Here's a real estate lesson for you. In Israel 3 rooms means 2 bedrooms:
And 5 rooms means 4 bedrooms.
3 minus 2 = 1. 5 minus 4 = 1. So what's the one? That's your living-dining-den-playroom. It's all one room.
And here's that room:
Viewed from the other direction:
Isn't that glorious? That's where you stick your dining room table and your couch. The kids play or try to between them. All this for 2,190,000 NIS or $625,549 in a town outside of Jerusalem.
And that's for a 2-bedroom. A 3-bedroom apartment will cost you 2,650,000 NIS or $791,580.
Here's your all purpose room for $791, 580. It's a little bigger.
Here's the all purpose room shown with table in a different apartment. How many guests can you fit at this table that has to be pushed aside so you can get in the door? This apartment cost 3.8 million shekels which is 1.1 million dollars. Here's your dining room for a million and a hundred thousand dollars.
Here's your all purpose room in a 4-bedroom $957,818 apartment:
Back to the $625,549 apartment. Here's your kitchen. Imagine trying to prepare a Shabbos meal with the limited counter space.
Here's your bedroom:
But don't worry, you get 2 of these for 2.1 million shekels.
Here's what this kind of bedroom looks like once you put the bed and standing closet in there:
Where in that room do the children play or do homework?
Here's a video of the 3 room/ 2 bedroom apartment in Beit Shemesh:
Here's your outdoor area where you stick your succah and your kids try to play soccer:
Or they might try to play soccer outside in the blazing heat in an area like this. Sometimes play is even paused when a woman hurries by with a baby stroller.
By contrast, here's what you get for $249,900 in Cleveland:
Separate large living and dining rooms
Kitchen:
Bedrooms
It seems that the porch in Cleveland is larger than the living/dining room den in Israel:
Here's a three bedroom house in frum Cleveland for $189,000.
You know what this means? The ladies can gather in the living room, while the men talk Torah in the dining room. Imagine a Shabbos that is shared with neighbors. Children can play downstairs or outside in the yard. You are living like a mentch.
Not so in Israel. In Israel, there is no room for guests, not sleepover guests and not much room for Shabbos guests. There is little room for the kids to play. There is little room for them to have friends over. This means Shabbos consists of barricading themselves in the apartment, bored. People don't visit each other because the second you walk through the front door you are practically in the back of the apartment. There's nowhere to sit. The family crowds the all-purpose room, mother and father, son and daughter. The guest is a male. The guest is a female. It's uncomfortable. It's not kosher. And it's all for three times the cost of middle America. You are paying three times as much to get one third the product. It's madness.
There is little room to cook or to do homework or study Torah. There's barely any place to work on a project, to build playmobile, to make a puzzle.
You squeeze the children into one room, or three boys into one room and three girls into the other. They wake each other up. They fight.
Do you think that they are going to grow up mentally healthy in this situation?
I know some of you love the Medinah, and the flag. For some bizarre reason seeing Jewish boys and girls in green goyish military fatigues makes you feel tingly all over. Or maybe you just love the land, or you fantasize that you do. Rabbi Soloveitchik describes that as fetishizing the land, which is not a good thing to do.
If you deem it preferable to spend $625,000 to get a tiny 2 bedroom apartment in Israel where there is no room to function to spending $250,000 for 4 bedroom house in the frum Cleveland community with a front and back yard as well as a den, living room, and play room than you really should consider living in a mental hospital instead. Well, that's pretty much what Israel is, so maybe that is the place for you.
And what about the aggressive and rude people of Israel verses the polite people of Ohio? Remember middos?
And what about spotty employment for a third the salary in Israel verses more steady employment for triple the salary in Ohio? That means more time for Torah study.
And what about living in a country whose language you speak? That's mostly likely not Israel. You might even be able to help your kids with their homework.
And what about living in a country with quality medical care? That's not Israel, not compared to the USA.
How about the military conflict and three years of mandatory military service of Israel verses living in the history's most militarily safe country where there is no mandatory service?
And what about a government that is antagonistic to religion (Israel) versus one that is respectful of religion (USA)?
Has there been a madness in the history of the world like Zionism to convince people to live like this, to damage their children and see themselves as idealistic or spiritual when they are being complete fools and materialists?
