Why I Moved to Israel

By Dani Koesterich (check out his blog)

Around 5 weeks ago, I moved from New Jersey to Jerusalem. Many people wondered why I decided to move, and when asked the reason, I found myself advancing a wide range of answers - everything from the inspirational, to the spiritual, and even the practical (”well, I have a lot of friends there”). Now, being Israeli for 5 weeks, I would like to list some of the reasons I decided to move, and add my present-day opinions, now that I have a bit of hindsight on the matter.

(1). Israel is the only country that actively protects Jews worldwide

You may not know this, but there are Israeli mossad agents in every single country on planet earth. I kid you not. If you’ve done a bit of reading into history, and intake regular quantities of Middle Eastern news, you’d know how vulnerable Jews are worldwide (if you disagree, I assure you I can change your opinion). Let’s leave anti-semitism out of the picture for a moment. The state of Israel as a country is rather controversial in the world. Terrorism against Jews in any country can send a serious message to the state of Israel, and that is why Israel takes on the unbelievable burden of watching out for Jews all over the world.
It may not seem like a big deal for Jews living in America, under the security and protection of the world superpower, but when the situation hits the fan for the Jews (and believe me, it does), circumstances can become dire. That is why I feel the safest living in a country full of Jews, run by Jews, whose #1 priority is to protect Jewish lives.

(2). This is the chance our ancestors waited over 1800 years for

The 2nd temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans, and the Jewish people were exiled, and dispersed from Israel to locations all over the world. In their daily prayers (3 times a day) Jews have been praying for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and their temple for over 1800 years. Rewind just 100 years ago: Millions of Russain Jews were living in ghettos, poor, starving, and 40% unemployed, where it was illegal to practice any form of Judaism whatsoever. The Jews of that period in time would literally have done any possible thing to be freed from their oppression, let alone to have a state of their own, where Jewish observance was not only legal, but facilitated.

Now that the chance to live in a Jewish land of Israel has returned for the first time in 1800 years, I would think it an unimaginable lost opportunity to just ignore it, and live somewhere else. We’ve been wondering from country to country for centuries already.

(3). We’re making history

Read some history books. In approximately the year 378 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus The Great set forth an edict allowing Jews to return to their homeland, and rebuild their temple. A mere 5% took him up on his offer. Not only that, but later on, when the temple was finally rebuilt and the 2nd Jewish commonwealth was underway, 75% of world Jewry lived outside the land of Israel. Our Rabbis and Sages say that had the Jews risen to the opportunity that Cyrus The Great had helped to provide, the 2nd temple may not have been destroyed.

To put it mildly, their great grandchildren and their descendants felt they made a disastrous decision, and the Jewish people have paid wholesomely for it, for millennia. When the history books of the 21st century are written and studied by future generations, I don’t want to be looked back on poorly.

(4). Israel needs Jews!

Having lived in Israel for 5 weeks at this point, I can say definitively that Israel needs Jews living here. In just 60 years, the country has gone from practically nothing, to a first-world country, often times leading the way in technology and science. I believe this is solely due to the unparralelled talent, and drive the Jewish people have, collectively.

I like to think of myself as a talented individual, and thus, one of the reasons I decided to move to Israel was so that I can put my talents toward improving the Jewish state. There are a lot of smart Jews living in Israel, and let me just say, it’s apparent.

(5). Everything you do is a Mitzvah

There is only one country on earth where picking trash up off the ground is a Mitzvah, and there is only one country on earth where sweeping the ground outside your apartment is a Mitzvah. You guessed it: Israel.

(6). What do you want to do with your life?

Believe it or not, there will come a point in time that you will look back on your life, and begin to judge whether you lived your life satisfactorily. For me, when that time comes, I desperately want to be able to list the multitude of things I dedicated time and energy toward during my lifetime that helped build Israel into a better place. I also hope at that time, I can say that I successfully raised a generation of children that will continue the legacy of the Jewish people.

Maybe they’ll each have their own blogs. That would be awesome. I know a good programmer they can hire.

(7). The food here is ridiculous

Seriously, if you like food even a little, you would love living in Israel. The ice coffee is in slurpee consistency! Enough said.

