Moving to Israel

As this is a moving to Israel blog, the vast majority of posts are, obviously, related to coming to Israel, Aliyah, and subjects related to the country. That being said, I’m hoping my readers won’t mind a little shameless plug today. As many of you know, this blog was born out of our shipping to Israel site, www.shippingconsolidators.com, which finds people the best price when shipping to or from Israel. The idea of the site was (and is) to make the Aliyah and moving to Israel process as easy as possible and remove one of the common headaches associated with the move.

Well, we are proud to announce that, due to the success of the site thank G-d and by popular demand, we have now broadened our horizons and have begun working with people on a new site, www.shipping2australia.com. Similar to the concept of our original site and, as you may have guessed by its name, the new site helps people with another move, finding the best price when shipping to Australia. Shipping from Australia, as well as within, are covered as well.

While moving to Australia obviously does not carry the spiritual or halachic (law according to the Torah) significance of moving to Israel, we wanted to let the word out about the site to our readers here in the hope that they will be able to spread the word about the service to anyone who may find it useful and helping our friends out over at www.shipping2australia.com that they may find the same loyal readership that we’ve found over here from our fantastic readers.

Thank you for listening to the plug and may Hashem continue to watch over Jews everywhere they are in the world.

Ari

As we continue through the time of year where our Nation collectively “remembers” some of the most dire times in our history, begining from Erev Pesach / before Passover when we remember our bondage and our redemption from Egypt and continuing through our Holocaust Memorial Day when we remember the persecution of our people while the world watched indifferently, we now gear up for the Memorial Day for our fallen, those of our loved ones who fell in battle during the establishment of our State, or in battles since then and also our loved ones who were murdered by terrorists simply because they were Jews.

This time period and the circumstances surrounding them makes this article by Yehudit Tayar particularly excellent. She talks of how every day is Memorial Day for her when she grieves our beautiful brothers and sisters who have perished through the years simply for being Jewish and how remembering itself is not enough. She talks about how we must also fight while we remember. Fight for our survival, fight for our independence as a Nation, fight by insisting that the world accept our inalienable right to live in Israel and live as Jews and fight in the IDF and send our sons and daughters to fight proudly and with the human values that they inherit as Jews that are so  integral a part of our heritage.

This is but a small list of the some of things we must continue to fight for, but the message from Tayar is clear. Read this stirring article and let it help you feel the power of this week’s Memorial Day, when we mourn our fallen and prepare to fight for our future.

Ari

There is a very touching story in the Jerusalem Post today that I know will interest all of our readers of the moving to Israel blog about the widow of Golani Brigade Maj. Eliraz Peretz who, while talking to Knesset Speaker Ruby Rivlin in her living room on Thursday, asked not that her home be saved from imminent demolition in the unauthorized Givat Hayovel outpost on the outskirts of the Eli settlement, but that Jonathan Pollard, a dual American-Israeli citizen who is serving his 25th year of an unlimited life sentence in an American prison for passing classified American documents to Israel, be finally freed and allowed to come home.

Shlomit Peretz is still grieving her husband, 31, who was killed in action in the southern Gaza Strip on March 26, along with St.-Sgt. Ilan Sviatkovsky, 21. On Thursday, politicians made their way to her two-story stone home to speak with her and her four young children. Of her husband, Shlomit told Rivlin, “He was willing to pay the price and what happened, happened.”

This is an incredible display of faith and courage that during Shlomit’s time of the ultimate mourning, she still has people like Jonathan first and foremost in her mind. “The state has left someone in the field for 25 years. If we could return him home, it would be a form of comfort for us,” she said.

Pollard is still, all these years later, a very powerful motivation for Jews around the world to pick up and come home to Israel and it is our hope that Shlomit and her family will overcome this tragedy and be credited with the rewards from Hashem for those that make the courageous move.

May Hashem bring home Jonathan Pollard as soon as possible and may the Peretz family know only happiness from here on out.

Ari

As the Pesach/Passover holiday begins to wind down, I thought it was a great time to link out to this fantastic video. It is an exciting and inspiring interview with former Prisoner of Zion, Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, on moving to Israel, Aliyah, Zionism and Judaism.

In the video, Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel, hosts of Tuesday Night Live in Jerusalem, meet Sharansky, who also was one of the founders and spokesmen for the “Refusenik” movement in Moscow in the 1970s after being denied an exit visa to Israel in 1973. Since immigrating to Israel upon his release, Sharansky has held various high governmental positions, headed a Knesset party and was Cabinet minister, and is the symbol of strength, resistance, and the Jewish dream for many people around the world.

This video is a must see for all and should help bring us in to the “second day(s)” of the holiday with the right frame of mind.

Ari

Just wanted to wish all of our readers a healthy and happy Passover/Pesach holiday from the entire staff at the Moving to Israel blog.

This is one of the most special times of the year for the Jewish people and this link will give you a fantastic summary of various Passover Laws and Customs.

Have a healthy and peaceful holiday and, with G-d’s help, may we all celebrate next year together in Jerusalem.

Ari

I talked the other day about my disappointment of the United States’ reaction after Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new houses for Jews in east Jerusalem. However,  this disappointment pales in comparison to the latest “words of encouragement” provided by UN chief Ban Ki-moon. On Saturday Ban spoke about how Israeli settlement building anywhere on occupied land is illegal and must be stopped. He also rejected Israel’s distinction between east Jerusalem and the West Bank, noting that both are occupied lands.

While one sided, Israel bashing statements are nothing new from the UN, it still never fails to boil my blood when I hear such garbage. There’s a whole world out there full of murder, slaughter, hunger and other calamities and, yet, the United Nations always seems to find time to condemn, make a resolution against or just generally criticize Israel…this time for building plans!

