So here's what I'm talking about, here's some copy from a NBN ad:
"Mediterranean beaches, the Carmel mountains, career, culture & community. Can I have it all? Try Aliyah to Northern Israel!"
That's the way they sell aliyah, like you are an orchestra conductor moving to Tuscany. This kind of talk makes me nauseous not just because it isn't Jewish but because you won't get those things moving to Israel. It borders on lying.
Or at least it's quite a stretch. There are mountains; although I wouldn't recommend random hikes because there could be Arabs lurking out there, Heaven forbid; one can have some kind of career, although without fluency in Hebrew, which is quite hard to attain, it might be a career sweeping floors or working a customer service line 9 hours a day. There's some culture, nothing compared to any major city in America or Europe, or any college town in those places or even Raleigh, North Carolina. The community is much like whatever you have now. Nothing magic happens even in that department. There are beaches, but it's nothing like the American beach scene. It's something. But the NBN ad leads you to believe its equivalent.
I'm not knocking Israel for not being strong in those departments. I'm saying, those are not the reasons to come here. There are other reasons that have more to do with history, history unfolding, Jewish values - some of the time, memories of tzadickim, simpler living, stuff like that.
"Mediterranean beaches, the Carmel mountains, career, culture & community. Can I have it all? Try Aliyah to Northern Israel!"
That's the way they sell aliyah, like you are an orchestra conductor moving to Tuscany. This kind of talk makes me nauseous not just because it isn't Jewish but because you won't get those things moving to Israel. It borders on lying.
Or at least it's quite a stretch. There are mountains; although I wouldn't recommend random hikes because there could be Arabs lurking out there, Heaven forbid; one can have some kind of career, although without fluency in Hebrew, which is quite hard to attain, it might be a career sweeping floors or working a customer service line 9 hours a day. There's some culture, nothing compared to any major city in America or Europe, or any college town in those places or even Raleigh, North Carolina. The community is much like whatever you have now. Nothing magic happens even in that department. There are beaches, but it's nothing like the American beach scene. It's something. But the NBN ad leads you to believe its equivalent.
I'm not knocking Israel for not being strong in those departments. I'm saying, those are not the reasons to come here. There are other reasons that have more to do with history, history unfolding, Jewish values - some of the time, memories of tzadickim, simpler living, stuff like that.
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