(8). Hebrew is sickly cool

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COMPLACENCY

Yishai, Shalom,

Do Mike and sk really support Israel (i.e. the people of Israel, not necessarily the regime)?
Can someone who claims to support Israel, be at the same time an anti-Aliyah advocate.

I can accept any criticism of the Israeli government and Israelis, but where I draw the line is :
1) inciting Israelis to commit violent acts against other Jews
2) discouraging people from making Aliyah.

The left in Israel does not want American Aliyah! Because who would make Aliyah? Mostly American Jews who are religious and right-wing. If they wanted American Aliyah, they would know very well how to promote it, just as the Jewish agency went all over Russia looking for goyim to move to Israel, and gave special grants to them.

Mike and sk do not have a real argument, that is why they revert to ad hominem attacks against those who disagree with them. Isn't it obvious that nothing positive will come from their calls for violence, only an excuse for the regime to clamp down.

Nor do they understand the real problem, that there are two kind of religious Zionists:
1) Land of Israel faithful who voted for the National Union
2) Bourgeois "mamlachti" religious Zionists, who read Haaretz and look up to the Tzfonim and voted for the Bayit Yehudi.

The most important mission of the land of Israel activists is to move the bourgeois religious Zionists from their comfy chairs.

Frankly, I am tired of them and wish they would just go away. All the effort you put into promoting aliyah -- you could have had a lucrative career defending white-collar criminals on Wall St. -- and these two attempt to spoil it.

As for your blog, I think your positive stories about the Jewish people returning to their land are exciting, but they don't seem to move some of your readers very much.

I think you ought to "challenge" your readers more, shake them out of their complacency. Perhaps, write more about the decline of Jewish life in America ?

* Moslems moving into traditional Jewish neighborhoods. And they are everywhere, so no point in moving from Passaic to Highland Park to Princeton.

* the Federal Government promoting a radical, leftist agenda, i.e. children reading "I have two mommies" in school or allowing gay marriage in certain states.

People in Monsey, should not think they can hide from this in their ghettoes. The Federal gov't can force this on them through federal funding of schools, "sensitivity training" at work, and many other ways.

Yes, there is decadence in Israel, but it's not so much enshrined in the law books.

* the anti-Israel, anti-semitic environment on campus. You have begun to address this issue, but perhaps it deserves more attention.

* The US government's hostility to Israel and support for the terrorists.  American Jews should think twice about residing in a country which supports the Jewish peoples' enemies.

* Who is more Jewish:  Israeli secular Jews or American reform Jews. I have seen apparently secular Jews reading tehillim on the bus.  Can you imagine a reform Jew in America reading tehillim?

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I enjoyed the podcast about global warming

Article about Al Gore

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/cover031307.htm

"... both [Maurice] Strong and Gore are cashing in on the lucrative cottage industry known as man-made global warming." (article goes on to explain how they have businesses which engage in selling carbon credits, etc.)

"... that Gore and Strong have made climate change 'the new religion'. ...Along with former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, [Maurice] Strong, currently president of the Earth Council, has been boasting of replacing the Ten Commandments with the Earth Charter, a golden rule guide for how the masses should treat the environment.

"Gore, who has given sermons at the United Nations sponsored Cathedral of St. John the Divine Church in New York City, is a promoter of the religion known as Gaia.

"The two environmental gurus also share a belief in radical Malthusian population reduction. According to them, too many people, particularly in the U.S. are polluting the planet, emitting excessive Freon through their refrigerators and jacking up the air conditioning.

B'kitzur,  I have nothing against preserving the environment, we should just be careful not to be manipulated by people with a different agenda such as Al Gore and Maurice Strong.

In fact, the perhaps most important environmental issue is GMO foods or "Frankenfood", i.e. putting a pig gene in corn, more or less ignored by the American media.

Why do we need Al Gore to tell us what to do ?

Wouldn't we be better off looking to the Torah for guidance, i.e. bal tashchit, but let's stick to what the halachah says, instead of treating every word from Al Gore as Torah m'-Sinai, especially given that environmentalism is tainted with Avodah Zara, nature worship.

In the case of GMO, there is the prohibition of kilayim, mixing species.

kol tuv, Dan

Swedish Life