A Guest Post by Dr. Harold Goldmeier
Our Children Left Israel
By Dr. Harold Goldmeier August 27, 2017
A recent demographic report is sparking a spate of articles
and a Jerusalem Post editorial
(August 23, 2017, “Emigration worries,”). The data do not capture the pain of
separation, but they highlight a drastic national security threat to the future
of Israel.
My wife and I can describe the pain first hand but who else
cares? Our younger son gave up last month after eight years hoping and
struggling to build a life in the Jewish State. He, his wife and our
grandchildren returned to live abroad. They join the 1.2 to 1.5 million Jewish
Israelis (@15% of the Jewish population) already there and growing. Israeli
ex-pats publish their Israeli newspapers, on line blogs, support their own
synagogues, social welfare and Israel advocacy organizations. Our
daughter-in-law is in touch with a former-Israeli-women’s network helping her
assimilate.
Terrorism, wars and the prospect of sending their children
off to the IDF, factored little into the decision. It’s all about the light in
the attic, as Shel Silverstein put it, flickering and burning out. The “big
fortune” he was warned to bring on aliyah
exhausted after studying a year in ulpan
learning to speak Hebrew followed by months of unemployment, and moldering
underemployment, throughout the eight years. The family stressed out.
Concomitantly, they don’t blame Israel, however, our son
remembers the better standard of living and demands for his skills in his
hometown. He brought those memories with him. An inspiring single Mom, first
generation immigrant of Mizrahi descent, the kind about which national
activists tell stories and make movies, raised his Israeli-born wife and her
siblings in public housing. His wife dreams about the opportunities overseas
for her husband and children. They lived modestly in Israel but on the edge of
an economic precipice compounded by the proverbial culture clash and
frustrations of Israel’s bureaucracy.
Another son of ours and his family thrive in Israel. After some 20 years
they have no intentions of moving anywhere else. But it hasn’t been easy. Both
sons, as I reported on Life in Israel (June 19, 2017), are poster boys for the
consumer debt rising at a rapid pace approaching “out of control,” according to
the Bank of Israel supervisor.
Our emigrant son had respectable jobs in Israel, several at the same time
to make ends meet, but failed to unshackle himself from Israel’s immersive low
wages and pitiable purchasing power. He was told not to put on his resume he is
a graduate of Northwestern University fearing to appear too smart and high
priced.
“Dad,” he told me when it came time, “I gave it my best shot. I tried to
do everything right. I spent a full year in ulpan. I took low paying teaching
jobs just to break into the world of work. I made eight good friends, and built
a small but close social network. Every one of my friends returned home
including the two doctors. I drained my American savings to support us. I have
to do what’s best for my family.”
“I was paid a third of the money I made in America. There I
worked forty hours a week here 60 or more. No complaints that’s the Israeli
system. I just can’t save any money here. I’m just worn out. Exhausted and
frustrated….”
“You don’t even realize that those of us who are secular
have added expenses more than those in the religious communities like where you
live. We pay six or eight times more a month for daycare, because the
government doesn’t subsidize us like in designated religious cities. We pay
higher arnona (property taxes). I
drive twelve years old cars constantly needing repairs, because I don’t have
nis200, 000 for a new one ($56,000). Everything costs me more: food, clothing,
restaurants…and I make less money.”
He speaks admiringly about Mizrahi, Russian and Ethiopian
immigrants and other Israelis. They come to Israel with nothing, make subsistence
salaries, build lives and make do. He worships his brother and sister-in-law
living in Israel raising their children with a sense of belonging raising eight
kids in a tiny apartment.
Our polymath son is not an ingrate, by nature not a quitter
or alone in his decision. American
ex-pats are 1% to 2% of the population living abroad for family, work and
retirement. Israel government officials ought to worry that 36% of secular
Israelis Jews would move abroad given the opportunity, according to Massa Israel. I’ve read 30 percent of olim leave after
three to five years. Numbers don’t matter to parents and family, but they ought
to matter to the government. If the US lowers its corporate tax rate to 15%
Israel’s business community will drain away in a country already needing a
surgical remix.
Nearly every friend I painfully tell about our emigrant
children has a similar story to tell. It’s like having a bad back. We are close
to our older son and his family living in Israel, but now we understand what
Alice said, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”
Dr. Goldmeier is University
Instructor, Public Speaker, Businessman and Consultant
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