אוירא דארץ ישראל Avira DEretz Yisroel

Various Perspectives and Experiences of Anglo-Chareidim Living in Eretz Yisroel

Soul Connection

When I came to learn at a yeshivah in Yerushalayim in 1982, it was only for a year. At that time, the Land was still quite foreign to me, as I was used to life back in Canada. I was just more comfortable living on the other side of the ocean.

That quickly changed over the course of the year, and I had come to love being in Eretz Yisroel, becoming more connected to the Land and feeling so much closer to Hashem. It was the place to be Jewish, so I chose to stay here another year—which led to another year. By the fourth year, it was clear to me that I wanted to live in Eretz Yisroel, and I made that clear as well when I started shidduchim.

I was married in 1985, and we first rented an apartment in the Old City to be close to my yeshivah. I started working part time and learning part time while my wife did some secretarial work for a local hotel. To make additional money, I also helped a rabbi transcribe his classes that he had planned to publish in book form.

In our second year of marriage, we moved to the Har Nof neighborhood in Yerushalayim. Unlike our apartment in the Old City, this one was unfurnished, which presented a problem since we did not have the money to furnish it ourselves. Then came the miracle. Another couple who had decided to return to North America asked us to use their furniture while they were gone so that they didn’t have to put it in storage. Their furniture was quality made and included a Maytag washer and dryer. Overnight we had a fully furnished apartment at no cost.

A job opportunity opened up for me in Canada around 1988, which I took in order to make money quickly so I could at least make a deposit on an apartment in Eretz Yisroel. We did not return until 1993, by which time we had purchased a home in a place called Telz-Stone (about 12 minutes outside of Yerushalayim, off the Tel Aviv-Yerushalayim highway). Originally, I had wanted to live in Yerushalayim, but we were able to get more value for our money in this new area. We have loved it here ever since.

I had part-time teaching jobs while I wrote books on Torah philosophy full time. This would not have been so promising had the Internet not become so available, changing the way people do business. Once upon a time, you had to bring your product to the market. Now you could do that from your home, even thousands of miles away from other people. The market could come to you even if you weren’t there. I run an American non-profit organization from my home in Eretz Yisroel, managing everything through the Internet. Thanks to Skype, I can even make low-cost long-distance phone calls.

I have Skyped my parents on a daily basis for many years already, and we can talk to each other face-to-face through our computers. It doesn’t replace being together in person, but it is a great second to this. I have remained close to them, learning with them and others over Skype or similar video conferencing platforms, making the distance between us seem quite insignificant. When used properly, technology is a tremendous asset and provides us with so many opportunities. It is far easier to live in Eretz Yisroel today, now that one can still maintain connections that are thousands of miles away.

That’s especially important to me, because now when I leave the Land, I am like a fish out of water. I have a soul connection with this Land, and I derive so much life from it. I have a sense of inner peace that I never had living abroad. You don’t need the same material things here that you felt you needed while living outside the Land. The sense of personal fulfillment I feel while living here more than compensates for them.

Now, when I see all the construction and improvements being made in the country, it is even more exciting. We may look at this as the way of any expanding country, but historically it represents more than that. Hashem runs the world and He is behind everything. He seems to be preparing for something great, and I am grateful to be living here as it happens. Though it’s not about avoiding struggle, as yisurim are part-and-parcel of life everywhere in this world. It’s about working hard for the things you value most and keeping the things that matter most to you. For me personally, Eretz Yisroel has been worth every challenge that I have had to deal with while being there, because I am where I believe I need to be and WANT to be.

The Bottom Line

Eventually, I wrote a book about the importance of settling in Eretz Yisroel today. It was really about the centrality of Eretz Yisroel in Torah growth, which points to the importance of at least doing what one can to move here. It was based upon another important sefer called “Tuv HaAretz,” writings from the Arizal about the Land. The bottom line is that Hashem is everywhere, but as the gemora says, this is the place where we connect to Him the best. Learning Torah and performing mitzvos comes alive in Eretz Yisroel, as does the history of the Jewish people. There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the Jewish world.

– Pinchas Winston, Telz-Stone

This article is part of Matzav.com’s Eretz Chemdah series featuring Anglo-Chareidim living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. A joint project of Avira D’Eretz Yisroel, Kedushas Tzion and Naava Kodesh, coordinated by Yoel Berman – yoel@naavakodesh.org.

Republished from Matzav.com.

