Very Good News, Israel

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1. Bear and Edgar, perhaps you may have seen the movie “The King’s Speech.” It’s about the late King George VI of England, father of the present Queen.

   You would think he would have had it made from birth, born to privilege. His father was King George V, after all, and his mother was Queen Mary. But it turned out to be only half true. George was naturally shy and reclusive. It was very hard for him to socialize and mingle with people and make friends. And he found out that that was a key part of his job as a member of the royal family, and then as king. The king is a professional greeter and networker on behalf of the government. He doesn’t have political power, but he is constantly required to do outreach among the English people and even foreigners on missions overseas. This was excruciatingly painful for George due to his retiring nature, which he showed since his early childhood.

   He also had a particular problem in that he had a stammer, and found it extremly painful to speak in public. And yet he was constantly under pressure to speak in public. This was a very important part of his job. He was always miserable when he had to make a speech, and sometimes broke down in tears and couldn’t continue.

   He had to undergo years of therapy to overcome this disability. A high point in the movie is when he has to make a radio address to the British people announcing that they are at war again in 1939. He is elated–not about the war, but which he hated, but about having performed his duty to the English people without a hitch.

   George was a chain smoker all his life, and he died of long cancer at the age of only 52. So did my own father, but at the age of 74. George’s chain smoking and poor health generally may have been related to stress he felt doing his job. But he knew he couldn’t resign without demoralizing the people and creating a crises. His brother had already resigned as king to marry the woman he loved. If George resigned too, the people would be very upset. So he stuck it out.

   I was born into an ordinary middle class family. Both my parents were college teachers. They were reaonably well off, although very far from being rich. That had no inherited money, or any money beyond their salaries. But Ishared King George’s shyness, social awkwardness and retiring nature, and it hurt my career as a teacher. I liked my students and worked hard to help them with their studies, but my shyness and and at times nervousness made me unpopular with many of my students. As a result I could never get a permanent position with a decent salary, but had to work at low-paying part-time teaching jobs throughout my working years.

   In America, being gregarious, outgoing and enterprising, a real go-getter, is a key to career success. People who are born without these personality traits (some studies suggest they are genetically inherited) puts you at a disadvantage. Even kings can find this out, and all the more so people born into ordinary middle-class families.

   Successful people often think,, “Why can’t everyone be as successful as I am. They must be lazy!” But they are not aware that some hardworking, responsible people must face challenges that they didn’t have to face. Possibility even genetically inherited challenges in some instances.

2. @ Adam Dalgliesh@yahoo.com:In Absorption Centers and Ulpanim (Hebrew Study) many olim make life long friends and connections.

   Some of these people may hear about an apartment for rent that did not interest them but would interest you. They may settle first somewhere and you will have a friend to go visit or assist you.

   An absorption center is likely spartan housing but a great way to meet others in the same circumstances.

   A chance to go to an absorption when arriving in Israel should be viewed as a good opportunity to meet people and make friends.

3. @ Bear Klein: If you read my last post carefully, Bear, you would have noticed that I made all these same points. I merely pointed out as well that not everyone is a natural go-getter who has the personality style or natural aptitudes needed to be a go-getter and a networker.

   I also pointed out the success has its privileges. They are usually privileges that the person has earned, but they are priveleges nevertheless.

4. @ Bear Klein: I don’t have a mother in Israel. Obviously having a relative there in Israel helps. I never had much in the way of professional opportunities in the States. At least none that panned out. Your friend may have been able to bring more money with her to Israel than I will because of her professional work in the States.

5. @ Adam Dalgliesh:You may have seen this as it comes from the Nfesh site but if not it can be helpful on housing in Israel.

   https://www.nbn.org.il/aliyahpedia/community-housing-aliyahpedia/buying-renting-home/online-resources-for-housing-and-second-hand-furnishings/

   Also this https://www.justlanded.com/english/Israel/Israel-Guide/Housing-Rentals/Finding-a-flat

6. @ Adam Dalgliesh:Adam what you are calling privileged”
   is what I meant as “successful people”. Meaning those who have the energy, effort, personality and brains to find a way to be happy and content in their efforts in life.