Materialists you ask? Yes, they are trading in Shabbos, which is not materialistic, I'm not even sure what it is. Is it space and time? You refrain from melacha. You say pasukim. Can you hold Shabbos in your hand? They are trading that in for land, which is a material. Or they trade in Shabbos for a flag or a military jet (American made) flyover. Who is the materialist? In every accusation there's a confession.
Do you fantasize that life in Israel is more spiritual because it's Eretz Yisroel? Are they more spiritual in Tel Aviv? Living in EY doesn't make you more spiritual, and I can testify that even the Haredim in Israel are no more spiritual than Haredim in chutz. Meah She'arim is special but you aren't going to be living there and if you do you won't be able to function because you'll come with too much stuff and you don't have family there. For them, life is largely about family. Your kids will be isolated and bored.
Once again, your kitchen for $625,000 in a city in Israel that's an hour away from most jobs:
Your kitchen in Cleveland for $249,900
Here's a Cleveland kitchen for $189,000
Israel: 904 sq. feet for $625,549 or 1076 square feet for $791,580
versus
Cleveland: 2,394 sq. feet for $249,900. And a front and back yard on top of that.
And not only Cleveland but St. Louis, Dallas, Minneapolis, Atlanta and many other cities.
This isn't a matter of living in luxury. It's a matter of living with dignity and sanity. Cruddy surroundings affect on the mind. Man made materials don't age very well. People take photos of old farm houses because they are made of natural wood. Formica and plastic just become gross. In the shtetl people lived in small houses, but they were natural. And they were surrounded by nature, by lakes you could drink from, by virgin forests, by entertaining farm animals and majestic wild animals. Israel has none of that. In the shtetl, you didn't have space inside, but you had it outside. And the people were humble and mentally healthy. Today, we are nuts. Between the poison in the food and the poison in the culture we are all crazy, and we can't live on top of one another. There needs to be a little space, a little privacy. You don't get that in Israel, not even for $800,000.
On top of that, if you don't have the money to buy these run down shoe boxes in Israel, and you have to rent, you might not get to stay there very long. Renters frequently get kicked out of their apartments. I have a friend who has lived in five apartments in ten years. Several of my neighbors were forced to move to entirely different neighborhoods and their kids distanced from whatever friends they had made.
So how did we get here? Let's continue with part II of the real estate lesson.
Here's where Rabbi Hershel Schachter lives.
See, the address on his haskamas:
He's the famous Modern Orthodox Rabbi who guilts, frightens, nags and - I'm sorry to report - misleads people to move to Israel. He does not follow his rebbe in doing this. Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik told most people not to move to Israel. He said that he knew many who moved there and things did not work out. He said you have no obligation to live there, and you must be very careful with the decision.
Rabbi Schachter tells you that you are obligated. He tells you that the golus is over, and the protection by HaShem in golus is no more. He tells that you "Eretz Yisrael is a wonderful country to live in. There's nothing backward over there. They have all the modern inventions." He claims that they even have equivalent jobs in your profession. Actually, he tells you that everybody but he is obligated to live there. Rabbis are exempt from the mitzvah, he claims, because they are needed in chutz. What about doctors or teachers or grandmothers who are needed? He only mentions rabbis.
All of that is patently false. Israel is a second world country. It doesn't have all the most modern anything, except what it gets from America in military hardware. Even its government is backwards and crude. Transportation, health, even education doesn't compare to America or Western Europe or Japan or even much of China. The military has better stuff because it gets it from America, but that doesn't translate into your daily life.
All of the appliances I bought here break. And I mean everything: drier, washer, fridge, phones, clocks, fans. Our water heater has been repaired multiple times. Our circuit board has been repaired. Doorbell doesn't work.
I haven't had a working refrigerator in five months and we bought it new. It cost around $1,700. It was supposed to be fancy. That's what we were told.
But it doesn't cool. Since the freezer works, we freeze water bottles and put them in the fridge. We must do this five times a day. So I am back to the ice boxes of the 1930s. We have had repairmen over five times. There's one coming by today, and one came by last week. See these bottles:
We freeze them and place them in the fridge to cool it, or more precisely to keep it from becoming not quite room temperature.