While we would be naive to believe that the UN will change their opinions about Israel and the Jewish people any time soon, the whole sad situation should really make us remember and be realistic about the world we’re living in and should raise the level of concern even more when the U.S., Israel’s supposed “best friend,” takes the liberty of joining the nonsense.

Ari

Israel was under the international microscope yet again last week as U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited the area. However, it seems to be the post-visit that is really stirring things up as United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lashed out verbally at Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Shabbat, berating him for announcing building plans in Jerusalem during Biden’s visit. It’s been reported that Clinton told Netanyahu that the announcement, which Israel has said was not intentionally coordinated with the diplomatic visit of Biden, was embarrassing for the United States.  She said the incident may imperil a recent joint decision between the Arab League and the United States to reignite talks between Israel and the PA.

Being a U.S. citizen who moved to Israel some time ago it is often, as I have written about many times, difficult to defend my native home land against perceived injustices carried out against my adopted country and this occurrence is no exception. Clinton said the announcement “was embarrassing for the United States” and Biden said that “he condemns the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem. The substance and timing of the announcement, particularly with the launching of proximity talks, is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I’ve had here in Israel.”

Such comments, against America’s truest friend and most trusted ally in the Middle East, smacks of such double standard that it is horrifying. To suggest that Israel is undermining trust, while conveniently forgetting to mention the reign of terror that the PA has unleashed on Israel these last two decades, is both degrading and insulting, not to mention a slap in the face to all the victims of the Arab murder machine.

Let’s hope that Israel has the pride and fortitude to call out the U.S. for this troubling event and help all the good citizens of America remember that, as the old saying goes, “If the Arabs lay down their weapons there will be no war. If Israel lays down their weapons there will be no Israel.” That often sums up the state of affairs in the Middle East very nicely.

Ari

There’s a wonderful and sobering article out this week in Arutz Sheva that I wanted to share with you. The article is written by Prof. Steven Plaut of the University of Haifa and runs in parallel with the anti-Semitic propaganda play, “My Name is Rachel,” currently playing theaters around the world.

Plaut makes the case that the plays subject, Rachel Corrie, serves as the Horst Wessel of the anti-Israel Left. Wessel was an idealistic young German active in the Bismarck Youth organization, a nationalist youth group in post-WWI Weimar Germany. At 19 years old he joined the Nazi Party and, like Corrie, wrote poems and music, and he played the oboe. In 1930 when he was 23, he got into a dispute with his landlady, whose husband was a communist party leader. Probably in response, on  January 14, 1930, Wessel was shot in the face by Albrecht Höhler, an active member of the local Communist Party. This is where Plaut draws the analogy as the Nazi Party decided that Wessel would make a brilliant martyr figure, and his tragic death could be exploited as political ammunition to promote the agenda of the party.

He goes on to say that Horst Wessel was obviously the Rachel Corrie of the anti-Jewish movement almost 80 years before Rachel Corrie played a similar role and I’ll quote him in his explanation: “In both cases, their “martyrdom” was in fact a pathetic death due in large part to their own stupidity.  In both cases the death of a naive young person involved in extremist politics was exploited by the pro-terrorism groups to which they belonged.  In both cases the “martyrs” were beatified by those seeking the murder and annihilation of Jews.”

I highly recommend reading the whole article as Plaut does a fantastic job of identifying the utter disdain of those behind these farcical martyr shows and properly condemns them to what they truly are: more anti-Semitic rubbish.

Ari

Still have those people who, no matter how hard you try, can’t get them to finally pull the trigger and move to Israel? Just bring them for a visit on Purim and let them soak in the incredible atmosphere that overtakes the country on the 14th of Adar (in Jerusalem, Purim is celebrated on the fifteenth of Adar, Sunday night and Monday this year).

The site of children in their costumes, everyone listening to the story of Esther, celebrants eating their festive meals and sending prepared food items to each other by messenger and everyone giving money to the poor in order to allow them to celebrate the holiday as well, all to celebrate the story of Purim, in which a sequence of events led to a Jewish woman named Esther (Hadassah) being crowned queen in time to use her position to save her people from a genocidal decree, should be enough to get even the toughest customer heavily thinking about finally making Israel their home.

This is truly one of the most special times of the year to live in Israel and I know that I will be cherishing every second of it.

Ari

Even after making Aliyah and moving to Israel, for an American, the deep roots of the United States never really leaves you. This becomes especially true when the worlds of Israel and America collide as it did this week with the death of former US secretary of state Alexander Haig.

Haig’s spokesman during his 1988 campaign for the Republican nomination for the presidency, Daniel Mariaschin, talked after his death about how he “always had a special feeling for Israel. I always had the impression that he considered himself a friend of Israel and understood its geo-security predicament as we moved through the years,” said Mariaschin, now executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International.

While in 1981, Haig, serving as secretary of state under president Ronald Reagan, proposed temporarily suspending the strategic cooperation agreement between the United Staes and Israel, he later on evolved into a firm believer in Israel as a powerful deterrent to terrorism. In 2001, he told the Jerusalem Post that it might not be a bad thing for Israel to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. “If the Israelis do launch a preemptive strike [on Iran], it may be saving the world a lot of trouble,” he said.

Powerful people in such positions are not commonly known for their dedication to both Israel and America, two of  the leaders of the world in the championing of democracy and freedom. We can only hope that more people with such integrity rise to such lofty positions and are able to make such a difference in the fight against evil.

Ari