   If things are not going well they figure out how to change their life until it is better.

7. @ Adam Dalgliesh:
   Just one correction the apartment we were set up in was 1 Tiny Bedroom with half kitchen, room for a table plus a shower/bathroom VERY Spartan. But it was perfect we had to pay some a rent (subsidized) . This was in a government Absorption Center which was clean, safe friendly but college housing like. Which is what it felt like as it was adjacent to Tel Aviv University which was a nice area.

   We ended up living at first in a Kibbtuz on the Golan Heights. One Bedroom, One Living Room and a bathroom. It was new and so it was fine with us. Way lower than any US standard as it had no central heat or air condition.

   Yes the Jewish Agency helped us help ourselves.

   Yes a 70 year making aliyah to Israel will be accepted for aliyah but has limited possibilities.

   A friend of mine who is an Israeli who has lived in the US for long periods of time due to professional opportunities. She decided to move back to Israel several years ago (as she missed it and her family). Her profession was harder to make a living with in Israel. So what she did is start a private business tutoring English out of her apartment in Central Israel. She made a lot of money. She turned this into a real business. She made more money doing this than her profession in Israel.

8. Bear, absolutely everything in your post confirms what I already believe about the experiences I am likely to have in Israel.

   Clearly, in your second aliya trip to Israel, you were treated as a VIP. Clearly you either have special skills that are badly needed by the Israeli security establishment, or are a manufacurer of equipment (say, electronic software or hardware), that the state is in need of, or have capital that you are willing to invest in industries that the Israeli government considers vital to the state. It is also clear that you are a very gregarious , outgoing person and a great networker. You not only make friends easily, but have no inhibitions about making use of these friendship (not in any bad or exploitative way, I am not suggesting that) to advance your career.

   Absolutely none of this has any relevance to me or is likely to figure at all in my experience as an oleh. Israelis rarely hire anyone for any responsible position whoo is 70 years old. Israel is not in dire need of college English teachers. I have no capital to invest. I am a very shy and reserved person, at least “in person,” do not make friends easily, and have never been good at networking. I hate asking my friends or anyone else for career assistance, and on the rare occasions when I forced myself to do so, I did it in such a stiff and awkward way that it had no effect.
   Networking always made me feel like a beggar, and a somewhat dishonest beggar at that.

   No senior Jewish Agency officials or seniors police officials are going to befriend me. No one is going to set me up in a cosy apartment while I look for work.–I’ll be housed in the usual immigrant reception centers along with Ethiopians, Yazidi refugees and other elderly American retirees with only modest assets and income. As you have already explained to me, I will probably be shunted from apartment to apartment–none of them luxurious. No senior police official is going to give me a guided tour of the Israeli judicial system.

   I have had many experiences throughout my life that have made me aware of how much difficulty people have in understanding the challenges faced by people whose lives are less privileged than themselves (By “privileged,” I am not suggesting that privileged people have not earned their privileges. Most have earned them through a combination of hard work and special talents. But they enjoy privileges nonetheless not possessed by the average person). The privileged generally ask the underpriveleged, “why couldn’t you make it the way I have.” They don’t realize that many people face obstacles of one sort or another that they haven’t had to face. These obstacles can be both external or internal. Usually a combination of both.

   Once when I lived in Manhattan as a graduate student, I used to attend shabbes dinner at the Reform Theological Seminary (can’t remember its name) on Manhattan’s lower east side. I made a casual mention of the fact that there were a lot of homeless people sleeping on the streets and sidewalks of Manhattan (this was in the 1980s), and and that several of them camped on the doorstep and vestibule of my apartment building. Another Shabbes diner at my table said he didn’t believe me. He had been living in New York City all his life, and had never seen even one homeless person. When OI questioned him, I discovered that hhe didn’t live in Manhattan, but in one of the wealthier neighborhoods of Queens.

9. @ Adam Dalgliesh:I believe they ask all that so that can find if there is obvious places in Israel that could benefit a new immigrants talents.