Various Perspectives and Experiences of Anglo-Chareidim Living in Eretz Yisroel

Great and Simple Environment

I grew up in L.A., studied in Waterbury after high school, and then came to learn in the Mir in Eretz Yisroel. I returned to America and learned by Rav Asher Weiss in Monsey, NY. I met my wife that year and we settled there. She was finishing her college degree and I was happy learning in kollel. My wife had told me how she always imagined raising a family in Eretz Yisroel and it was something really important to her. In 2013, after our first son was born, we finally made the move.

I started out learning in kollel and was fortunate to have my parents and in-laws supporting us. However, after about two years of living here, I needed to start thinking about a job.

As it’s generally easier to find a job in America, most people in my neighborhood that reach this stage of life move back to the States, but we wanted to try to make it work here. With a bachelor’s degree in accounting from America, I found an amazing job in Tel Aviv that had friendly people and a warm environment. At this job, I really had the opportunity to learn a lot about the international tax arena. The starting salaries here are usually in-between half to a third of what people are getting paid in the U.S., but after sitting down with my wife and going through it, while debating whether that was a reason to go back to America, we found that half of the salary was very much worth it.

First of all, there is nothing we can compare to this environment in which we are able to raise our kids. I love watching my kids start their lives at a higher level. They literally feel Shabbos and the Yomim Tovim here. Already a month before Yom Tov, the stores change over to the seasonal items, and the whole country is getting ready for Yom Tov. Instead of billboards, they see pictures of gedolim. The streets are flowing with clean Jewish things instead of the things I wouldn’t wish my kids to be exposed to.

Their primary language is Hebrew, and they are able to learn with no language barrier. Whereas I struggled with limudei kodesh, they fly. Also, I was amazed at the curriculum. The kids are taught on a higher level. Even if they don’t fully grasp everything now, the seeds are planted for the future, though I was very surprised to actually see just how much my six-year-old does pick up and how he explains difficult parsha topics with a clear understanding.

Secondly, as the expenses and standards of living are astronomically higher in the U.S., even with a higher salary it would still be difficult to make ends meet there. Tuition, health insurance, and expected gifts and vacations add up to much more than anything else here. I love that my kids love life and the simplicity of it—without all the latest gadgets and without comparing with their friends about which one of them got a more expensive gift for Chanuka or birthdays. We don’t have iPads for all the kids like we know some families in America do (and no we’re not blaming or shaming anyone here). I just find it so nice that the mentality of life here isn’t to be hooked on these things. It is just to be responsible, help out, play outside, ride bikes, and be creative. It’s nice to see how many games the boys can create with a pile of sticks that they find behind the buildings.

So, we decided that we need to get adjusted to living a somewhat simpler life and we are determined to make it a happier one. It’s not just the kids that live more simply; we don’t want to be hypocrites! Though—yes—it was an adjustment!

We sometimes joke that very wealthy people are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars to come here just for one holiday when we are able to do it for every holiday. We get to live in the center of the world where Hashem Himself is the One Who watches over us, which I think is another reason why I love living here.

We recently had a miracle where we were expecting a child. The doctors told us there was no hope and that an abortion was our best option. We went to Rav Chaim who told us that everything was going to be fine. We grabbed onto his words and davened and cried out to Hashem, and we really saw one miracle after another. B”H, we have a beautiful healthy boy. (The details and struggle about it are in the Mishpacha magazine, Shavuos edition.) There is a connection that I feel towards Hashem here—He is the One watching over Klal Yisroel here and He feels so close to us. I know that there are many gedolim in America, but there’s just something so special about being able to talk to Rav Chaim, go to the Kosel and pour my heart out, go to Kever Rochel, or walk the streets that I know our Avos walked on.

We try to go visit the United States every summer so our children can spend time with their cousins and so that we can reconnect with our siblings. We love going and enjoying a little bit of the American things that we reminisce about, even though the truth is that slowly but surely, increasingly, American products are showing up over here. But after a few weeks in America, we’re always so grateful that we get to leave that all behind us and come back to our real home—here in Eretz Yisroel.

Grounded to Yiddishkeit

As someone who works, I sometimes feel myself slipping into the working life. I love my job. I love the conferences, fancy work environment, and the expensive lunch or dinner meetings—the executive world. But instead of drowning in it, I get to walk outside after work and see Yerushalayim’s streets with Jews all over and my own beautiful apartment. I feel so much more connected and grounded to my Yiddishkeit and my life because of it. I recently joined a Friday kollel where we learn all the halachos one should know about in the working field, and again I find that it’s not two separate worlds as one of working and one of Torah. Here I find that it’s easier for me to stay connected to my growth in Yiddishkeit through my job, while I believe I would have a harder time staying as connected had we been living in America.

