I am very curious about not making aliyah

thesoundofmusic

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 4:30 pm

I just finished reading the yeshiva world news antisemitisem is terrifying.
attacks in new york, stamford hill, australia and more.
I am not asking this in a judgemental way I am really curious. why wouldnt someone choose to move to israel. I dont specifically mean right this second with the was going on
although my personal opinion is that even with the war going on israel is safer.
its not like people who made aliya 40 years ago that it was so hard and so different....
you can live in a beautiful home, find the mosdos that are matim for your family, tuition is a small percent of what it is in chutz laratz.
great health care. so many english speakers and best of all amazon that delivers)
oh - and the kedushah!
wondering what peoples thoughts are......

amother

Honeydew

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 4:41 pm

thesoundofmusic wrote:

We can’t go without doing our hishtadlus for income. We can’t go with our two high schoolers, both of whom are struggling. For us, it would mean, at least for a few years, my husband being away either a few days a week or a few weeks a month, and I can’t do that right now.

amother

Lemonlime

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 5:00 pm

I don't know anyone who stays in America for safety reasons.

Most people don't have what you described. They can't find appropriate communities for themselves, they can't afford the lifestyle, they're not familiar with the culture, and they have no family there.

And getting your sense of safety from yeshivaworld is like getting your sense of safety about Israel from Haaretz. Neither is particularly helpful or accurate.

amother

Hosta

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 5:19 pm

I am very curious about the evangelizing to make aliyah.
We are all equally in galus wherever we are. Yes Israel will always be the holiest place to be.
Realistically, people have family, businesses, kids in school, and lives in general. The answer is not for everyone to pick up and move.
Glad it worked for you. Doesn't mean it will work for everyone else.
We will all end up there eventually and until then we will all suffer in galus wherever in the world we are.

amother

Mustard

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 5:23 pm

Some answers-

-Husband not on board
-The profession my husband has pays a tiny percentage in Israel as it does in the US
-One kid has an undiagnosed learning disability where learning any language after the kid's first language is extremely extremely extremely difficult
-95% of the people who we personally know who made aliyah all ended up coming back to the US. And many more who we have heard of who stayed have a child/children who went off the derech

I wish I can tell these to my husband's cousin who does not stop sending us links to news articles and hebrew chat chatter about the antisemitism and how the jews in America don't know it but they are living on borrowed time etc etc.

amother

Bellflower

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 9:15 pm

I wish we can come.

We are barely scraping by here. How will we manage there until we find jobs? And how will we pay rent? We have small
House here with very low mortgage.
My kids are in school. It means shaking them up and who knows if they will be ok.
My husband isnt learning and the crowd we belong to everyone learns in israel and nobody works. (Different in America) so we would hardly fit it.

Otherwise we would go today

amother

Grape

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 10:08 pm

Can’t earn a parnasa.
Do I leave my elderly parents and widowed MIL?
DDs is in shidduchim and has a year left to her program and the others are in HS.
(I won’t mention that DH and I don’t speak a lick of Hebrew- basically ani eparon)

Aliya is the dream, but not sure how to make the dream a reality.

LovesHashem

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 10:27 pm

amother Mustard wrote:

95% how many families do you know? People who moved after they got married and took it year by year or people who made aliyah?

Also what's the percentage of kids in your community now that are OTD? Just curious, personally I don't see a bigger amount of Americans OTD than Israelis. Happens to everyone, everywhere.

essie14

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 10:37 pm

amother Mustard wrote:

95%???
How is that even possible?
Honeymooners who move back are not people who made aliyah.
I know hundreds and hundreds of people who made aliyah. Maybe even a thousand.
I don't even know 5% who have moved back.

DrMom

Thu, Jun 20 2024, 10:38 pm

It takes a lot to uproot your family, find a new home, find a new community, learn a new language (knowing how to daven is not the same as knowing conversational Hebrew), find schools where your kids are happy, find jobs, etc.

For most people, unless/until antisemitism gets really, really really bad, the inconvenience of dealing with the above issues outweighs that of dealing with antisemitism.

amother

Honeydew

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 12:07 am

DrMom wrote:

For some of us, it’s more than just inconvenience.

shabbatiscoming

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 12:15 am

amother Mustard wrote:

Then you obviously dont know many olim.
Im here over 20 years and know of possibly a handful of people who left. But know hundreds or more, of olim who came, and stayed and live wonderful normal lives.

amother

Daphne

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 12:29 am

amother Mustard wrote:

Agreed with others, the number leaving for America is significantly less than the number coming. RBS has so many Anglos because thousands live here. We’re going to be one of the larger cities in Israel soon due to aliyah. My kids school gains 3-10 families a year. Since, we came a few years ago, only two families have returned with 25 remaining.

I have children with learning differences and they’re doing better here. It’s not a blanket rule.

I took a 50% pay cut. You need less money here so it didn’t impact living standards at all.

I’m doing as your husband’s cousin too. I want my family to realize that life in America isn’t as meaningful or as beautiful. I wish they could see what we see and feel the strength that we feel. It’s not easier but it’s so much happier and deeper.

The true answer is, those who are willing to take the chance, tend to be much happier. There will always be another reason to add to the list not to come. At the end of the day, it’s a value.

amother

Lightcoral

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 12:58 am

I made aliyah 18 years ago and would never move back. However, I dont think its fair to minimize the hardships of making aliyah. It is really really hard. Maybe its not like that for everyone, but it doesnt help anyone to whitewash the difficulties and say its just inconvenient.
I do think if you make aliyah and stick it out through the difficulties, it will be so worth it in the end. But I truly understand why people find it too difficult and overwhelming.

What does bother me however are the people who dont even have any interest or any desire to even think about it as an ideal.
Yes, living in E"Y is the ideal and it should be every person's dream. Even if its not feasible for you and just remains wishful thinking, it should still be thought about.

amother

Tan

Fri, Jun 21 2024, 12:59 am

We are working towards it

Reasons for staying
- elderly parents with increasing needs and we are thr only ones here, we need to live within a 5 min shabbos walk so tied to small apartment and can't afford to buy either . This is the biggest reason, we are the only children left with the parents so it is a big responsibility
- both poor at languages although since October we have both been doing online ulpan
- will need to requalify in our careers to get a job which will take time and a lot of money not earned
- where to live - tricky for persona/family reasons but can't live in Anglo areas
- I struggle with Israeli culture but am determined to get used to it
- heat is very difficult for us - again we will get used to it
- school/ societal fissure between chareidi and secular, this is much less pronounced where we currently live and we will find it difficult

It is hard to uproot everything you know and are familiar with and I worry that would destabilise my well controlled depression

On the other hand we love being in Israel, just the day to day when we are there staying with family and have plans to go but not for many years