   Due to these questions and my background I on my second time in Israel, I was setup with introductions to a government agency that they thought could use my talents and expertise. It also helped me making a real good friend (the government official and his wife). Also the Jewish Agency put us up in a little apartment in Ramat Aviv in a Mercaz Klita (Immigrant Center) which we used as a hub to live at while we toured the country checking specific jobs, interviewing and checking certain places if we wanted to live there.

   My wife and I also had made friends with another Israeli family while in the USA who were working as an emissary (Shaliach) with Hillel while getting his PHD in the US. These people became great friends in Israel and actual convinced us to go to their kibbutz when the first place we moved to did not work.

   Israel does many things different than in the USA, that would seem strange to an American.

   I will give you one that was peculiar test and which was kind of fun in the end. So to see if the Kibbutz movement wanted us not only were my wife and I were interviewed (seems natural) so far even by US standards. We were then given psychological tests which included a handwriting analysis. My wife in Hebrew and I in English. They then explained what they were looking for. Shocked my wife did scare them off.

   The tests for pilots and for security agencies can get really get different.

   Only criminals, diseased people or non Jews are kept from making aliyah.
   Israel is bureaucratic but I hear Nfesh bNefesh aids in navigating the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy can be a pain, there is no doubt about that.

   Funny, I realized once that I had assimilated in Israel when I was able to effectively navigate the Ministry of Interior for some papers I needed on my own. I had learned my way around which was a combination of speaking Hebrew, being persistent without making enemies and explaining why it was important to help me.

   Your pilot trip sounded like a mess. The whole idea of pilot trips to me is unless one is specifically trying to figure were to live and trying to find work or school seems like a waste of time to me. A pilot trip in my mind should not be to figure if one wants to live in Israel.

   One needs to spend no less than six months to figure that out. Better one to two years. That way one has chance to get used to Israel and understand it a bit.

   The Jewish Agency the first time I went to Israel arrange for me to live at a Kibbutz Ulpan for six months. There I studied Hebrew half the day and worked half the day. I made great friends on the Kibbutz with the guy who was in charge of the work branch (General repair, Maintenance) I was assigned to. He himself was a new immigrant (from Rhodesia) who had a PHD had an American wife. I and others used to hang out at his place every night almost after dinner. He became a great friend and ally later when I needed some help.

   So I lived in a two story building in a room that was sort of like a barren college dorm with NO central heating with no showers in the building. They were in an adjacent building. We did have fans in the summer but only kerosene heaters in the winter. The Ulpanists quarters were better than the volunteers who lived in these 1930s wooden shacks with no plumbing either.

   It was a great experience because I made great friends and took advantage of Ulpan. Then this experience is only for younger people. The work was hard and dirty but I enjoyed who I worked with.

10. There was a popular half-Chinese, half-Belgian writer named Han Suyin, a real cosmopolitan who lived in many different countries throughout her long life, and was married to three men at various times, one Chinese, one British, one Indian. But she was was born in China. In her later years she lived mainly in Switzerland, but she made visits to China every year, while Mao-tse-tung was the ruler there. She was the chairman of a “Friendship Society”for foreign sympathizers with Mao’s government.

    Han often appeared on discussion panels on the American news programs that discussed the situation in Mao’s China. When other panelists criticized the Chinese government and pointed out the mass murders, mass starvation, slave labor and other atrocities going on there, Han would always ask them if they had visited China recently, as she had. Had they been born in China as she had. Did they speak fluent Chinese, as she did. Had she interviewed top Chines leaders, as she had. She would assure the TV audiences that when she last visited China a few days or a few weeks ago, she had discovered that every Chinese person she talked to was well-fed and well-clothed, had good jobs, and supported the government. That usually ended the conversation and silenced the critics.

    It later turned out that on all her visits she was given guided tours of the country by senior Chinese officials. This gave her a sense of priveleged access, and biased her in favor of the regime. Of course they made sure she saw only what they wanted her to see, and spoke only with the people they had chosen to speak with her.

