Home
Log in / Sign Up
    Private Messages   Advanced Search   Rules   New User Guide   FAQ   Advertise   Contact Us  
Forum -> Inquiries & Offers -> Israel related Inquiries & Aliyah Questions
Please help me figure this out
Previous  1  2



Post new topic   Reply to topic View latest: 24h 48h 72h

Tamiri




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Apr 23 2014, 11:36 pm
If you have $200k to put down on a place to live and don't need the money to survive initially, I think that's do-able.
Re: the teens. School here is nothing like the U.S. However, if they want to be here, there is always the GED option.
Back to top

Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 24 2014, 2:15 am
Have you heard of Neve Aliza/Ginot Shomron? That's where I live. It's a large Yishuv, basically MO (DL) with a lot of anglos. We're 15 minutes from Kfar Saba.

Ginot Shomron began 30 years ago with Neve Aliza which is all Dati and started with only anglos. Now there are a lot of anglos but our kids are very Israeli (there are anglo communities where the kids remain American, here the kids become Israeli). Now there are plenty of Israeli families in Neve Aliza too.

Prices of houses have gone up but it's still much cheaper than places like Efrat and Chashmonaim. Almost no one actually works in America so kids aren't competing for American things (clothes, electronics... - there are some but it's not like Everyone has it).

We have an excellent elementary school and also a Barkai school which is a more religious boy's school which has become the popular school for boys here. Elementary school cost 100-200 shekel per month (and people grumble about it). The main HS's are the Ulpana in Kedumim (10 minutes away) for girls, and Yeshivat HaShomron right here for boys. Cost about 500 shekel per month (HS starts with Junior high). The Ulpana is excellent. The Yeshiva... Well it depends.

It's a good neighborhood for Olim kids cause they can always find English speakers to help them get used to things, and very good for you and DH.

The neighborhood is MO/DL. Most women wear skirts and cover their hair but definitely not all. Your kids are likely to end up more religious than you. Ex - Now that all the schools (in the country) have uniforms, the girl's shirts are 3/4 sleeves. I wanted to fight it but my daughters think that's normal cause that's what everyone here wears. We have a pool that each day is split in 3 sessions - Men, Ladies, Mixed. My kids used to go to mixed but stopped cause their friends didn't go then.

How old is your oldest child?
Back to top

wispalover




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 24 2014, 12:51 pm
Sanguine wrote:
Not sure what you're asking? Do you want to make aliya? For what reasons? To save money? I know people who "took the plunge" because Yeshiva in the States got too expensive and it actually worked out OK. But that was people who always wanted to come on aliya but just kept pushing it off. They knew why they were coming and the cost of tuition just gave them the push to finally do it. Maybe you just worded it wrong. People usually say we want to come and want to make sure we can make it. Not can we save money. Take the bus instead of the car to work to save money. Give up your cleaning lady. Buy generic brand drugs. That's how you save money. If you want to make aliya, you have to really want to live here and expect sacrifices.

If you really want to make aliya, it's OK to ask about costs but also realize that things here are very different. Tell us more about yourselves. How old are your kids? What do you and DH do? Have you looked at all into employment? People earn less here and things cost more. We don't "save money" living here but if you have reasonable jobs, people do OK. It's a different standard of living. Even large houses are smaller than in the States. Apartments are smaller. People spend less. No one goes to sleepaway camp for a month. People don't fly for family vacations. Many things are cheaper but that's cause it's poorer quality but that's what everyone has. If you move to a very American neighborhood like like Chashmonaim, Efrat... A lot of the men keep working in the States and that makes it harder to "keep up". You have to sacrifice a lot of things from the States but it's so worth it. Life is so much richer here. Kids spend a lot of time outdoors. School trips are tiyulim in Eretz Yisrael. School is very different here. A lot more laid back (till the end of HS).

So if you really really want to come on aliya, let us help you see if you'll make it. How much can you and DH earn? How many kids do you have? Do you need a house or an apartment?...


Sanguine said it exactly. I also want to point out that school classes (depending where you live) tend to be much bigger than the kind of classes your kids are probably used to, and that the education is very different in Israel to education in the USA.
Depending on the age of your kids and their ability to make friends, I would tread carefully.

Efrat or Raanana is probably the most Teaneck-like community.
Back to top

Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 24 2014, 1:25 pm
wispalover wrote:
Efrat or Raanana is probably the most Teaneck-like community.

Chashmonaim too. also Modiin. All these are very expensive.
I didn't realize that you said Teaneck. I thought North NJ was some little town.

I think you should get in touch with Nefesh B'Nefesh. They can probably tell you prices in different neighborhoods. How Mashkantas (mortgages) work. Job opportunities. Standard salaries in your fields...

