When you make major changes in life, you have to be informed. This is always a challenge for immigrants as mostly they rely on stories of far away places. Few people know this but a high percentage of immigrants to the United States a century ago returned to their home countries after getting a taste of reality.
With the State of Israel, this dynamic is intensified because our historic emotional attachment to Eretz Yisroel gets mixed in with all sorts of myths about the modern society of Israel and leads to myth making.
I'll start by talking to families. If you have kids above the age of 4 you should not come to Israel. This applies to Modern Orthodox families too. There is a myth that kids just pick up language, like magic.
This is not how it really works. Children's brains certainly acquire foreign language far better than adults. But they don't just pick it up unless they are very small. And in that case, they are only picking up simple language. Fortunately, not much more than that is expected of them in English either. So your 3 year old can come to Israel and learn to say the Hebrew equivalent of "I'm hungry."It seems as if he has picked up the language, but he has only picked up a 3 year old's level of that language. There are many olim who don't speak Hebrew who think that their kids do just because their kids can say, "kick the ball."
Older kids have the challenge of sitting in a classroom all day long. For this one needs much higher facility with a language. Nobody just picks this up. You need to study it. The Dati Leumi schools in some cities utilize the city Ulpan programs, half the day for 5 months. This means that for the other half of the day, your kid will be bored out of his mind.
Boredom is very dangerous. People fear damage to self-esteem when their kid will go from getting 90s on tests to 60s. That's our modern preoccupation with this new term called self-esteem. What happens to olim is much worse. Boredom creates this feeling of unhappiness with life. Kids become not just uncomfortable with school but with their own existence. Kids get lost in their daydreams and their day dreams can be quite unhealthy. I know kids that came to Israel quite normal and now have trouble concentrating because due to their early experiences here in school, they became day dreamers. They can't concentrate.
The Ulpan programs themselves are not all that they are cracked up to be. Israel is a different kind of culture and Israelis are a different kind of people. Many tend to be short tempered and abrasive. You'd hope that the teachers would be the more patient types, but that is not necessarily the case. One kid told me that his Ulpan teacher used to scream at the kids in his class every day. I can believe him because my Ulpan teacher used to shout at us, a room full of adults. The kid told me, I don't understand why she had to yell just because a kid didn't know something. How old were these kids? 7.
Charedi schools don't utilize the city Ulpan programs because they fear the mixing in with less frum or non-frum people. Israel is not an out of town American community like Dallas or Rochester. Different Orthodox groups don't mix together.
But frighteningly, the Charedi schools don't create their own Ulpan programs. Some have a mini-class of half an hour a day. Some just take the kid out of class occasionally for a little tutoring. So what is happening basically is that the kids are sitting for 8 hours - the Charedi school day is longer - starting at the walls. Want to know what that is like. Go to Chinatown and sit with the kitchen staff in a restaurant sometime. Stay there for an hour and see if you can take it. Try a whole day. Try a month like that.
One of the many utterly false cliches that float around the olim community is that the children who come at the beginning of the school year will understand Hebrew by Chanukah and will speak it by Purim. This is a lie that can compete with the most outrageous of lies.
Even with Ulpan and private tutoring, it will take a talented kid 7 or older at least a year to manage in basic Hebrew and that is not necessarily enough to function in school. Many kids take two years. Full comfort with the language takes 5 years. I know numerous kids who have been here for years and cannot speak Hebrew. They gave up. Many are no longer Torah observant. I have a friend whose kid is no longer observant. I asked my friend, was his kid having any religious issues before he came to Israel. Not at all, he said.
I see formerly observant olim all over the place in Israel. One Wednesday night I was trying to sleep when I heard a huge commotion out my window. I looked outside and saw a gaggle of drunken teenagers storming down the street at 2 AM. They were shouting in perfect American English. This is all in a religious town. The parks of many cities with high percentages of olim are full of off-the-derech olim. You can see them their on Friday nights, smoking and texting. That's some aliyah, leaving the Torah.
Language is just one issue. Another is religious atmosphere. A Charedi in America experiences Israel mostly through Charedi fundraisers that come into town asking for money, maybe after giving a shiur. One gets the impression that Israel is a country full of rabbis.
No, no, no, no, no. Charedim comprise a small portion of the country. Maybe 8%. And they pack themselves into a handful of communities. The great majority of the country is non-religious, anti-religious, and anti-Charedi. You can get on a train in Jerusalem and travel to Tel Aviv and Haifa while seeing only a smattering of Charedim. On a number of occasions I have stood in Tel Aviv and surveyed the people as they passed, counting a 100 and seeing only 2 or 3 that showed any signs of religious observance, usually very Modern Orthodox.
That's something else you need to know. Modern Orthodoxy in Israel is not like that in America. In America, the Modern Orthodox, from a Charedi perspective, get too involved in college, careers, and secular culture, but they can be reasonably religiously motivated. In Israel, the religious level is way less. Mini-skirts in girls schools are quite normal. And the focus of everybody is on the army. It's all about the army.
