Spying out the Land, Again (Article# 117) 6/11/2009

It has been a few weeks, hasn’t it? For reasons that will be clearer next week, I took a mini vacation from writing. However, knowing that this week is Parashas Shelach (in Israel; you chutz la’aretz guys messed things up by having two days of Shavuot and missing the right week to hear Nasso, but it is OK—you will catch up in a couple of weeks), I couldn’t resist the lure of the keyboard.

Last year, in response to Nefesh B’Nefesh’s request that olim send a list of reasons (à la the original meraglim) to come live in Israel, I wrote a column entitled “Spying out the Land” giving the top 10 reasons

to come live in Israel (in correlation to the 10 meraglim who recommended against entering Israel) which I urge you all to reread by visiting http://tinyurl.com/lo6vwj. However, if those reasons weren’t enough, here are another 10 reasons you should embark on an aliyah adventure of your own.

10. It’s the economy, stupid. Although Israel has struggled along with the rest of the world, most indicators tell us that (gasp) Binyamin Netanyahu’s financial reforms (enacted when he was Minister of Finance in the previous Likud government) put Israel in a strong position to withstand the worst of the crisis. The shekel has proven to be a strong and resilient currency and inflation looks to be as stable as can be expected in these recessionary times. Make no mistake: we are suffering here too with layoffs, pay cuts, and a loss in income and assets, but it isn’t as bad here as it is there (although that is hard to prove to someone who is out of work).

9. Vacationing in Israel is much cheaper. There is a connection to this land that keeps so many of you coming back on a regular basis and/or sending your children here for a visit or even a year. Even with the recently lowered cost of airfare, it still costs several thousand dollars for a family to make the trip here before they even embark on a single day trip.

Europe is much closer too. When you are looking for that additional treat, the flights are incredibly cheap at times. Some of the deals require very little notice, but if you are flexible you can take advantage of great pricing. For instance, airfare for a weeklong trip to Italy was priced at $188 this week with similar deals for Hungary, Spain, and a host of other European destinations.

8. Gentile neighbors are a thing of the past. Unless you live in a major urban area or are specifically looking to be in a mixed-religion community, your family will not have that much to do with people not like you. Yes, I may rail on about some of the chareidim in Bet Shemesh (not all of them; only an acknowledged minority) but they are still Jews and they are still more like me than most of my former neighbors from Woodmere. I may not like/approve of their actions, but we are all one nation.

There is very little chilul Shabbat in our neighborhood—maybe 12-20 cars each week and even the most irreligious people have a basic “Jewish education” including Tanach and Jewish history. Bet Shemesh is a hamlet of sorts, as is Chashmonaim, Efrat, Neve Daniel, etc., but a main attraction of all these small communities, which seem to be Anglo magnets (aside from the English), is their existential Jewishness.

7. The food. I have always been a fan of Israeli food, enjoying falafel and shwarma as much as the next guy. Or at least I thought I did. When I began to eat “Israeli food” in Israel, I realized what a poor imitation I had in the U.S. No insult to the “Israeli” places in the U.S., but I rarely eat in them when I am on a trip to the U.S. Once you go authentic, you can’t go back to the imitation.

Even non “Israeli” foods are great here. There are a host of wonderful kosher restaurants overseas (that means over there), but you cannot experience the great range of options we do unless you live in a major metropolitan area. Even then, the sheer population advantage of kosher consumers we enjoy here allows for a much broader spectrum of choices and opportunities for a great meal.

Theme restaurants are kosher. Where else in the world can you enjoy the experience of eating a delicious kosher meal in total darkness, served by blind waiters? How about enjoying a meal from one of our several all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse chains? Pizza Hut? Sbarro’s? We even have a (mehadrin) kosher KFC (I think their coating is way too salty)!

6. Fitting in. This is both a positive and a negative. Here in Israel, there are so many communities that there is somewhere for everyone, no matter what their religious practices and/or political leanings are. There are like-minded people for almost everyone, which makes for a comfortable existence and life.

However, this also provides a natural breeding ground for disagreements and antagonism. Since we Israelis share a common bond as Jews, we have to look harder than you do to find the things that make us different. Our distaste for those who do not share the same beliefs/values is much stronger than we experienced in the U.S. (I am guilty as well) and emboldens people to do things they never would consider doing outside of Israel. This is reflected in the fact that in some (social) ways, you in galut enjoy more achdut than we do (a fact I have lamented often).

On the whole, being part of a united community vastly outweighs the negatives but I have to be honest and this point cuts both ways.

5. Leining the “right” parshiyot. We are technically all in galut. You are just in the furthest galut, being outside of Israel. Last year I talked about having only one day of yom tov for the chagim, but this year another funny quirk popped up—the last day of a yom tov fell out on Shabbat.

We celebrated one day of Shavuot as always (with Megillat Rut, Akdamot, and Yizkor all done on the same day—beginning at 4:30 a.m. after Tikkun Leil Shavuot). The next day, although flowing naturally from Shavuot, was a regular Shabbat for us and we read Parashat Nasso. You (as noted above) still had that day as Shavuot and read a special yom tov leining, delaying Nasso until the next week (when we read Bha’alotcha). Through July you will be a week behind us (you catch up with a double parashah on Matot-Masei). I am not in any way saying your way is wrong but wouldn’t it be better to do it the way it was originally intended to be?

4. The shopkeepers. We try to shop “Jewish” whenever we can in order to support other Jews. While it is almost impossible to totally avoid buying non-Jewish/Arab products (for instance, the overwhelming majority of cucumbers here are grown on Arab farms), we want to benefit the Jewish shopkeepers as much as possible.

