The summer before I made aliya this disgraceful rendition of the American national anthem was delivered at Jack Murphy stadium in San Diego.
Let's go to the videotape.
She's changed since then according to friends who follow her on Twitter. She used to be virulently anti-Israel. She's not anymore. Now, the national anthem singer, comedienne Roseanne Barr, may be making aliya to Israel.
[O]n Wednesday morning, following a tweeted article by this reporter about the Nefesh B’Nefesh Mega Aliyah fair, Barr tweeted the following:
aliyah 2014
— Roseanne Barr (@TheRealRoseanne) March 12, 2014
...
@TheRealRoseanne Hey Roseanne, are you interested in making Aliyah? We can help!
— Nefesh B'Nefesh (@NefeshBNefesh) March 12, 2014
The Foreign Ministry ceased issuing immigration visas in late June as
part of an ongoing work dispute by the ministry’s workers’ union and the
government.
New immigrants will be flown to Israel as tourists, at the expense of the Jewish Agency, and will then be processed in Israel.
“We will do our best to bring everybody to Israel on the date they want to make aliya,” spokeswoman Hagit Halali said.
Those
whose immigration has been put on hold due to the strike can expect to
receive letters informing them of the “ad hoc solution,” she added.
This solution is so simple that one can only wonder why it took the Jewish Agency nearly three weeks to think of it. For those of you making aliya, welcome to reality. Here are some potential reasons why they didn't do it until now:
1. They were afraid you'd take the free flight and then return to your home countries. Oh wait, aren't they only buying you a one-way ticket? And aren't they demanding that you repay the ticket if you don't stay in Israel for a certain amount of time.
2. They're afraid that the Foreign Ministry employees will picket your arrival at the airport or whenever you go to the Interior Ministry or the Absorption Ministry to be registered as olim. Well, who says any of those things have to be disclosed to Foreign Ministry employees? Oh wait, this is Israel where half the government workers are on strike at any given moment and the other half are busy watching them....
This reminds me of my own aliya 22 years ago (pre-Nefesh b'Nefesh) when the few financial benefits you got were the cost of the plane ticket (on what was then government-owned El Al) and a VERY small loan for your moving expenses (which was forgiven if you stayed long enough) from what we called Banky Dude. I went to the Jewish Agency to get my loan and they told me that I needed two guarantors. I looked at them like they came from another planet and asked them why I needed guarantors. They said, "surely you cannot expect to get a loan without guarantors!" I pulled a piece of plastic from my pocket and said "see this? It has no guarantors and ten times the credit line you're offering me."
In the end, they insisted on the guarantors. I no longer recall which of my American friends signed on it, but they never had to pay.
I'm so glad to hear that things haven't changed. Welcome home guys!
David Bernstein is right: Aliya (immigration to Israel) is not a career move.
We can go back an forth on how to measure standard of living all day, but here’s a rather simple metric, which is hardly surprising given the GDP numbers: I know many Israelis who’ve emigrated to the U.S., and a smaller number of Americans who’ve moved to Israel. If you ask members of the former group why they’ve moved here, they will almost always respond that “a higher standard of living” or something similar was at least a significant factor, as, often is getting away from mandatory military and reserve service, a not insignificant drag on quality of life. The Americans who’ve moved to Israel, by contrast, almost never cite standard of living as a factor, but rather as a sacrifice they decided to make to pursue their dream of living in Israel. This is true even of Modern Orthodox families with three or four kids who get free religious public school education for those kids in Israel, as opposed to paying three or four day school tuitions in the U.S.
When I made aliya in 1991, I went from being a 7th year associate at a prestigious Manhattan law firm to being an apprentice at a boutique Tel Aviv securities practice whose name partner took most of the money home for himself. I took a 91% paycut. Yes, you read correctly.
Today, Nefesh b'Nefesh ameliorates that kind of paycut by helping you out financially in the first year or two, but that doesn't change the fact that the standard of living here is much lower than it is in the States. Much lower. Bernstein was answering someone (Leftist Glenn Greenwald) who thinks otherwise. Maybe Greenwald should come live here for a while and see for himself.
I was going to do another heavy post (I've even read the article already), but I need a break, and I'm sure all of you do too.
Here's Nefesh b'Nefesh's Chanuka video (from which I can only conclude they are sincerely trying to reach beyond the religious audience that makes up the vast majority of North American olim). It's called 8 Days.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
