Signs like this appear in the hallways in Haredi neighborhoods in Israel all the time.
Translation:
Dear Neighbors
On the occasion of our family celebration
We seek apartments for couples to sleep
For the last Shabbos of summer break
Parshas Re'eh
We will be happy for your assistance.
Thank you
With good news and happiness
Good Shabbos
Family ______
Here's another:
What's going on here is that the living spaces are so small in Israel that there's no space to house guests. This is not only a problem for hachnasas orchim but even for having adult children or parents visit for Shabbos. And if you are having a simcha, like a bar mitzvah, forget about it. Then you really are in trouble.
The aliyniks have a standard manipulative tool which is to claim that anybody who doesn't move to Israel resists only because he can't give up his materialism. It's obviously a ridiculous charge. Frum Jews all over Brooklyn, Lakewood, Monsey, and Monroe struggle to pay tuition and live simple lives. People who make aliyah tend to be more affluent so they assume everyone is like them. Would you call spending Shabbos with family materialism? I'd call it a basic need. Children need social interaction with grandparents and cousins, need to see somebody other than their brothers and sisters. Shabbos becomes 25 hours of boredom when you are cooped up in the same room week after week with the same people.
Here spending Shabbos with any portion of the rest of klal Yisroel is a major production.
I have lived in Israel for 10 years and spent 1 Shabbos in Jerusalem after I found a place to rent.
Rabbi Hershel Schachter who pushes everyone to move to Israel even though he lives in a luxury building in Manhattan, NY regularly visits his children for Shabbos. He comes to Passaic often and stays with a daughter in her house. I imagine that he goes to Woodmere to stay with his son who is well paid as the Rav of the Young Israel of Woodmere and no doubt lives in a nice house. Every house listed on Zillow in the neighborhood of that synagogue goes for more than 1 million dollars. And so his grandchildren get to spend time with their grandparents. I assume that he is driven there. He doesn't have to pile his suitcases onto buses as we do in Israel and spend an hour and a half making stops along the route to get to anywhere. Sometimes, you have to take a second bus as you do if you visit Kiryat Sefer.
The housing situation in Israel is a horror. $800,000 for a tiny apartment where the family is squashed into tiny bedrooms and a single all purpose shared room. I talk about this here often because it's a major issue. Here's your all purpose room:
That's your living room/dining room/playroom/den.
Here's your all purpose room in a 4-bedroom $957,818 apartment:
The government, which crazed Zionists view as some kind of spiritual entity, does nothing about it as this policy paper from the Taub Center reports:
An analysis of housing data for 2011 reveals a sharp increase in housing prices and a crisis in the housing market. This crisis was not created overnight, but developed gradually over the preceding decade. The housing shortage is the result of the neoliberal conception that market forces should determine housing supply and that government intervention is unnecessary, even harmful. In the decade before the protests of 2011, the Israeli government purposely shunned active housing policies. This lack of intervention led to a severe shortfall in housing, especially affordable housing. Experts disagree whether soaring housing prices represent a “bubble” requiring government interference or a “self-correcting market” in need of no such intervention. Such theoretical debates are of little interest, however, to ordinary citizens facing dim housing prospects. (Source, Gilat Benchetrit, "A Decade Without a Housing Policy")
Rabbi Schachter says that the golus over and Israel is a wonderful place to live. It has all the modern inventions, he says. I would call living space to be more important than that, but Israel doesn't offer it. It also doesn't have all the modern inventions. I have been through 3 refrigerators in 10 years.
The Talmud stresses the importance of having a home:
תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: ״אֲשֶׁר בָּנָה״, ״אֲשֶׁר נָטַע״, ״אֲשֶׁר אֵרַשׂ״, לִימְּדָה תּוֹרָה דֶּרֶךְ אֶרֶץ: שֶׁיִּבְנֶה אָדָם בַּיִת, וְיִטַּע כֶּרֶם, וְאַחַר כָּךְ יִשָּׂא אִשָּׁה. וְאַף שְׁלֹמֹה אָמַר בְּחׇכְמָתוֹ: ״הָכֵן בַּחוּץ מְלַאכְתֶּךָ וְעַתְּדָהּ בַּשָּׂדֶה לָךְ אַחַר וּבָנִיתָ בֵיתֶךָ״. ״הָכֵן בַּחוּץ מְלַאכְתֶּךָ״ — זֶה בַּיִת, ״וְעַתְּדָהּ בַּשָּׂדֶה לָךְ״ — זֶה כֶּרֶם, ״אַחַר וּבָנִיתָ בֵיתֶךָ״ — זוֹ אִשָּׁה.
"The Sages taught (Tosefta 7:20-21): The Torah states: “What man is there that has built” (Deuteronomy 20:5), and then “that has planted” (Deuteronomy 20:6), and finally “that has betrothed” (Deuteronomy 20:7). The Torah has taught a person the desired mode of behavior: A person should build a house, then plant a vineyard, and afterward marry a woman. And even King Solomon said in his wisdom: “Prepare your work outside, and make it fit for yourself in the field; and afterward build your house” (Proverbs 24:27). The Sages explained: “Prepare your work outside”; this is a house. “And make it fit for yourself in the field”; this is a vineyard. “And afterward you shall build your house”; this is a wife. " (Sotah 4a)
First is building a house. How can you move to a country where it's so difficult to acquire a house? If you don't come with a million dollars, and if you don't come with fluency in Hebrew, you will not be able to acquire a house because you will not be able to get a decent job. Even if you do come with that, do you have enough money to buy your children a house? The aliyaniks say, the future for your children is in Israel? Really? If they don't have a place to live, there's no future for them. The Talmud says that building a house is essential!
I just heard someone say that to marry off your daughter in Israel you need $400,000 for an apartment. So where's her future if you are not a millionaire?
And this also means that you are separated from family. It also means that even neighbors don't get together because the second you walk into an apartment you have invaded their living space. If women visit, the men have to retreat to tiny bedrooms or leave the house. That happened to me last night. If men visit, the women do the same. Years ago, I attended a siyum at a neighbor's house and the women all huddled in the tiny kitchen while the men sat squashed in the tiny living room. It was so uncomfortable that it didn't last long and it hasn't happened since. It means there's no place to sit because there's only one couch as shown in the picture above.
The line is that when you move to Israel you are coming home to family. But the truth is that you can't even see your own family.
And what about when you become elderly? Where are you going to live? Your children will not have the space to take care of you in their homes. Do you see how crazy this aliyah madness is?
The aliyah pushers don't tell you this, just like they don't tell you about the subpar health care in Israel, because like Sabbatians they are so caught up in their false messianism that they don't see reality. They are living in a dream whose maintenance requires your participation. If your religious life is built on being a Belzer Chassid, you don't need all Jews to be Belzer Chassidim. You be it. But those whose religious life is built around the Medinah and the redemption that they claim it indicates, need all Jews to join in with them. What kind of national redemption is it if most Jews stay in chutz? So they hype you up with misrepresentation about the chiyuv of yishuv ha-haaretz, they deceive you about life in Israel, and they fill you with unwarranted guilt.
And you post signs seeking rooms where your guests can stay for Shabbos. And usually you can't find any. As for your daughter getting married, pity the fool who makes so-called aliyah.
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