While this is relatively easy to do in Bet Shemesh, it becomes harder in major cities. Almost all Jewish shopkeepers are aggressive and incredibly knowledgeable and helpful (as opposed to civil servants or those who work in service industries like bank tellers). They understand that their eagerness to please and their help in identifying just the right product leads to loyal customers and more business.

We have a couple of local “variety” type stores in Bet Shemesh about 200 feet from each other. One is more for hardware and the other is more for housewares. They are owned by a father and son and you could not find friendlier and more helpful people.

One of the main reasons we like them (aside from their good natured friendliness) are the little things that they do and know. We recently bought some coffee glasses in the housewares store and as Goldie peeled the labels off, she commented on how easily they came off. The owner responded that he stocks a specific brand of glasses and price tags in order to make it easier to peel the labels off prior to dunking them in the mikvah. That is service.

We patronize a local appetizing store owned by really nice Gerrer Chassidim. The owner greets us personally every time we walk into the store and makes sure to wish us a Gut Shabbos before we leave. At the shuk in Machane Yehuda, a storekeeper once told me that I could not shop in his store for Pesach products because his ingredients were kitniyot and I am Ashkenazi.

They might all be out to make a buck (or shekel as the case may be), but they are super friendly and their recognition of halachah and the value we place on halachah (even if the shopkeeper himself is not religious) is comforting.

3. Tuition, tuition, tuition. This is the only repeat from last year. I should really repeat my points about the holiness of the land, doing mitzvot in Israel, being in the land of the Tanach, or any of the other ones dealing with the fact that Jews belong in the land that was given to us and that it is the holiest place for us to be and enhances our every action (both good and bad).

However, as a regular reader of the Five Towns Jewish Times this past year, I have seen a recurrent theme in its pages: “The Tuition Crisis” and “The Cost Of A Jewish Education.” The costs are incredibly high and I am amazed that in this time of recession it is still possible to pay up to $30,000 to send a single child for a year to high school. What are you people thinking?

I may earn less and pay higher taxes, but the benefits in health care and education are incredible. I pay less than a 5 digit dollar figure to send all 5 kids to school, and there are so many schools to choose from here.

None of our schools have building funds, dinners, or any of the other fees and taxes that your yeshiva has been hitting you with. We are therefore less tied in to a specific school and it is not a big deal to send kids to different schools, allowing you to send each kid to the school that is best for him/her as an individual instead of them all being lumped into the same building for convenience/cost.

2. Davening. There are many wonderful shuls and chazzanim outside of Israel. However, most of the people in those shuls don’t fully understand the words they are saying. Hebrew is a foreign language to them. Even people who have studied the davening and can literally translate them don’t fully appreciate what they are saying.

Almost all of davening (all of Tehillim) is poetry written by David HaMelech. Most of us cannot fully appreciate Italian, Greek, or Latin poetry, even when it is translated to English because we lack the fluency to understand the nuances that make the poetry especially beautiful and meaningful. The same holds true for davening.

Israeli born Jews do not have such a handicap. Even immigrants stack up better than foreign Jews because they are forced to be somewhat fluent in order to conduct their everyday lives. Most of us know where the accents are supposed to be and pause at the correct moment. Singing a tefillah that you understand (especially as a group) is unbelievable.

1. Write your own Chronicles. I have enjoyed tremendous support from the overwhelming majority of my readers. Larry Gordon’s vision of enabling the average reader to visualize the aliyah process and connect a little more closely with Israel turned out to be prophetic in a way. Your support has seen us through many of the trials and tribulations we have faced and comforted us when we needed it most.

Yet, it is practically impossible to please everyone. I have heard it all: “Katz is too religious,” “Katz isn’t religious enough,” “How could you have done that in public” and of course, my all-time favorite “Katz is a jerk for beating up on the chareidim because we identify with them.”

Firstly, you only think you identify with them. I complain about those who do things that no one in the Five Towns would even dream of doing and behave in such an immoral way that it is impossible to defend them. I have repeatedly said that I understand that the majority of the chareidi public are nice people and want to live their lives the same way I do—without interference from outsiders. My complaint to them is that they (by their silence) enable the worst elements in their community to terrorize us all.

Yet no matter how many times I say this, there are always a handful of people who think I am an agent of evil and have no “right” to say (in a column that is supposed to be a journal of my personal experiences and thoughts in making aliyah) anything negative about this minority of people who have tried to enforce their standards on me and my neighbors. So please, come prove me wrong.

I would eagerly look forward to reading about your experiences and hearing your opinions, since you too will have made the sacrifice of uprooting your family and committing yourself to the future of our country and our nation. Having walked a mile in each other’s shoes, I have a suspicion that you might not be as critical of me as you are now. Or you might be. We’ll never know until you move in.

I am a total advocate for everyone to come here and add to the mosaic that is the population of our homeland. In another few years we will have 50%+ of the Jewish people resident in Israel for the first time in thousands of years. Mitzvot specific to Israel will become obligatory from the Torah then. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

On a separate note, mazal tov to Goldie’s brother David and his wife Marcia on the engagement of their daughter Tova to Yitzy Klapper of Hillcrest. We are very close with David and Marcia (and especially Tova who was in seminary in Israel when we initially made aliyah). We owe tremendous appreciation to them for all they have done for us over the years. They have always been staunch supporters of our aliyah, when other relatives were not, and we feel a special bond with them. Hopefully Yitzy and Tova’s aliyah plans will come true.