It seems that equivalent fridges are half the price in America. Generally, appliances are twice the price here (while you earn 1/3 as much income). Cars are twice the price. The buses break down. Electric bus signs don't work .
or are vandalized and never replaced.
Even the temperature sign at the Dead Sea doesn't work.
Bus card readers don't work. I once got a ticket for not paying when I had swiped my card six times. The driver told me it was good and to sit down. He didn't defend me when I got the ticket. And the card checker, who had a militaristic personality, made the situation as embarrassing as possible.
Far more seriously, health care here isn't even close to that of America. You wait five months for an MRI, four months to see a surgeon for a simple procedure.
Jobs aren't even close. Salaries are 1/3. Most olim work in sweat shop level jobs if they work at all. Like most American Zionists Rabbi Schachter sees himself as knowing Israel just because he thinks about it all the time. But he doesn't know. He operates from from privilege and myth. When he comes here, he gets escorted around and stays in the nicest homes. When Rabbi Schachter talks about Israel I'm reminded of a quote from Thomas Sowell about pontification by experts: “When you step outside your level of specialty, sometimes that’s like stepping off a cliff.”
You'll notice that his logic is very simple. He does this on many subjects: gets, vaccines, paying taxes, divorce.
For example, he says, a child who doesn't take vaccines should be kicked out of school. That's very simplistic, as well as heartless. Even if you view vaccines as scientifically sound, to force a Jewish child to public school is truly dangerous. Some people respond poorly to vaccines. It's in the family history. Also, if vaccines work, aren't the vaccinated protected even from the unvaccinated? What about the violation of the rules of damages in that vaccine makers are exempted by Congress from law suits? So you are trusting the good intentions of gentile corporations with your health. I have worked in corporations. You can't trust these CEOs as far as you can throw them. They are concerned only with law suits. Tort law is a pillar of the justice system. Even free market economist Milton Friedman who says that most government services are not needed says that you need courts to judge torts. Not having tort rules on vaccine makers violates the sheva mitzvos, mitzvah 7, of having a justice system. Thus, the topic is complex, but not to Rabbi Schachter. Kick the kid out of school. And if I recall correctly, those are the exact words he used. Yet, Rabbi Schachter tells you that you can't leave your sandwich in the office because a goy can't be trusted not to put something traife in it. But you can trust a CEO. So there's a contradiction there as well as simplistic thinking. Actually, his psak about sandwiches in the office is also simplistic. There are all kinds of gentiles. There are offices where nobody would dare touch your sandwich.
Another example involves gitten. We beat up the husband he says. And he says it just like that. That's not what the Rambam said. The Rambam talked about the beis din hitting the husband in extreme cases. That's why deep down the husband knows he should give the get. He knows he's a tyrant or that he's repulsive. But in a case, like many of those today, where the woman just doesn't the guy anymore, maybe he doesn't earn enough money, and wants to toss him out and take the kids and the house, then the guy deep down doesn't think he should give a get. You can't just beat him up. That's a forced get. And it's unjust. Every situation is different. The matter is complex. But not to Rabbi Schachter. He's simplistic and he's not compassionate. He has a pleasant speaking manner but his statements can seem heartless.
I have heard that his gemara shiurim can be complex. But when he talks about regular life or the application of halacha, he is overly simplistic. And he's nowhere more simplistic than when he talks Zionism.
Being overly simplistic leads to contradiction and hypocrisy. Let's examine the latter. He lives in a very nice part of Manhattan blocks from some of the world's greatest medical centers.
Here's the entrance to Rabbi Schacter's building:
His address:
These photos are from various apartments in his building:
Here's the lovely new room where he gets to work:
According to Aaron Rakeffet, another aliyah promoter, (but at least he does live in Israel) Rabbi Schachter makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year between his YU salary and his many speaking engagements. Professors at YU can make $275,000 a year.
One of his sons lives in Woodmere, NY, one of the famous Five Towns, known for wealth.
He is the rabbi at a Young Israel which is possibly the largest Young Israel in the world. It's main room seats 700. (Source) He works here:
Nice. Here's the Aron Kodesh
Nice.
