Then I got a job at a regular business for 7,000 NIS which is $2,126.41 a month. But that's still less than the rent after taxes. I am not unskilled. In America I earned over $120,000 a year, which is 5x the amount I earn in Israel. But the rent on the apartments here costs more than my mortgage in America. There I had a four bedroom brand new condo with big rooms that had big closets. We had also a dining room, living room, and den. That's 3 separate rooms. In Israel they would call that a 7 room house. That means we didn't all have to be on top of one another. There was room to study, play, and work on projects, have guests over, etc. In other words, there we could live like menchen. Supposedly, Judaism doesn't require that you live like an animal.
I know this neighborhood and its apartments. They are old and sometimes moldy. Each room is small and lacks built-in closets, so you need to erect a standalone closet. If you stick two beds in the bedroom with the closet there is barely any space left over. So let's say you have five kids. You stuff 3 in one bedroom and 2 in the other. They have no room to play or study. They wake each other up. They fight. Here's your typical room all dolled up for the real estate photos. It's in a newer and slightly nicer neighborhood. You can't see it in this photo but to the left would be the stand alone closet.
What's the fourth room? That's your all-purpose living/dining/family room/den, which means it's a room with barely enough space for a dining room table with a small couch stuck next to it. It will look like this:
If you want to say, these rooms are small but they are not moldy. Remember that they only show you their best photos. Many apartments are advertised here with limited photos. They don't show you the broken down rooms with crumbling and moldy walls. For example, in my apartment, two rooms have moldy and water damaged ceilings. Two of them are sprinkled with insects that we can't seem to get rid of.
You want to go outside into the parking lot? That's where the kids try to play. But there are bullies and racing cars and bikes. The other day a guy I know raced his car into the parking lot. I asked him to slow down for "there are kids here." He answered obnoxiously, "if I saw any kids I'd slow down." Uh, it's too late then. Here's where your children play
A very famous Modern Orthodox rabbi who lives in a million dollar luxury apartment in Manhattan and earns hundreds of thousands of dollars a year between salary and speaking engagements promotes aliyah every chance he gets. He will tell you that "Israel is a wonderful place to live." and that "it has all the modern inventions." Meanwhile, every appliance or electronic device that I have purchased here broke down within a year. This rabbi adds a caveat that if you can't find an equivalent parnassah that you are not required to live here (as if you are required to). He's under the impression that Israel has a booming economy and you can find such work. He must also be under the impression that it's easy to learn Hebrew even though it isn't.
I won't speak for the whole country, but I'll speak for the olim. Most of us can't pay the rent for tiny, moldy apartments. The one talked about here would have a market value of $750,000. What? You don't believe me. Here's proof:
That's an ad for the apartment whose photos I show above. 2.9 million shekels is 881,233 USD. That's the price for a 3 bedroom apartment. EIGHT HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS for a 3 tiny bedroom apartment. The rent on an apartment like that will be more than 6,000 NIS.
That could buy you a lovely house in every Jewish community in America. For a third of that you can buy in St. Louis, Cleveland, or Detroit (Oak Park). For $250,000 you get this in Cleveland.
How about living like a mentch? Is that allowed in Judaism?
Materialism you say? Tell me who is more materialistic, the person who lives in a $750,000 dwelling or the one who lives in a $250,000 dwelling?
These apartments that I am talking about are located in a city outside of Jerusalem. The commute to Jerusalem takes one hour by bus. The commute to Tel Aviv is more than an hour by train. Prices in those cities are at least 50% more and 100% more respectively. But that's where the jobs are if you can manage to get hired.
When the rent is more than your salary, you are not in a wonderful place to live.
And there are so many more issues, such as military conscription, rude people, unfriendly people, schools with untrained and mean teachers in trailers, the cost of cars, which is double that of America, poor bus service, second rate medical services.
Oh you want to say that it's still worth it because people here are more religious. Last night, I walked a friend to the bus where we waited for twenty minutes. Just before the bus stop sat three Modern Orthodox young women on the fake stone wall, their legs all exposed and dangling. They talked loudly. He and I walked away from them and sat down in the metallic bus shelter and two more young women came and stood nearly in front of us, with equally immodest dress and conduct. This is in a religious neighborhood, the kind that an oleh will move to. When they talk of Anglo enclaves that's what they mean. The women in Meah Shearim don't act like this. They are very frum. But unless you and your kids speak Yiddish, that's not where you are going to live. It's very hard to break into that world. They won't even let you into the schools. The people who live where you will live are no frummer. I say that they are less if middos count for anything.
On the subject of middos, last night I went to a store and was pleased to find that the young woman at the register was very pleasant and capable. I thought, see there are nice ones here. Then she asked me something in Hebrew and I was forced to respond in my broken Hebrew. She sussed what was going on and broke into perfect American English. I joked "I see you have been working on your English." She said, "I'm American, I'm working on my Hebrew." I said, "I knew that." But I knew it not because I detected an accent in her Hebrew, but because she treated me as if I were a human being.
People who deceive you about aliyah, people who are pressure you to move to Israel are some of lowest and stupidest clowns on G-d's green earth. That includes everyone who works at Nefesh b'Nefesh, who don't tell you any of this. They deceive you like Bernard Madoff would deceive you. They don't tell you, for example, that nearly every family of olim has kids who are struggling, many of whom are off the derech now. It includes people who made aliyah but don't warn you even when their kids have gone off the derech. And it includes many rabbis, particularly those in the Modern Orthodox world. They are so drunk on Israel and their fantasies about it that their brains don't work. They are like drunken bochurm on Purim, and they shecht their brethren in their stupor.
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