And the army is a weird place. So an American kid from Teaneck goes off to the University of Maryland. He's not as frum as he could be but he's majoring in business or something like that. He's studying, he's involving himself with Hillel. He's getting a life started. It's not a Charedi life, but he's a Shomer Shabbos boy finding his way.
The army owns you. You don't find your way in the army. They tell you what to do, what to wear, where to sleep. They teach you how to kill too. As I'm writing for Charedim here I hope I don't have to worry about angering those that see the Israeli army as a religious entity. It is quite far from that. And it affects the entire society. David Ben-Gurion envisioned it as a melting pot to forge the new Hebrew man who breaks from the past. Ben-Gurion was an atheist. Need I say more.
So 90 plus percent of the country lives in a culture that is built around the military experience. As a result, people are aggressive and bossy. It is not easy dealing with them. But you will have to deal with them even if you live in a Charedi community because it's pretty rare to find here a Charedi doctor, dentist, lawyer, or even real estate agent.
Why is that? It's in large part because a man cannot obtain a military exemption if he has ever worked. People complain about the Charedim not working but they can't work, lest they be forced into the very traife environment called the military.
And know this. Even the military exemption is coming to end by edict of the high court. So bringing a male child of any age to Israel is a risk. Even females are at risk. Hear the words of Rabbi Avigdor Miller:
My opinion, it's not worth the risk. And I have only touched up on the problems in Israel. Moshiach will come someday. You are no different from your ancestors. Await Moshiach's arrival and make the most of your life in chutzah l'aaretz. You can accomplish great things there.
With the State of Israel, this dynamic is intensified because our historic emotional attachment to Eretz Yisroel gets mixed in with all sorts of myths about the modern society of Israel and leads to myth making.
I'll start by talking to families. If you have kids above the age of 4 you should not come to Israel. This applies to Modern Orthodox families too. There is a myth that kids just pick up language, like magic.
This is not how it really works. Children's brains certainly acquire foreign language far better than adults. But they don't just pick it up unless they are very small. And in that case, they are only picking up simple language. Fortunately, not much more than that is expected of them in English either. So your 3 year old can come to Israel and learn to say the Hebrew equivalent of "I'm hungry."It seems as if he has picked up the language, but he has only picked up a 3 year old's level of that language. There are many olim who don't speak Hebrew who think that their kids do just because their kids can say, "kick the ball."
Older kids have the challenge of sitting in a classroom all day long. For this one needs much higher facility with a language. Nobody just picks this up. You need to study it. The Dati Leumi schools in some cities utilize the city Ulpan programs, half the day for 5 months. This means that for the other half of the day, your kid will be bored out of his mind.
Boredom is very dangerous. People fear damage to self-esteem when their kid will go from getting 90s on tests to 60s. That's our modern preoccupation with this new term called self-esteem. What happens to olim is much worse. Boredom creates this feeling of unhappiness with life. Kids become not just uncomfortable with school but with their own existence. Kids get lost in their daydreams and their day dreams can be quite unhealthy. I know kids that came to Israel quite normal and now have trouble concentrating because due to their early experiences here in school, they became day dreamers. They can't concentrate.
The Ulpan programs themselves are not all that they are cracked up to be. Israel is a different kind of culture and Israelis are a different kind of people. Many tend to be short tempered and abrasive. You'd hope that the teachers would be the more patient types, but that is not necessarily the case. One kid told me that his Ulpan teacher used to scream at the kids in his class every day. I can believe him because my Ulpan teacher used to shout at us, a room full of adults. The kid told me, I don't understand why she had to yell just because a kid didn't know something. How old were these kids? 7.
Charedi schools don't utilize the city Ulpan programs because they fear the mixing in with less frum or non-frum people. Israel is not an out of town American community like Dallas or Rochester. Different Orthodox groups don't mix together.
But frighteningly, the Charedi schools don't create their own Ulpan programs. Some have a mini-class of half an hour a day. Some just take the kid out of class occasionally for a little tutoring. So what is happening basically is that the kids are sitting for 8 hours - the Charedi school day is longer - starting at the walls. Want to know what that is like. Go to Chinatown and sit with the kitchen staff in a restaurant sometime. Stay there for an hour and see if you can take it. Try a whole day. Try a month like that.
One of the many utterly false cliches that float around the olim community is that the children who come at the beginning of the school year will understand Hebrew by Chanukah and will speak it by Purim. This is a lie that can compete with the most outrageous of lies.
Even with Ulpan and private tutoring, it will take a talented kid 7 or older at least a year to manage in basic Hebrew and that is not necessarily enough to function in school. Many kids take two years. Full comfort with the language takes 5 years. I know numerous kids who have been here for years and cannot speak Hebrew. They gave up. Many are no longer Torah observant. I have a friend whose kid is no longer observant. I asked my friend, was his kid having any religious issues before he came to Israel. Not at all, he said.
