Community information for new olah in EY

ewa-jo

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 7:13 am

shoshana11 wrote:

I guess serious for me, is a community where people are interested in continued learning and spiritual growth and not just happy to go thru the motions.
And as far as out of the box goes, that's me not being the only "freak" who wears her babies, nurses them into toddlerhood and believes in holistic approach to things. I hope that makes sense :-)

There are a few crunchy imamothers here in Kochav Yaakov who do homebirths and baby wearing and stuff like that. It's not unheard-of here. I, of course, will be your friend even though I don't do these things... but I do make jokes about my crunchy friends (to their faces... not behind their backs) Efrat and communities in the Gush are more into crunchy parenting.... but anywhere you find a decent number of Americans, you will find communities that are more tolerant of people being "different"

There is a good-sized anglo community here, so there are shiurim for women and men in English... I don't dislike Israelis, but I have found it hard to strike up real friendships with them... the conversation usually starts like "So, you don't have family here? Your parents are all the way in America? That must be so hard... how do you manage?"... and then I turn off because I don't have an answer for them... no, it's not that difficult... I dunno... I manage.... this is all some Israelis want to talk about and it is not interesting to me.

Also, Kochav Yaakov is within decent bus distance to Jerusalem.. lots of families send older kids to Jerusalem for school and it's not a big deal. Local schools, between KY and Tel Tzion (the Charedi community next door) are good and there is a decent range of haskafic options. There are a good number of families with young kids, but also some anglo families with older kids and teenagers.

shoshana11

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 7:42 am

Ladies, thank you all for the awesome info!! I am seriously thinking of the gush. Probably because I heard such good things about the schools there. And also I did feel more excepted when I visited there last. I want my kids to live in a heterogeneous community and be respectful of other people, I don't want to be considered the most "religious" person there just because I cover my hair, If u know what I mean... I am also going to look into yad binyamin and givat zeev and kochav yakov. I am looking for a strong torani school (both secularly and religiously) for our oldest boy and something alternative for our middle one. I heard there is a torani anthroposophic school opened in nachlaot. Anyone sends there and has some feedback? He is a super sensitive child and needs some nurturing environment at least for the early ed years..Any ideas on schools that don't look to pathologise and "box" the kids and just let them blossom?

November

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 4:36 pm

We've spent a lot of time in Efrat and there are fabulous people there doing tons of chessed and learning. I would just say that it's important to see what the kids look like that your kids would be hanging out with. We noticed that the girls are generally wearing short skirts and low necklines. Often the older boys aren't wearing kippot. And the streimel/ black hat is really occasional, from

etky

Tue, Feb 11 2014, 2:26 am

Sanguine wrote:

I think Efrat is large with different types of groups of people and more than one school (for the boys anyway) so people can choose their type of people

Yes. There is the torani school (separate for boys and girls from 3rd grade) and the regular mamad. If you live here you do have to be comfortable with the fact that there are groups who may do things differently than you and adhere to different standards. And in the same manner that we have a sprinkling of ultra-orthodox residents of different stripes we also have a very small number of people who are not even nominally orthodox at all. And somehow we all get along.

shoshana11

Tue, Feb 11 2014, 6:45 am

Thank you guys for all the responses. I am ok with diverse population and I think it's healthy for the kids to see that, I just don't want to be the frummest person on the block and where I am now, it seems to be the case...
What are the different yishuvim around efrat? Do they all bus the kids to efrat schools?

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Feb 11 2014, 6:50 am

shoshana11 wrote:

here are all of the yishuvim in gush etzion:
https://www.nbn.org.il/aliyahp......html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gush_Etzion (go to the bottom of this one and it has a FULL list)
I am almost certain that there is busing from all or at least most of the yishuvim. Not all schools are in efrat. Some are in other yishuvim as well.

Sanguine

Tue, Feb 11 2014, 7:42 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

I am almost certain that there is busing from all or at least most of the yishuvim. Not all schools are in efrat. Some are in other yishuvim as well.

I don't think that's correct anymore. My nephew lives in Efrat and had boys in both elementary schools. Well one of the schools kicked out all the kids who weren't from Efrat. No room, local politics, Yishuvim paying... I don't remember the story exactly but I remember his son went back to school and some of his best friends weren't in his school anymore. I think it was over the summer and maybe in the end they let them back.

I really don't know how it ended, but check it out before assuming that it's how it was

shabbatiscoming

Tue, Feb 11 2014, 7:56 am

Sanguine wrote:

As far as I know, the story is not as drastic as you are making it, but one of the schools did start another branch, for girls. Im not sure which school you are referring to, but like I said, there are not only schools in efrat in the gush but in other yishuvim as well.