Olim with PhDs vs. the Education Ministry
People who move to Israel are not referred to by local residents as immigrants. They are referred to in Modern Hebrew as olim - "ascenders," lost souls who were finally allowed to ascend to the spiritual spheres that only the State of Israel can offer. That is, if they're Jewish. But leaving the ethnic and religious debate aside, the issue of new immigrants to Israel has never been dealt with lucidly. Over more than sixty years, a myth has been cultivated of grateful immigrants, overcoming great difficulties in the struggle to be a part of Israeli society. Abandoning an inferior lifestyle in their countries of origin, they are at the threshold of a new life and a better future. This can be a true myth for many immigrants. But like any other myth, it leaves little room for anyone who does not fit the mold. The possibility that some new immigrants have a past; that they can be competent, well trained professionals who can contribute to Israeli society as well as to benefit from it, clashes with the romantic notion that some pioneering efforts are required on the part of new immigrants. Keeping in mind the heroic tales of their parents and grandparents who immigrated to Palestine in earlier times, Israelis judge the experiences of new immigrants with perceptions taken from the first half of the twentieth century. To come to Israel and land (so to speak) a good job off the cuff seems to many Israelis a sacrilege. Particularly the arrival of highly professional immigrants with doctoral degrees strikes an emotional cord with Israelis who remember, either from the stories of their own ancestors or the stories of others, the pride that highly professional immigrants in the nineteen-thirties took at working the land and performing manual labor. Many of them feel that today's immigrants should, of course, be able to work in their chosen professions but not right away. An oleh's story: Beating my head against the wall in Israel
I came to Israel for love of the land. There is no other place in the world to raise a Jewish family, and the social and educational klita experienced by myself, my wife and three daughters has been nothing short of remarkable. My professional klita, however, my "welcome to Israel," would have had the typical US board-certified physician swimming the Atlantic to get back to America. I am a recent graduate of an excellent program in pediatrics, at a children's hospital ranked by US News and World Report as one of the top institutions in the US. I am US board certified in pediatrics. We celebrated the one year anniversary of our aliya just days ago, and I have become one of Delta's favorite customers because I continue to hold a position in a pediatric emergency room in the US. I am paid more for a week's work in the US than I would receive monthly as a more highly trained physician here (see comments on salary made by an Israeli cardiologist in The Jerusalem Post, August 14, 2009). In a short-sighted policy unmatched, to my knowledge, by any other first-world country, I am permitted to commute back to the US and work without paying anything in tax to the State of Israel, while at the same time I am effectively prohibited from doing comparable work in my field in Israel. Why? The Israel Medical Association (IMA) has required return to residency before allowing me to work and to advance in my field. Learning the ropes
This is the third entry in a series of Aliyah Stories by Darrell Ginsberg. To catch up, read his first entry The Landing followed by A new home in an old home. I decided to make a trip to the grocery store to get some food and see about getting a phone to call home . I walked over to the Joseph Meyerhof Mini-Mall/Retirement Home and the store owners were quick to pull me into their stores, give me tea, and tell me stories of their late-uncles who also came to Israel from the old-country. Joseph Meyerhoff mini-mall was similar to the old country only with futuristic prices. The city had placed the retirement home in the middle of mini-mall three years after the mini-mall opened since the supermarket lines moved too quickly and there was too little haggling over prices to comply with Israeli Municipal Buy-laws. The people from the retirement home were happy to be giving back and after some time felt comfortable enough with the locale to have naps in the aisles of the stores. A new home in an old home
For Part I of Darrell's arrival in Israel, click here. After sifting through the joyous celebration on the tarmac, I made my way into the terminal to begin the bureaucratic balagan [chaos]. The time spent running between immigration offices at the airport gave me my first lesson in traditional Israeli folk-dancing. Participants move swiftly, impatiently and irately between government offices looking for a non-existent person, form or stamp. The dance is performed to differing simple melodies but the customary refrain always includes 'we don't handle this type of work... we are closing in 10 minutes....come back tomorrow...(sung in Hebrew, Yiddish or Russian).' A Mossad situation
Because nobody's ever questioned me about my involvement with Israel's top-secret spy agency, the Mossad, I'm now ready and willing to talk. It all began while I was still living in Toronto and planning my escape to Israel. One day I stumbled upon an advert in a national Canadian newspaper inviting people to join the Mossad by applying via their new website. Yeah, I was also very surprised to discover the rather unclassified ad. Anyhow, I applied but hadn't heard back from them by the time I had left for Israel to make Aliyup. This, incidentally, would be my second attempt at settling successfully in Israel. My very own "Second Aliyah" if you will. The non-accent
When I made aliyah, I didn't give my accent very much thought. I have a near-perfect Israeli accent when I speak Hebrew, which, I have learned, is both a blessing and a curse. When I go out with other olim chadashim [new immigrants], they're all sure that Israeli vendors are trying to rip us off. As we approach booths in the shuk [market] or at the Nachalat Binyamin art fair, my friends' voices drop to hushed tones. "Ask him, in Hebrew, how much the necklace costs," someone will whisper, then stand hunched behind me, listening for an answer and hissing demands as I try to negotiate the price. Life as a Jewsician
Some folks make aliyah for religious reasons, others for nationalist reasons. And then there are songwriters like me who come to Israel for no apparent reason, and decide to stay, until they're asked to leave. Being the wandering Jewsician that I am, I've recorded in a number of major studios in Toronto, Montreal and New York. But there's no place like Tel Aviv for making music as I, an immigrant from Canada, was aboot to find oot. (So like that's how they speak in the Old Country, eh?) The landing
The blood dripping from my nose tasted salty and I wondered if that's the way blood always tasted or if I had some leftover airplane peanut shells on my upper lip. I had just emerged from a 13-hour aliyah flight full of religious people singing, rebellious babies crying, and redundant Israeli immigration workers questioning my reasons for making aliyah. Nonetheless, it was a welcome return to the land of my forefathers and four mothers when we rejoiced in song and cheers as the wheels of the 747 touched-down. On the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport I felt like an exiled former dictator returning home on the same plane as a returning Eurovision champion. Flowers, cheering crowds, and a spread of sandwiches were waiting on the runway, but no-one was really there to see me. The plane evacuated in a mob of head-covered humanity eager to reunite with their loved ones and tuna baguettes. Jerusalem, it's a heck of a town
When I see artists painting the same stone arches and cobblestone streets that I walk through every day, I think to myself, "Jerusalem, it's a heck of a town." When I walk into Jaffa Gate, and I'm not the least bit surprised to see a camel sitting there, or someone playing sitar, guitar, or harp. When I see the policemen riding in the ancient streets on six-feet-tall horses and imagine that it must not have looked too different here three thousand years ago, I think to myself, "Jerusalem, it's a heck of a town." Faking aliyah
When I first 'made' aliyah way back in 1992, I didn't even know what the word aliyah meant, let alone how to pronounce it (a-LEE-ya? a-LIE-ya? Eliza?) The truth is, I didn't come to Israel for any Zionist reasons - another term I was unfamiliar with, although I did hear somewhere that it's the same as racism. Funny, I thought racism was a bad thing. In fact, I was merely bent on getting the heck out of Quebec, Canada where Anglos were deemed too un-French - particularly by the province's "French Language Police" - and encouraged to leave their native land SVP ASAP. The Indians, oops, I mean 'Aboriginal' people, oops, I mean 'First People of Canada' were welcome to stay, albeit with some reservations, merci beaucoup. And what a beau coup it was. |
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