I see formerly observant olim all over the place in Israel. One Wednesday night I was trying to sleep when I heard a huge commotion out my window. I looked outside and saw a gaggle of drunken teenagers storming down the street at 2 AM. They were shouting in perfect American English. This is all in a religious town. The parks of many cities with high percentages of olim are full of off-the-derech olim. You can see them their on Friday nights, smoking and texting. That's some aliyah, leaving the Torah.
Language is just one issue. Another is religious atmosphere. A Charedi in America experiences Israel mostly through Charedi fundraisers that come into town asking for money, maybe after giving a shiur. One gets the impression that Israel is a country full of rabbis.
No, no, no, no, no. Charedim comprise a small portion of the country. Maybe 8%. And they pack themselves into a handful of communities. The great majority of the country is non-religious, anti-religious, and anti-Charedi. You can get on a train in Jerusalem and travel to Tel Aviv and Haifa while seeing only a smattering of Charedim. On a number of occasions I have stood in Tel Aviv and surveyed the people as they passed, counting a 100 and seeing only 2 or 3 that showed any signs of religious observance, usually very Modern Orthodox.
That's something else you need to know. Modern Orthodoxy in Israel is not like that in America. In America, the Modern Orthodox, from a Charedi perspective, get too involved in college, careers, and secular culture, but they can be reasonably religiously motivated. In Israel, the religious level is way less. Mini-skirts in girls schools are quite normal. And the focus of everybody is on the army. It's all about the army.
And the army is a weird place. So an American kid from Teaneck goes off to the University of Maryland. He's not as frum as he could be but he's majoring in business or something like that. He's studying, he's involving himself with Hillel. He's getting a life started. It's not a Charedi life, but he's a Shomer Shabbos boy finding his way.
The army owns you. You don't find your way in the army. They tell you what to do, what to wear, where to sleep. They teach you how to kill too. As I'm writing for Charedim here I hope I don't have to worry about angering those that see the Israeli army as a religious entity. It is quite far from that. And it affects the entire society. David Ben-Gurion envisioned it as a melting pot to forge the new Hebrew man who breaks from the past. Ben-Gurion was an atheist. Need I say more.
So 90 plus percent of the country lives in a culture that is built around the military experience. As a result, people are aggressive and bossy. It is not easy dealing with them. But you will have to deal with them even if you live in a Charedi community because it's pretty rare to find here a Charedi doctor, dentist, lawyer, or even real estate agent.
Why is that? It's in large part because a man cannot obtain a military exemption if he has ever worked. People complain about the Charedim not working but they can't work, lest they be forced into the very traife environment called the military.
And know this. Even the military exemption is coming to end by edict of the high court. So bringing a male child of any age to Israel is a risk. Even females are at risk. Hear the words of Rabbi Avigdor Miller:
Question: Wouldn't moving to Yerushalayim be the best way to express our yearning in our days.
Rabbi Miller: Moving to Yerushalayim is not that simple. First of all, it's a problem, what do you do with your sons? They might be drafted and you'll have to start dodging the army. So, you'll say, "Well, I'll live in Yerushalayim only a short while, and come back to America from time to time. I'll retain my American citizenship.” It's not that simple. Sooner or later, your children will be Israelis. What's going to happen then? You have to keep them out of the army. You have to know, by the way, that right now, there's a very great hatred against Orthodox Jews in Eretz Yisrael. Right now. They attacked a synagogue for the first time, which is only the beginning. There's a big movement now among the chofshim to draft yeshiva boys into the army again. And there's a movement among the chofshim to draft women into the army again. Giyus noshim is actual again. Everybody is requested to send letters or telegrams to Shimon Peres, the prime minster, and also to Yizhak Shamir, the deputy prime minister, protesting against any proposal to draft yeshvia boys and any proposal to draft women. It's a very dangerous time right now because right now, there's a fire of sinah and antisemitism against frum Jews in Eretz Israel. It just happens right now, they've reached a peak, and let's hope it won't get any worse. The attack on the synagogue is the worst thing that happened so far. Frum Jews are being put in jail for nothing, such a little protest against chillul Shabbos, or a protest against immorality in the posters. Therefore , it's important to keep this in mind, and and to send those letters to Shimon Peres, the Prime Minister, and Yitzchak Shamir, the deputy Prime Minister.
Now, if you're able to make a living, and your children are settled, let's say, in America, in yeshivos, in a yeshiva world and frum environment, and you, yourself, want to move to Yerushalayim, if you can support yourself, why not? However, if your presence in America is needed, because they need a frum father or a frum zeida, or a frum mother to watch over them, for many times, if there are not parents or grandparents present, things happen in a family with the children. They need a kind word, or a strict word from the parents to manage things properly, so maybe you can't go. Also, people should go to Eretz Yisrael and they become dependent on support in America? I don't approve of that. If you have funds,yes, but to go there and then start writing letters to your American friends to support you, I don't believe in that. (Tape #604)You want to point to examples where things work out? That's like saying put up all your savings to run for president, Trump won.
My opinion, it's not worth the risk. And I have only touched up on the problems in Israel. Moshiach will come someday. You are no different from your ancestors. Await Moshiach's arrival and make the most of your life in chutzah l'aaretz. You can accomplish great things there.
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