(no subject)
Oct. 1st, 2008 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crewgrrl"Live in Teaneck, make money, send money, feel guilty." - Menachem Leibtag (attributed)
The above question was an answer given to a student who asked his teacher what he should do if he didn't feel that he could hack it in Israel. But it seems like anyone can make it there these days. Providing, of course, that they don't really live there.
My brother coined a new phrase - "Aliyah lite." (For those unfamiliar with the Hebrew, Aliyah means immigrating to Israel.) He plans to do this one day himself. He want to move to Israel, live in an American (or just Anglo) community, visit America every summer (to make money), and avoid most of Israeli society. He wants his children to speak Hebrew, to spend shekels instead of dollars, but god forbid they should actually be Israeli. God forbid they join the army (especially the girls).
I can't decide which is worse - people like this or Americans who leave the best Jerusalem real estate vacant 80% of the year. Those are people who buy big expensive apartments in very nice neighborhoods, visit them three times a year, and leave them vacant the rest of the time. They drive up the cost of real estate so that native Israelis are having difficulty getting apartments.
What do we see Israel as? A nice vacation spot, but I wouldn't want to live there? Someplace to take advantage of when it suits us and leave behind when it doesn't? Or do we see it as a country, with it's own society, ethics and values. A country like any other. And when you pick up and move to another country, you LIVE there. You're not just visiting.
/rant
The above question was an answer given to a student who asked his teacher what he should do if he didn't feel that he could hack it in Israel. But it seems like anyone can make it there these days. Providing, of course, that they don't really live there.
My brother coined a new phrase - "Aliyah lite." (For those unfamiliar with the Hebrew, Aliyah means immigrating to Israel.) He plans to do this one day himself. He want to move to Israel, live in an American (or just Anglo) community, visit America every summer (to make money), and avoid most of Israeli society. He wants his children to speak Hebrew, to spend shekels instead of dollars, but god forbid they should actually be Israeli. God forbid they join the army (especially the girls).
I can't decide which is worse - people like this or Americans who leave the best Jerusalem real estate vacant 80% of the year. Those are people who buy big expensive apartments in very nice neighborhoods, visit them three times a year, and leave them vacant the rest of the time. They drive up the cost of real estate so that native Israelis are having difficulty getting apartments.
What do we see Israel as? A nice vacation spot, but I wouldn't want to live there? Someplace to take advantage of when it suits us and leave behind when it doesn't? Or do we see it as a country, with it's own society, ethics and values. A country like any other. And when you pick up and move to another country, you LIVE there. You're not just visiting.
/rant