Then you really should come on a pilot trip with your husband, maybe without the kids. Together you can visit communities. And look into jobs. He has to want to come too. If you don't both go home wanting to make aliya it won't work. We can go on and on about the hardships of living here. We can also go on and on about why we would never live anywhere else. But you have to both be very psychologically prepared to deal with all sorts of problems (especially the first year). Your kids have to be able to get from both of you what a dream come true living in Israel is. The language isn't the main problem for teens. It's the mentality. Teens here are into different things than teens there. It can work out OK but your kids have to be very excited about the idea. How old is your oldest child?
Back to top

shabri




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 24 2014, 1:46 pm
Also Beit Shemesh. My brother made Aliyah from Teaneck to BS and has tons of Teaneck friends there as well
Back to top

boysrus




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 24 2014, 1:51 pm
shabri wrote:
Also Beit Shemesh. My brother made Aliyah from Teaneck to BS and has tons of Teaneck friends there as well


yes, particularly in Beit Shemesh - Sheinfeld, nofei hashemesh,Nofei Aviv, and Ramat Shilo.
Back to top

chanchy123




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Apr 24 2014, 5:32 pm
Racheli wrote:
Tamiri, your email was so smart and so on target.

I guess not having a frame of reference in shekels, I look to dollars. In general, and not to bore everyone with a long saga, I have wanted to make aliya for years. I should have done it before I got married or pushed my husband to do it right away. My husband is generally change averse, and this is a big change. I have several very close friends who have made aliya over the past 15 years, to three different communities. Like everywhere, they have things they are happy about and things they are unhappy about. But overall, they are so glad they are there and not here. I have always longed to join them. My husband could probably do his job remotely from Israel or do something very similar there. I might be able to do my job remotely, or semi-remotely (some travel). Our children are old to make aliya, 2 of them teenagers, but their Hebrew is fantastic, which I know would make those first few months much more comfortable. I feel like I am at a stage in life when I don't want to just give up and not do it. So I decided to really research the issues involved, not to persuade myself (because I've wanted this for so long) but so that I can understand what I'm asking of my family and how I hope/plan to address those issues. I don't know if this makes sense.

As far as the communities go, I only mentioned the ones I mentioned because those are the communities I know. Beyond thinking that it would make sense comfort-wise to move to a place which has some native English speakers, I don't have a bias towards any area in particular. We are modern Orthodox, we have friends both more to the right and to the left of us.

We don't live a lavish lifestyle here. My husband and I both work full-time, we pay tuition, and that's pretty much all we do. We enjoy the outdoors. I love to read. My children all have Israeli names Smile and have Israeli friends here in NJ.

I brought my younger son (now 13) to Israel last year for the bar mitzvah of a friend's son (flew on miles, stayed with friends) and my son went to the Israeli school for a day and thought it was "exactly the same as _______ (where he goes to school here)" (which is hilarious because they are not so similar, but I think that speaks to his comfort level there) and he loved how he could walk around with friends without as much supervision as is necessary here.

We do have some equity in our home. In Israel, a down payment is usually a big chunk of the purchase price, right? We could maybe put down close to $200,000 (that's 800,000 shkalim, more or less, I think) if we used whatever we would get for our house.

So that's the situation. I would love to hear all of your thoughts/advice/anything.

Just pointing out that 200,000 USD is under 700,000 NIS. People have this notion of the dollar being 4/1 or even a bit more than that. But in reality it's been under 3.5 for a while, going as low as 3.33 I think not so long ago. Americans should realize they can get a lot less for their dollars now (but it's great for us Israelis shopping in the US, everying seems so cheap by you now).
Back to top

Racheli




 
 
    
 

Post Fri, Apr 25 2014, 11:52 am
I think maybe I'm not being so clear with my questions. I'm not asking anyone to sell me on the idea of moving to Israel or explain the difficulties. I'm trying as best I can to get a sense of the day to day life issues of living there. Now of course there is a huge difference in daily life depending on where we would live, and I would love to hear your experiences in different towns and yishuvim, etc. I'm trying to get a sense of the things that are taken for granted as a part of life, if that makes any sense.

So here, to describe my family's life, my husband works full time in Manhattan and drives to work and back every day. I work locally, also full-time. My children take buses to school and home. They have a lot of homework every night. I often continue working in the evenings on my laptop. Shabbat we often have guests or go to people for lunch.