    After Mao died, overwhelming evidence and eyewitness testimony confirmed that everything the critics said about the horrors of Mao’s China was the absolute truth, even those critics who had never been to China and couldn’t speak a word of Chinese. Han Su-Yin retired to her her comfortable home in Switzerland, and never again had much to say about China.

11. @ Bear Klein: Whoever organized out pilot trip to Israel in 1992 (all I know is that they were working for or with in some capacity the Jewish Agency) were not among the helpful schuchim that you describe.

    I don’t see why the Agency would need applicants for immigration to supply such a complete biography with so many details about one’s income, assets, liabilities, education, (including trancripts of one’s school grades,), work history, recommendations from employers, former and former teachers –none which has anything to do with whether you are Jewish or not), unless they are attempting to screen out all but those whom they consider the most desirable immigrants. None of these demands for such a superabundance of documentation would make sense otherwise.

    In general, the enormous amount of paperwork and other requirements that all bureaucracies demand of applicants for benefits of some sort has a rational purpose behind it. It is to limit the amount of benefits that the bureaucrats are required to dispense and the number of clients that they are required to serve.
    Since I am poor, I have had to deal with this dark side of bureaucracies all my life. Peole who have means, highly sought-after professional skills, or high-level connections, or are highly accomplished networkers, or all of the above, rarely get a glimpse of this dark side of bureaucracy because they don’t have to. With the well-to-do and/or well-connected, public institutions are always far more helpful and cooperative than they are with the poor, and so well-off and well-connected people always have far more positive impressions of the public institutions they have to workl with than the poor have.

12. ADAM- one day I’ll tell you about my rather odd, (although there was humour in it) experience with an Israeli doctor to whom I was carried, after having had my nose broken in a cricket match. We were playing against Ashdod, and the pitch, indeed the whole “field” was littered with stones.

13. @ Bear Klein:

    Better than what…..YOU….?? No, I feel just the same…WELL… T.G. At least i see that you have “kissed and made up” with Adam after your ridiculous outbursts….So…

    Mazaltov, you are back again now as “The Wise Councillor” a sort of “Hillel HaGadol” a “corrector” of the miscellaneous errors of lesser folk… “a fount of wisdom” (written by others)..

14. @ Adam Dalgliesh:
    Actually the Jewish Agency can be extremely helpful, a lot depends on the Schalich helping you. Israel is very bureaucratic and proving one is Jewish has gotten worse over the years. That is the hangup. Your discouragement theory of aliyah by them in my view, how would I put it nicely, is not valid. I have know many many people over the years who worked for the Jewish Agency including personal friends and they are usually very motivated and tightly screened before becoming a Shaliach (emissary).

    In my personal case long time ago they were extremely helpful and even worked out of the box to help me make serious contacts in Israel.

    N’fesh does a really good job from everyone I talk to. A lot of the people working for them are originally from the USA, I am told, so they can relate to the potential immigrants.

15. @ Bear Klein: Thanks, Bear, for correcting my error about physicians in Israel. It was based on what a medical student and a physician in my shul told me. It also reflected reports I had read many years ago when large numbers of Russian physicians were emigrating to Israel.

    Even when there is a genuine doctor shortage, “native” doctors have a way of doing their best to oppose the immigration of doctors from abroad, because they fear the competetion. This is true in the United States, which also has a doctor shortage, although apparently not as severe a one as in Israel if the jta report is correct.

    Note that the Jta report does in fact confirm what I had been told that immigrant doctors in Israel often are given a hard time by government bureaucrats, and it is not all that easy for them to be certified. But Nefesh bonefish is helping to make things easier for them. A very important and helpful organization.

    When I was discouraged from making aliya 27 years ago by my unsuccessful pilot trip, the trp was organized by the Jewish Agency, not Nefesh b’ nefesh, which had not been founded yet.

