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

Remember when they told you that Israelis come together in times of trouble?   Israelis refused to let other Israelis into the shelter during a bombing, even though they had children with them, simply because they were from a different building. Here, not allowing Ukrainians to enter. Locking others out Preventing Thai workers from entering shelter Preventing Druze from entering the shelter In the spirit of fair reporting, I must say that I was on the street last night as some bombs roared overhead and an Israeli woman invited me to come into her yard for shelter. Although this was a religious woman, not one of the chilonim shown in these videos. Also, there were no crowds, the street and her yard were empty. 

I was surprised to see in my first few weeks in Israel that Israelis don't enjoy lively debate as falsely advertised. Rather, they hold in contempt anybody who isn't in complete agreement with their shitas. This applies in particular to politics. The moment you disagree about anything, you are out. You don't exist. You are the enemy. And so we learn as well that Israel doesn't actually have a democracy. You don't vote for a candidate here. You vote for a party that chooses who takes office. The party must cross a minimum electoral threshold that is currently set at 3.25%. Thus, new parties cannot get started. Not only that, when they try, their fundraising platforms are shut down. Sometimes old parties get new names but run by the same people. So in Israel, it's the same players decade after decade. In this generation it's Bennett, Lapid, Liberman, and of course Netanyahu. In the prior one it was Begin, Peres, Rabin, and Netanyahu. Israel does not have check...

 Life is on hold due to the lunatic state. 

 

When we arrived in Israel, we bought a used fridge from a young couple that was making "yeridah" as it is derogatively called. I see what they did as aliyah. The fridge worked for a few years, but the siding, that cushiony stuff that seals the door to the frame started to wear out. None of the repair men could fix it. Actually, none ever tried but on the phone, when we could get them on the phone, they said they couldn't. So the wife bought a brand new expensive computerized fridge. The old one was simpler. You just unscrew the bulb for Shabbos. This new fridge has a computer with a Shabbos mode. Sounds like all the modern conveniences that the shameful aliyah propagandist Hershel Schachter promises you every time he speaks in public. Well our new fridge doesn't work. It's warm most of the time. Food goes bad. Cheese I bought a week ago, that I know from experience will last a month, is moldy in a week. Same with cold cuts. The fridge omits the odor of rotting foo...

  Come get your living/dining room/den/office in one for $765,000. And this is outside of Jerusalem. So you'll be commuting one hour to work and earning 1/3 of what you would in America where you could buy for $400,000 a house with big bedrooms, and a den, playroom, and dining room and living room and yard. Goshmiyus? Luxury? No. It's called sanity because the kids will not be on top of one another. They'll have space to play. They also will live around more relaxed classmates and teachers who don't wind them up with aggression. The kids in Israel tear each other to pieces and do real harm. One of the most important parenting rules is to not assume that one’s children can handle what the parents dream that they can. You must careful with them and not put them into situations that they cannot handle. Rabbi Yonah Landsofer, the author of Meil Tzedaka, held that living in the land of Israel is a mitzvah even in our times, but that one is not obligated if he cannot earn a “...

A person in my family left a suitcase on a bus three weeks ago. Since we don't have a car, he has to take the bus. A since there's limited train service in Israel, he has to put his bag in the baggage compartment in the bottom of the bus (unlike on a train where it's next to you). And since getting off the bus is usually a stressful matter as you rush from your seat to the door, he forgot. We tried to intercept some buses on the way back to Jerusalem, asking three of them to open their baggage compartments. None had the bad. This took two hours.  Israel likes to pretend that it's a civilized country with actual lost and found departments, but I have never succeeded in retrieving anything from the lost and found. Staff is not helpful. We have made calls and they have promised for weeks that they'll get to it. So I tried to take matters into my own hands. I went to the end of the bus line where the buses are parked and asked if they had a lost and found. I was told, n...

Immigration to any country is difficult, but immigration to Israel is even more difficult because it's a very strange and troubled place. How so? For starters, it's a new country that was formed via war and continues to endure military conflict even if much of that is its own doing. It sits in a region that is hostile to it (for a variety of reasons) and to which it is hostile (for a variety of reasons) and is very different culturally from the kind of place it tries to be. It tries to be some kind of cholent of Western European/Eastern European/North American culture and politics cooked along with Jewish potatoes. But mostly it fails. Meanwhile, the countries around it are Islamic Arab. It's quite a contrast. Israel  would be a contrast to the countries of any region. And that contrast creates problems galore and drains the limited energy and resources of the country and the people who live in it.  France is a Western European country that sits in Western Europe. Japan is ...

The school is Darche Noam, a school for baalei teshuvah, and here's the program for their upcoming Zoom call: EXCLUSIVE Q&A WITH RABBI MOSHE HAUER: RSVP www.darchenoam.org/Hauer SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS NOW We’re living in a moment that asks more of us — as Jews, as leaders, and as a community facing growing pressure. From campus protests to rising antisemitism, from hostility towards Israel to painful divisions within our own ranks, and ever-growing moral confusion, the challenges keep coming: What is our role? How do we model clarity, responsibility, and moral courage? Join Rabbi Moshe Hauer, Executive Vice President of the Orthodox Union and a trusted voice of Torah leadership in today’s most challenging arenas, for a conversation about what it means to represent Jewish values with integrity. In this special program, Rabbi Hauer will offer brief opening remarks — rooted in a combination of Torah and real-world experience — followed by a candid Q&A drawn from questions submi...

As Sam Vaknin explains it, narcissists have no true self. There's nobody home. That's why their sole concern is image. And that is why they can't be religious because you need a self to connect to God, to have any kind of revelation. Narcissism is a kind of secular religion where the god is one's false self. It can never be a real religion. Here's where Zionism comes into play. You'll see in Zionists that they have effectively no moral or ethical interests. They have no values. The state is good because it's the political entity for the group that the Zionist sees himself being a part of. I rarely hear Zionists talk about the state of Israel being a good place, a moral place. It's usually our place. It's an extension of us. What is it? It's the place of the Jews, ie. my group. What's special about your group? What's special is that it's mine. And it's our land. Ours. Everyone else can leave. Is this not the talk of a narcissist? M...