Financially, although pre-tax we make over $200,000 (so about $130,000 after taxes), once we pay our tuition (total about $75,000 for 4 children) and our mortgage, we have very little money left to cover the other basics--food, gas, etc. I see that much of my thinking time is spent worrying about money and it seems to me that this is the case with many people I know here. I am not asking anyone to make a case for aliya for financial reasons or for any reasons at all. I want to know about the daily life thoughts and experiences of living in Israel, and since finances are such a big part of our lives and thoughts here, I imagined that it would be there as well, but I could be totally incorrect.

Socially, I think my children would ADORE being in Israel. Both my older children have become friends with Israelis at school and at camp and they are drawn to that indefinable Israeli confidence, warmth and can-do attitude. All my children enjoy being outdoors and feeling free. All of them, depending on age, speak Hebrew well (and not "school Hebrew" but real spoken Hebrew).
Back to top

Tamiri




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Apr 26 2014, 2:38 pm
Racheli wrote:
I think maybe I'm not being so clear with my questions. I'm not asking anyone to sell me on the idea of moving to Israel or explain the difficulties. I'm trying as best I can to get a sense of the day to day life issues of living there. Now of course there is a huge difference in daily life depending on where we would live, and I would love to hear your experiences in different towns and yishuvim, etc. I'm trying to get a sense of the things that are taken for granted as a part of life, if that makes any sense.

So here, to describe my family's life, my husband works full time in Manhattan and drives to work and back every day. I work locally, also full-time. My children take buses to school and home. They have a lot of homework every night. I often continue working in the evenings on my laptop. Shabbat we often have guests or go to people for lunch.

Financially, although pre-tax we make over $200,000 (so about $130,000 after taxes), once we pay our tuition (total about $75,000 for 4 children) and our mortgage, we have very little money left to cover the other basics--food, gas, etc. I see that much of my thinking time is spent worrying about money and it seems to me that this is the case with many people I know here. I am not asking anyone to make a case for aliya for financial reasons or for any reasons at all. I want to know about the daily life thoughts and experiences of living in Israel, and since finances are such a big part of our lives and thoughts here, I imagined that it would be there as well, but I could be totally incorrect.

Socially, I think my children would ADORE being in Israel. Both my older children have become friends with Israelis at school and at camp and they are drawn to that indefinable Israeli confidence, warmth and can-do attitude. All my children enjoy being outdoors and feeling free. All of them, depending on age, speak Hebrew well (and not "school Hebrew" but real spoken Hebrew).

Thank you for clarifying and for being brave enough to post your numbers, which make it a LOT easier to respond. Because anyone who knows anything, realizes that with 4 kids and $250k, a dati family in NJ is basically working poor. True, you are "home owners" along with the bank, and you probably are able to heat and cool your home to an American standard. However, I wonder about your ability to save and what you are putting away for the future. Additionally, you didn't mention health care. I will assume that is covered by work.

You did not mention what fields you and your husband work in. If either of you are in a desirable area in the high-tech field, you can make a decent salary here. For the sake of argument, let's say your husband is in hi-tech and can earn 26k nis (gross) though he may be able to make 30k or more. With that type of salary, assuming (again for the sake of argument) you don't take a company car (which has leasing and tax implications, as well as affecting the amount put aside by the employer for social benefits), let's estimate you will have a take-home of at least 14k nis from ONE salary alone. Couple that with the wife's earning, which are basically tax-free up to around 80,000 nis/year (maybe more, maybe a bit less but let's call that ball park), and you can be netting 18-20k nis/month. With this amount, assuming you are willing to live an Israeli upper middle class lifestyle (thinking twice before driving somewhere, wearing a sweater in the house before automatically turning on the heat, delaying putting on the a/c), you should be able to live very nicely.

I will assume you will have at least 2 tuitions to pay @ a minimum of 1000 nis/month per child. Your basic healthcare costs will be covered by the tax that comes straight out of your salary (as a % of the income). Your employer and you will contribute towards your pension fund, which is separate from social security here and mandatory. In the hi-tech field there is also a major source of employer-employee savings, tax free, that becomes available to the employee after 6 years.

You will be entitled to a MINIMUM of 10 vacation days the first year (depending on the industry standard, you may be offered more days initially - this is negotiable). ALL Jewish holidays + Yom HaAtzmaut are national days off and you aren't charged for them. Fridays are generally not work days but are partial work days for those who do need to put in time. Ditto erev chag and erev Yom HaAtzmaut. If the day off is Friday, it means more work towards Shabbat and no Sunday to recuperate. You have to take the non-Sundays into account as it seems this is a huge issue for many Americans.

You will need far less. Shopping won't be a past-time if you can get out of that mind set (ALL Americans over-shop even if it's thrift store shopping, because no one can resist a deal. By staying out of any sort of store because there is no NEED, you save a TON).