    Even today, though, the Jewish Agency loads down applicants for aliya with a smothering array of demands for information and paperwork, some of it not all that easy to obtain. I believe their actual purpose, and has been for decades, is discourage people from making aliya if they possibly can. This reflects those periods in Israel’s history (1948-64, 19990-2000, the Ethiopian airlifts), when Israel was deluged with indigent immigrants whom it was extremely expensive to house, feed and integrate into Israeli society. So a covert, unacknowledged policy was developed of discouraging people from immigrating to Israel from countries where Jews where thought to be OK, such as the United States and UK. The thinking was that it was less expensive for Israel if these prosperous and secure countries stayed where they were and instead made donations to Israel. I suspect that this policy is still in force at the Jewish Agency in spite of all its denials.

16. @ Adam Dalgliesh:Immigrant doctors from the USA or Canada are in demand in Israel. They make less money in Israel as US doctors make more than any doctors in the world I believe. If they are willing to work in the periphery that get significant financial incentives.

    To address doctor shortage, Israel eases immigration process for physicians
    By Lori Silberman Brauner March 20, 2019

    Nefesh B’Nefesh aliyah expo in New Jersey had a special “MedEx” track for prospective immigrants that included representatives of the Health Ministry as well as the Israeli Medical Association, Israeli hospitals and Israeli health organizations.

    The representatives answered questions about transferring medical licenses and getting Israeli accreditation, including in at least 110 one-on-one meetings with prospective immigrants, according to Nefesh B’Nefesh. The prospective immigrants also networked and learned about potential employment opportunities, and the hospitals and medical organizations even conducted job interviews.

    “Without the involvement of an organization like us, medical professionals don’t have the same hand-holding,” said Ronen Fuxman, Nefesh B’Nefesh’s director of government and advocacy and its medical professions liaison. “It can be quite a difficult bureaucratic process to navigate.”

    Sipzner’s Israeli credentialing was facilitated by Nefesh B’Nefesh, which can often help medical professionals get their credentials provisionally recognized even before they land as immigrants at Ben Gurion Airport.

    One of the major forces driving the special program is Israel’s shortage of medical professionals. Israel has a rate of 3.1 doctors for every 1,000 people, below the OECD average of 3.3 per 1,000 people, according to a 2018 report from its Ministry of Health. Israel also has just five nurses per 1,000 people, the fourth-worst rate among 34 countries in the OECD, a grouping of developed countries. Israel has 6.8 medical graduates per 1,000 people compared to an OECD average of 12.1; just 2.3 hospital beds per 1,000 people, compared to a rate of 3.6 in the developed world; and a hospital occupancy rate of 93.8 percent, second-highest among OECD countries and far above the average of 75.5 percent, according to the report.

    https://www.jta.org/2019/03/20/israel/to-address-doctor-shortage-israel-eases-immigration-process-for-physicians

17. @ Adam Dalgliesh:
    Sorry if you thought some the generalizations I was making what makes an unsuccessful immigrant were directed to you. It was not the case, they were observations from people I knew who had a hard time in Israel.

    What works in Israel is a positive attitude. Just like anywhere people do not have a lot of patience for whiners or serial complainers.

    Some of your comments about employment in Israel are correct humanities degrees with people who may not speak Hebrew or do not speak it well are not in great demand. PHYSICIANS in particular from the USA or Canada are now in demand. Many physicians have just retired or about to retire in Israel. In particular there is great demand in the “periphery”.

    Yes, one in their 70s and wants to find a job is out of luck. What would be possible is teaching English to people who need help. Sort starting you own part time business. If that type of thing appeals to you and fits your wheelhouse. I believe you said you were a teacher but I have no idea if you could teach English to foreigners. One would have to be very creative because you do not know Hebrew but that could a plus if done correctly. You would have to learn to network in Israel.

    What you need to ask you N’fesh counselor is do you have to pay a lump sum to enroll in the health system? Second big thing is do you have enough money to buy an apartment? There are rentals in Israel but it is not like the USA where whole buildings are dedicated for the rental market. In Israel one person may own two or three apartments and then rent them out. They can raise the rent after a year and also kick you out if they now want to give the apartment to their kid who just got out of the army is moving out of the house to get married. Sometimes people who are permanent renters move a lot more than they would like.

    Good Luck to you.

18. @ Edgar G.:I hope you feel better now!