Here's what one of those homes looks like:
He seems to have survived it. At least he's smiling for his famous grandfather. This guy didn't survive it:
Not including the yard, that's 4x the area of my apartment.
See that huge fridge on the left, that's what you call all the modern inventions, the ones RHS claims you'll find in Israel.
More from 24 Bennett Ave
These are all million dollar apartments. They are beautiful. I can see why people like him are under the false impression that everyone in chutz lives in luxury. He does.
About
This Stunning Pre-War Co-op has it ALL! Tucked inside on of Hudson Heights’ FINEST blocks, you will have everything you need at your fingertips! The A Express, Starbucks, wine stores, restaurants, parks and incredible deli’s all steps away! This building is pristine with beautiful lobby, clean and bright hallways and common areas. This property offers laundry room, elevator, storage and bike storage!! If you are looking for a Semi-Luxury home in a convenient and beautiful location with these amenities look no further! 24 Bennett is the perfect place to call home.
Pre-war buildings are spacious, with tall ceilings, solid walls, big windows, and fancy lobbies.
Here's the lobby of 24 Bennett Ave.
Here's when he davens, at KAJ the world's most organized and clean synagogue.
He works at Yeshiva University which is 1,000 feet from his apartment:
Here's the lovely new room where he gets to work:
But in Israel an oleh is lucky to earn $25,000 a year and lives like this:
His lobby in New York:
Your lobby in Israel:
You think maybe that you are being conned?
For that photo, I didn't seek out an ugly 'lobby.' I just walked into the first building I saw and took the photo. So many of them look like that.
Rabbi Schachter does say that you are not obligated to make aliyah if you cannot earn a kavadick parnassah. However, he believes that you can. But he doesn't know the reality. He hasn't tried to find a job here. He also doesn't seem to know about the cost of apartments or cars.
And where do Rabbi Schachter's children live? I know where some of them live. One lives in Passaic. One lives in Toronto, Canada. "He grew up in New York, lives in Toronto with his wife and children, and spends much of his time with clients all over the world." Really? He gets to travel all over the world. I haven't been on a plane in 8 years. I can't afford it and I can't get time off.
Here's the lovely office building where his son works in, in Toronto:
One of his sons lives in Woodmere, NY, one of the famous Five Towns, known for wealth.
He is the rabbi at a Young Israel which is possibly the largest Young Israel in the world. It's main room seats 700. (Source) He works here:
Nice. Here's the Aron Kodesh
Nice.
The homes in that neighborhood all have market value of over 1 million dollars:
Many are two million dollars:
Here's what one of those homes looks like:
I don't know the man's salary but GlassDoor.com tells me that a senior rabbi at a large Young Israel can make $250,000 a year. And it that neighborhood, I'm sure he's well paid. Rabbi Schachter's son probably lives in a house that looks something like this.
I guess his kids didn't get the speech about how everyone should live in Israel and serve in the military and go into combat zones even just to hold on to land.
What Rabbi Schacter should do is tell you to move to Cleveland if you can't afford New York. Or Dallas, or Toronto, or St. Louis or Passaic. He should tell you to live in the kinds of places that many of his children live. But he tells you -- and it seems that it's every time he talks publicly -- to move to Israel. There you may even get to watch your sons go into the military where 850 have been killed this year, 20,000 maimed, and 20,000 stricken with post traumatic stress disorder.
Here he's talking to his grandson who under his influence risked his life and sanity in Gaza:
He seems to have survived it. At least he's smiling for his famous grandfather. This guy didn't survive it:
That's my neighbor's kid. I attended his funeral. The parents are olim.
I once attended a shiva where Rabbi Schachter was in attendance. The family was American and seemed to know him. I presume that he influenced them to move to Israel. I wondered what went on in his head. Was he feeling any guilt for this death, that he influenced this family to move to Israel and now their son was dead? Not only that but all the deceased young man's friends and siblings were of questionable religious orientation. I didn't see tzitzis. Most did not have yarmulkes. The parents were right-wing YU. The kids were barely religious if at all. Once the family got to Israel, the kids plummeted religiously. (No their mitzvahs were not enhanced.) And one was dead. Did it bother Rabbi Schachter?