Food isn't cheap here but by staying away from junk food and processed food, you can save. There are many people on Imamother and various FB groups that discuss these issues.

People here who want to earn nicely have to work hard. VERY hard. Israeli management is horrible and it's often difficult to deal with their non-American ways. I don't want to sugar-coat that aspect, it's the downfall of many an idealistic employee.

Your kids will be free to roam. Of course, this is a generalization and depends on where you live but kids do hang out in groups. Summers for the younger set are difficult, as school lets out June 30th and camp is usually just the first 3 weeks in July. If there are older sibs home, they can do the job of watching the younger ones but... it's hard.

With regards to where to live: when we came back to Israel after a 16-year stay in the U.S., my husband had one request: no in town in an apartment. So we turned to Yishuv living, which suits us beautifully. People live in houses rather than apartments, there is more open space and less stress to deal with. The downside may be lack of services and public transportation. Everything is a toss-up. If you want the back and forth of Shabbat meals, you would probably do better in an area with Anglos. Israelis tend to be cliquey and not as welcoming as Americans on Shabbat, for example. Which doesn't make them mean or nasty; it's simply a different culture.

You would need to take into account that there are major stress levels here. IMO they can be alleviated by not having a TV and not listening to the new that closely :-). Also, by "letting go" of some of your Western notions of HOW THINGS SHOULD BE. Because they won't necessarily get you ahead here.

I don't want to make Israel look amazing, because it's not anymore. Idealism has gone the way of the rotary phone. Modern Israelis like to take the worst that other cultures offer and make them their own. IPhones for children are standard. The children can be very chutzpadik and irresponsible, and the parents forgive them and make excuses. The flip side is the army straightens a lot of them out. Things are expensive and there is no rhyme or reason how anyone here survives; I think it's a daily miracle. If you do the cold numbers, the budget may not work. Yet, you will probably have a roof over your head and food in your tummy. The government is what it is. People can be rude. Lines can be long. But, if you know how to work the system and go with the flow, you can have a decent klita.

I hope this started to answer some of your questions.
Back to top

heidi




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Apr 26 2014, 4:10 pm
"Things that are .. . part of life".

Here most schools end by 2 at the latest. Even high schools for girls are done by about 3. So if both of you work full time, that's alot more hours of your kids being unsupervised.

Here there is no camp option for children in August, none that I know of at least. So while you work your kids are completely unsupervised for weeks on end.

It is nice for the kids to have freedom. But there seems to be this mentality that Israel is camp. It is not. Kids, at least in my yishuv, run free at all hours. In my humble opinion, nothing good can come of 13-17 year olds being out at 2am.

Things that seem little but do impact your daily life in the long run.
Back to top

Sanguine




 
 
    
 

Post Sat, Apr 26 2014, 5:18 pm
Tamiri - that was great. Heidi - you live on a yishuv and don't have long days in school? Switch yishuvim Very Happy . Our elementary school gets home at 3:30 or 4:00. Our Ulpana gets home at 4:00 and the boys Yeshiva HS gets home at 6:00.

Racheli, maybe you won't have to work full time. If your husband has a good salary maybe you can work part time and get home when your kids do.

I also live on a Yishuv - I wrote about it earlier.

I think you'll do fine money wise as long as you adjust from an American mentality. I love when my sister or sister in law visit from the States. Whatever we do, we always go for pizza. On our own pizza is a treat. We only eat out when a guest takes us (sometimes we do but really very rarely). I do buy a lot of food. A large part of our salaries go to food.

We do not think about money all the time and we don't have so much but we don't need so much (We have 5 kids 13 - 25). We have a car and we use it but do pay attention to useless trips. Now that 4 of my kids drive, my kids have to put in some gas when they take the car. Kids here work a lot, always looking to make money.

There's not a lot of homework. Only the end of HS gets really serious. I'm not saying that's the best way but school isn't very pressured till HS. University here is harder than in America.
Back to top
Page 2 of 2 Previous  1  2 Recent Topics




Post new topic   Reply to topic    Forum -> Inquiries & Offers -> Israel related Inquiries & Aliyah Questions

Related Topics Replies Last Post
Help me figure out tablecloth solution!
by amother
9 Thu, Mar 21 2024, 2:05 pm View last post
Help me figure out what’s going on
by amother
1 Fri, Mar 15 2024, 12:54 pm View last post
Please help me figure out my “groupme” problem
by Dolly1
8 Sun, Mar 03 2024, 10:48 am View last post
Trying to figure out the name of a book
by amother
2 Sun, Feb 25 2024, 1:51 am View last post
Help Me Figure out a Career
by amother
29 Fri, Feb 23 2024, 3:20 am View last post