Israel is great! Almost everyone knows it. It’s the place all Jews want to be, and all non-Jews want us to be. There are tons of reasons why Israel is so important to the Jew – one such reason is that we get to celebrate 2 birthdays here (today is my brother’s and my Hebrew birthday – 16th of Av, 6 years apart).
Of course, there are many reasons or excuses why people don’t make Aliya. Family, fear, and finances are probably the excuses that top the list. "I’d miss my family too much", "I’m not brave enough to pick up and move to a foreign country", "I don’t even speak Hebrew, how could I support my family", "We’re saving up some money until we can afford to move".
Maybe your family can move with you, or maybe you can take advantage of modern technologies, such as blogs and Skype to grow even closer with your family.
We should overcome our fears and take action and we may just found ourselves to be just like the Cowardly Lion, with the courage inside us all along.
And, if we had 1 million dollars, then we wouldn’t have to worry about working and living a real life in Israel.
Doing some rough calculations, I estimate that the average American family can be comfortable in a home which costs about 4000 NIS per month in rent/mortgage. Assuming this is 1/3 of their monthly expenses, they’d need 12,000 NIS per month, or 144K NIS per year, or about $34K after taxes (bruto, neto, I still don’t know what’s what). That could be about $44K before taxes. This seems far below what is needed in America, and should we enough incentive to make Aliya.
If you want to retire when you move here, you can take your savings of about $880K, stick it in a bank and live off the interest. If you don’t have that money, so find a full-time job earning $23/hour, or work part-time contracting for $50/hour. With your skills, finding work should be a breeze.
If you think I’m being facetious, you’re wrong. Perhaps companies in Israel are currently paying that amount in Shkalim, but you don’t speak Hebrew so well, so why put yourself into that system. There’s a better system available called the global network, and they’d jump to hire an American at those rates.
FRANK LEVY: The basic message I think is that while the number of jobs is growing, there’s a chunk of jobs in the 20 to 35 dollar an hour range, a lot of blue collar jobs and clerical jobs that are really being taken over both by computerized work and also by off shoring.
Not sure if you can telecommute your job? Here’s a short list of such jobs:
- Law
- Finance
- Radiology
- Broadcasting
- Fashion
- Education
- Marketing
- Business
- Accounting
- Design
- Photography
- Videography
- Writing
- Translating
- Engineering
- Programming
If you’re young and inexperienced, talk to people or read newsgroups to find out what’s in demand that you can learn and do. And don’t worry if you’re job isn’t something that can be done for clients half-way around the world. Between the increased Aliya rates and growing tourism in Israel, any job advertised to serve the English-speaking population will find the demand they need to make the money they want and live the life in Israel that they deserve.
i know, and can extrapolate, that you are passionate about living in israel. many of israel’s fans believe, as i do, that our beloved country has done a poor job of hasbara. how do you translate hasbara? good public relations? telling our compelling or mundane stories to the world, so they can see us more favorably. your website, if widely viewed, wil help english-speaking people in israel get competitive salaried work, and it should also, through your blog, inspire people to want to work with or in israel, and to want to be a part of the zionist dream of a jewish homeland, our homeland.