I'm guessing that the answer is no in light of his words on the subject of giving land for peace. He actually says that defending any piece of land is always a mitzvah, even at the cost of lives. I don't see how land in the hands of apostate Jews is considered saved since they are sinning all over it, but that's another subject. He says also that it is forbidden to pray for peace in Eretz Yisroel, because the Israeli-Arab wars are the “beginning of the redemption” and if there is peace, it will delay the redemption. (Source: Torah Jews) Thus, your job is to live like a pauper and send your sons into war zones in Israel while he and his family live in luxury and safety in New York and Toronto.
In all of this he again does not follow the gadol he calls his rebbe. Rabbi Soloveitchik said that calling Israel the beginning of redemption was "stupidity." Rabbi Soloveitchik said we cannot give up life to hold onto land. Only in the time of Yehoshua could they do that because HaShem commanded it. We can only give up life to save the entire yishuv for the reason that it protects against assimilation.
If you say, how can little old me question Rabbi Schachter? It's easy. I just defer to his rebbe, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, who Rabbi Schachter contradicts in all these matters.
And I add to that my experiences and observations on the practicalities in Israel. On that, I know better than him, much better.
Side note, in my opinion the state of Israel does not protect against assimilation. It worsens it because Jews become like gentiles, and as of late, some of the worst gentiles. But that's my opinion. It is also my opinion that the entire yishuv has never been in jeopardy and certainly not in the last 60 years. Generals and Mossad heads will tell you that Gaza doesn't threaten the yishuv's existence, so endangering soldiers in Gaza is not justifiable according to Rabbi Soloveitchik.
My words here are not intended as a generalized disparagement of Rabbi Schachter. I have met him several times. He's pleasant enough. He is dedicated to harbatzas Torah and has given much to klal Yisroel over half a century in that effort. On many issues he's a sane voice, issues such as men getting a dignified parnassah, etc. although all of that is nullified if he convinces you to move to Israel.
He has put enormous amounts of work into being a posek for the MO community. He's a significant figure in our times. And so, my presentation here must be confusing to any Modern Orthodox person. All their lives they were told that Rav Schachter is their gadol. What can I do? I think on this issue he's dangerous. It's on this issue of aliyah that I question him. And it's an important matter since naïve people listen to him.
Believe me that I grasp the questionability of my criticizing so harshly a talmid chocham of the stature of Rabbi Schachter. I'm aware that we try not to do that and to be very careful when we do. The justification here is not that I feel that I caught him making a mistake in some remote page of an obscure sefer. Rather, he promotes aliyah every chance he gets and he speaks to innocent audiences that trust him blindly. The repercussions are not limited to a misunderstanding about a halacha or an hashkafic idea. The repercussions literally can amount to life or death, to successful lives and ruined lives of adults and children. So I deem it acceptable that I speak up. If some anger or disrespect pokes through, I apologize. I'll try to correct it. But speak up I will because I believe strongly that he is wrong in his public handling of this topic. The Gemara says that a rabbi should not poskin for another city because he doesn't know the realities there. Likewise, a rabbi shouldn't tell you to move to a place where he doesn't live, a place on the other side of the world, a place in a radically different culture that he doesn't experience first hand.
Rabbi Schachter should also recognize that his views on this topic are daas yachid. Outside of the dati leumi camp, you don't find mainstream poskim who see the state as geulah, aliyah being a requirement, that the golus has ended, or most of all, that giving up life for any piece of EY being a requirement or even mutar. He has made statements that are even crazier than these, but I won't get into them here. He has to recognize that his views are unusual and that they go against that of his own rebbe. Thus he shouldn't try to normalize them throughout klal Yisroel, to the point where he even criticizes groups outside of his own for not following him. He has no business meddling into the lives of people outside his community.
Of course, he's critiquing Haredim for not joining in his aliyah madness. But aliyah is far worse for them as they are discriminated against in Israel. According to the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, the high-tech sector, where the highest salaries are found, is composed almost entirely of non-Haredi Jews. There is job discrimination against even qualified Haredim. I have experienced it. And the military is a no-no for Haredim. The Dati Leumi barely survive it with religion in tact. For a Haredi youth to suddenly be surrounded by young women, to be told you don't listen to your rabbis here, you listen to me - says a 20 year old commander - that's a non-starter. Rabbis shouldn't be budding into the business of other communities.
