We Got Rosner! (Article# 70) 1/10/08

I am sure that this is probably not new news in the 5 Towns anymore, but it is always nice to hear that other people are doing the same crazy things we are doing. I was therefore thrilled when Josh Rudoff came over to me in shul about two weeks ago to tell me that Rabbi Rosner (of the Island Avenue Shul in Woodmere) and his wife and family are making Aliyah this summer to Beit Shemesh.

Although he will be teaching at Reishit which is officially our competition at Eretz HaTzvi, it is nice to see more 5 Towns people here. I feel sometimes like we live in a suburb of Teaneck (including us, there are 3 families on our block who are NOT from Teaneck – and one of them is from Highland Park, NJ, which must be almost as bad).

We also heard an (unconfirmed) rumor that they are trying to get him to be the Rav of a new community in Beit Shemesh which is about to open up. With very few choices for housing, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place in figuring out what to do, and this new neighborhood might be an option. Maybe.

The problem is all real estate. The market in Israel is not the same as that in the USA, especially in the neighborhood in which we are currently renting our home. While renting is relatively inexpensive in Israel, purchasing homes in our neighborhood is getting prohibitively expensive for us. The houses are also (in our opinion) a tight squeeze for us (admittedly) spoiled Americans.

Our children don’t even want to consider moving to the less expensive side of Beit Shemesh since they don’t know anyone who lives there. While that wouldn’t normally faze us, it is hard as parents to consider putting our kids through another traumatic move so close to the one we made 18 short months ago. So we are kind of stuck with limited options in location.

Another compounding factor is the unbelievable decline of the US dollar. Having fallen from 4.7 shekels to a new low of 3.7 shekels since we have been here, the selling price of new homes is unbelievably high now. Combined with the weak real estate market in the USA, new Olim are beginning to have fewer and fewer options in what they can afford after selling their homes in the USA.

All these factors combine to make our choices very difficult in figuring out where we want to buy a house. We have spoken with several of our neighbors and we all feel like we are in the same boat. We’ll see what happens as time goes on.

We got other Aliyah news in the past couple of weeks, but the people in question have not yet gone fully public with the news, so I cannot share it here. Yet each time we hear of another family on the way, we feel excited for them AND us and know that it will help make our adjustment a little easier and our journey a bit less arduous.

There has been a lot of talk lately about giving away parts of Israel and parts of Yerushalayim to our neighbors here. Apparently, George Bush is so excited at the prospect of establishing a legacy for himself that he will be paying us a visit in a few days (although his visit will be almost over when this is published) to try and force the issue, no matter what the cost for the parties involved.

Earlier this week I went with about twenty of our students to a rally outside the old city walls. The organizers had originally intended to make a human chain around the walls, demonstrating that we are unified in maintaining a single city of Yerushalayim and that we should not give away even a foot of land. However, they had not really done a great job of preparation and we only covered one side of the city.

Yet, I was not disappointed. I remember watching CNN’s coverage when we “withdrew” the residents of Gaza in the Gaza “disengagement”. I remember seeing their anguish and pain and thinking how awful it must be for them to see their homes and community demolished and given away in the name of peace. I remember hearing how this process would free our army to react to terrorist threats from Gaza and how it would encourage continued negotiations and progress toward peace.

Yet, today the town of Sderot and even Ashkelon are bombarded with rocket fire if not daily then several times daily. Gaza is the launching pad and home ground for terrorists galore and the signs are all there that there is nothing that our army can do right now to stop this bombardment. So I guess the “disengagement” plan is most probably a major flop.

I remember hearing about the brave people who went to Gaza in support of the residents and who had to be forcibly removed from the homes and shuls of those communities. And I also remember thinking how much I wished I could be on of those people.

So for an hour (just before the rain hit) today, I wore my gold ribbon (commemorative of Jerusalem – the City of Gold ) and I stood with a couple thousand other people in the middle of a busy workday and showed my support to not giving away any of our land.

I hope again that you will join me and the thousands like me who pray that our leaders gain the insight to understand what a grave error it would be to consider giving away even more land in a bid for peace.