– Shaul Klein, Yerushalayim

This article is part of Matzav.com’s Eretz Chemdah series featuring Anglo-Chareidim living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. A joint project of Avira D’Eretz Yisroel, Kedushas Tzion and Naava Kodesh, coordinated by Yoel Berman – yoel@naavakodesh.org.

Reprinted from Matzav.com.

From Lakewood to Beit Shemesh

We came to Eretz Yisroel in the summer of 2014 after living in Lakewood for almost seven years. Being “in-towners” originally from Monsey and Flatbush, moving to Eretz Yisroel wasn’t really the “in” thing to do, so why did we?

We always had a soft spot for Eretz Yisroel, but, like most people, we didn’t think it was realistic for us to live here long-term, so we settled in Lakewood, New Jersey like everyone else. After being inspired by a friend, I started to research the significance of living in Eretz Yisroel and how it has recently become exponentially more practical. At some point it dawned on me that Eretz Yisroel today is actually a most-amazing opportunity presented by Hashem, and I wanted to be a part of this project that was bringing us to Klal Yisroel’s ultimate destiny.

Before we immigrated to Eretz Yisroel, we went to get a bracha from Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, shlit”a. He clearly stressed the importance of making sure that my wife would be happy there. It also seemed very important to him that we had a plan for parnassah, which we were indeed confident about. At that time, I was working for a tech company that would let me take my job with me, so we didn’t have any excuse not to go. Working American hours in Eretz Yisroel meant that the mornings would be utilized for learning (what a better way to start a day), shopping and other errands, and this is something that many others are doing in our community in Eretz Yisroel.

Although my family would miss us, they respected the idea and were very supportive. My wife had two brothers already living in Eretz Yisroel, which made it much easier. WhatsApp and Skype can’t replace the real thing, so our parents now come visit about once a year, and we go once every few years for the summer.

We settled in Ramat Beit Shemesh, which has many nice American Yeshiva-style communities like where we came from. There are tens of shuls which range from yeshivish to balebatish to heimish. Some are into integrating with Israelis, while others work to create an entirely American environment. We have found American immigrants who have been successful coming with children of all ages, but they generally live in the more American neighborhoods that seem more appropriate for such a move. It is of course easier to integrate when the kids are younger.

Most people in my community are those who have stayed on for long-term after coming to Eretz Yisroel for yeshiva, and mostly originated in out-of-town communities; though I do know other people, besides myself, who have come here directly from in-town places like Lakewood and Monsey.

As our oldest child was turning six when we came here, chinuch was already at the forefront of our minds. People had warned us that things are different in Eretz Yisroel and there aren’t any schools that have the variety and balance that you’ll find in the U.S. When doing our research, a very different picture emerged, and when we arrived, we were glad to see that our fears about chinuch were unfounded. B”H, there are many schools that cater to Americans like us, some geared to kollel families, others with a working parent body, and then some more that are in between. In general, the schools with higher percentages of Americans seem to be more balebatish, and the ones more kollel-oriented seem to have a higher percentage of Israelis, though there are exceptions.

I think that we frum Yidden coming from America have what to contribute to society in Eretz Yisroel. For one, many of us bring a can-do attitude—we won’t just take situations as a given but will try to improve them. Another is the fact that we are proud and content to be hard-working and self-supporting ehrlicher Yidden. For us, after five or ten years of learning, this is just a new and different phase of our avodas Hashem—not a failure. Of course, there is much for us Americans to learn as well from the surrounding Israeli Chareidi society, including a much-less focus on materialism.

Living here has brought our lives to a different plane of existence, which has manifested in several different aspects. One thing that really stands out is the diversity. Even though in any specific neighborhood there might be just one kind of group, it takes only a three-minute drive to reach any public area—shopping, leisure, etc.—and all the walls fall apart and all types of Jews are interacting and getting along. It’s beautiful to see so many different colors and flavors of Yidden living side by side in harmony.

Our Very Own “Mountains”

Like in the U.S., we have our very own “upstate”—except that it’s Tzfas and Meron. The actual mountains seem to always be singing. Looking for Miami? No need to fly. Within a car ride of just an hour or so you can be taking in the sun-washed shores of Netanya. Of course, the greatest of them all is being able to type “The Kotel” or “Kever Rachel” into Waze and it tells me “you are forty-five minutes away.”

– Tzvi Moshe Arnstein, Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimmel

This article is part of the Eretz Chemdah series featuring Anglo-Chareidim living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. A joint project of Avira D’Eretz Yisroel, Kedushas Tzion and Naava Kodesh, coordinated by Yoel Berman – yoel@naavakodesh.org.

Reprinted from Matzav.com.