But it's not only him. He tells rabbis in the Modern Orthodox world that follows him to tell their congregants to move to Israel. The rabbi of a shul I attended did that. Over a decade ago, Rabbi Cohen called all the men in and told us to move to Israel. Several did. However, Rabbi Cohen never left. He lives in a 4,012 square foot $731,800 home in New Jersey. This one:
Not including the yard, that's 4x the area of my apartment.
Rabbi Cohen looked so earnest that day. I sensed that he was grappling with the decision, trying to convince himself. Instead he convinced some of his congregation as he's still in America, more than a decade later. Just like Rabbi Schachter. Just like many of Rabbi Schachter's children, not all of whom are rabbis.
And there are many more besides these two. Here's another example. A man told me a story of a how a young man came to his house for a Shabbos meal in America and embarked on a diatribe about how everyone must move to Israel and anyone who doesn't is a sinner. He was asked incredulously if that includes tzadickim like Rav Moshe Feinstein. Yes, everyone he said.
You can guess it. This young man never made aliyah. Instead, he and his wife built a huge house, that outsizes all the others in the neighborhood and that's where he lives today, in New Jersey. I'm told that this house is like a palace and is much bigger up close than even this photo shows.
The Modern Orthodox world is rife with aliyah talk which consists mostly of fantasy about the state of Israel and the mitzvah of living there. The yeshiva world has people like that too. And they all tell fairy tales. And where there are fairy tales there's hypocrisy.
When it comes to the topic of Israel and the topic of aliyah, many people deem it acceptable to deceive or at least to fail to be objective, fail to pursue facts, to live in fantasy land and to push you to do the same.
It all reminds me of Shabbtai Tzvi. Far better people than those in our generation have been caught up in false messianism before. Greater talmidei chochamam than Rabbi Schachter have been caught up in it and other follies. Rabbis in the First Temple Period worshipped idols.
The Gemara tells the story of how Rav Ashi, an Amora circa 4th century, somewhat reached across time to challenge King Menashe, who lived long before Rav Ashi in the First Temple period, in a debate. Rav Ashi was impressed by Menashe's Torah knowledge. He asked how one so knowledgeable in Torah could commit the grave sin of idol worship as Menashe did. Said Menashe, the urge for idol worship was so strong in earlier times that had you Ashi been there you would have picked up your coat and run to worship idols.
Of course, Menashe didn't only worship idols. He caused others to do the same.
So we see that people who are great in Torah knowledge, people who are incomparably greater than anyone today, can fall for idolatry of one kind or another. They can stumble and sin. It's not enough for someone to be knowledgeable before you follow them. There are other qualifications. Rabbi Schachter's views on Zionism are unusual and don't match those of the great poskim of the Yeshivish, Chassidic, and Sephardic worlds. They don't even match those of his own rebbe.
There's your real estate lesson for the day. But it's much more than a real estate lesson. It's a lesson in hypocrisy and misguided leadership. You can even say that it's a lesson in demagoguery.
What's the demagoguery? First let's define it. Here's two definitions:
- the action of winning support by exciting the emotions of ordinary people rather than by having good or morally right ideas.
- a leader who gains popularity by arousing the common people through oratory that whips up the passions of crowds, appealing to emotion by scapegoating out-groups, exaggerating dangers to stoke fears, lying for emotional effect, or other rhetoric that tends to drown out reasoned deliberation and encourage fanatical popularity.
Is that not what's going on here with this talk of national redemption, the shechinah and its protection departing from golus, and misrepresentation about life in Israel? It's like a politician sending men into battle while he sits safely at home. What's worse it's all said in the name of the Torah, even against the readings of that same Torah by great scholars, including the very teachers of the demagogues. All the aliyaniks are like this. And there are many of them. They gain from your moving to Israel because their hashkafa requires your participation. It's as if their emunah is emunah in the state of Israel and if you don't live there, their emunah is weakened. So they push you to go even if they don't. They want to pretend that the redemption has arrived, and they need you to be a bit player in their movie. If you don't move to Israel, their fantasy is dissolved.
If you don't see the problem here then your sanity is in question. Ask yourself what kind of nonsense has been poured into your head and who poured it.
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