Hebrew Maariv newspaper reported yesterday. Mia Schem, 23, was released as part of a prisoner swap deal in November 2023. Earlier this month, Schem identified herself as the plaintiff in a previously reported rape case against a famouse personal trainer in Tel Aviv, who is a prominent figure on social media and has several celebrity clients, including a former prime minister. According to the paper, Schem alleged that the rape took place in her home, using a date rape drug, and that she does not remember many of the details. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250506-released-captive-i-felt-safer-in-hamas-captivity-than-in-israel/

   Read   https://chabadinfo.com A shocking act of vandalism has struck the soon-to-open   Chabad Etchalta Center   in Afula’s industrial zone. In the dead of night, unknown perpetrators   defaced and destroyed   the newly erected signs announcing the grand opening, sending shockwaves through the local Jewish community.     Rabbi  Amir Halevi , the Rebbe’s Shliach and director of the new center, arrived at the site in the morning, only to be met with a scene of devastation. “This is not just an attack on property. This is an attack on everything we stand for—love, unity, and kindness, ” he declared.  “Whoever did this has harmed the Rebbe himself!” Read full article And you came to Israel to escape anti-Semitism?

 "How can Jews act like that?" You'll find yourself asking that question repeatedly in Israel. After all, you never saw a Jew punch another in the eye, leaving a huge black and blue welt. Who was the victim, a mild mannered Yekke from Washington Heights.  I know the man and saw the welt.  Who was the puncher, an Israeli who decided in his deranged mind that this older man had looked at his girlfriend for a second.   You probably never saw Jews working as policeman before. But you also never saw a Jewish policeman swinging his club wildly at Haredi men who got out of a bus en route to a protest which historically has been quite sedate and brief. You may never have seen policemen not order the crowd to disperse before making arrests. Here, the police just start beating people, randomly. They also beat many people that they arrest, even if only because, as in one case, a neighbor called to say that an eighteen year old man married a seventeen year old young woman. ...

 

If one spouse is miserable in Israel, what will the other do? Will he or she do what's described in this beautiful song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhnRyQCeqXI L.A proved too much for the man (Too much for the man) (He couldn't make it) So, he's leaving the life he's come to know, oh He said he's going back to find (Going back to find) What's left of his world The world he left behind Not so long ago He's leaving (leaving) On that midnight train to Georgia (leaving on a midnight train) Hmm, yeah Said he's going back (going back to find) To a simpler place and time (and when he takes that ride) Oh yes, he is (guess who's gonna sit right by his side) And I'll be with him (I know you will) On that midnight train to Georgia (Leaving on a midnight train to Georgia) I'd rather live in his world (live in his world) Than live without him in mine (world, world) (It's his, his and hers alone) He kept dreaming (Dreaming) Oh, that someday he...