I made aliyah with teens AMA

Reality

Fri, Aug 04 2023, 9:48 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

But Reality, not all olim have someone working remotely, and they make it as well.
Working remotely is NOT the only way to make it here.

I know not all olim have a remote job. But is it realistic to promote aliyah to a large family that has little to no job prospects? If the DH is a Rebbe and the DW works in an office how exactly do they get a job here? I'm assuming neither speak Hebrew all that well either.

Even if they do speak Hebrew well, both of those are low paying jobs in Israel. She has six kids so she needs a four bedroom apartment. How exactly is this family paying their bills?

So many olim come when they are young and not settled yet. A young couple or young family can wing it for a few years until they find themselves. It's a whole nother story when you have a large family already and teenage children.

About five years ago, my DH started throwing the aliyah idea around. I made some job enquiries and discovered that what I do gets paid relatively nicely in my area but in Israel the salary is very low. Same for my DH. So I didn't really think this was doable for us. People outright told us we will not be able to make it. Not all people have jobs that translate into a living wage in Israel. Covid hitting and my DH's non remote job turning remote really shifted the paradigm from dream to reality.

Reality

Fri, Aug 04 2023, 9:56 am

At least for my family, part of our problem was lack of degrees. Both my DH and I are hard workers who are talented but lack a degree. So after building up a reputation in our respective fields, people in our old community were willing to hire us. We would get calls all the time for job offers and opportunities.

That doesn't translate automatically in a new country. And it is really hard for both spouses to build up name recognition and work at the same time. The fact that my DH was able to keep his job while we simultaneously build up our reputations again in Israel was really the key to our success.

amother

Clover

Fri, Aug 04 2023, 10:56 am

Thanks reality for your perspective!
In our case, we are bilingual which is a tremendous plus, but still not a guarantee for a well paying job. I have a degree in special education which is well paid in NY. My husband is an extremely hard worker, but no degree. We so badly want to make Aliyah, but in our current excellent financial situation we kind of feel like we would be crazy to leave it for the unknown.

amother

Oldlace

Fri, Aug 04 2023, 11:02 am

Thanks for all the replies.
Both of us understand hebrew - dh speaks well, myself not as well but getting there.
Both of us have degrees but doubt they would really help us out there...both graduate degrees in education (even though more recently I haven't been in ed).

So for schools we should reach out chanukah time before the school year we plan on starting?

Rent for the first year we have covered and have an apt cld rent for when we would come.

Husband has a very varied skill set and could do a lot but his passion is chinuch - working particularly with underperformers or the special ed population. I know in many communities in US yeshiva kodesh jobs arent really advertised its more networking and word of mouth. Any ideas how it is done in EY (would be living in RBS) How would one go about finding out or looking for related jobs?

For myself, what are well recommended job boards to look at? I just wonder if I am better off trying to find a remote friendly job in the next 18 months while still here vs looking for something once I get there. Have experience managing office, managing staff plus financial end oversight (like billing, bookkeeping, compliance etc...). Have varied otherother skills that haven't used professionally recently such as graphics, education, writing...very open to ideas. What do jobs like office manager (not secretary) or maybe even bookkeeping pay? I don't know if would want to go into standard bookkeeping, but maybe would do that while looking for something more?

shabbatiscoming

Fri, Aug 04 2023, 11:30 am

Reality wrote:

There are so many different job ideas in this country.
My point was that remote work is nice. But the majority of olim dont do that. And that isnt what is promoted with iyah either.
I know families with all kinds of jobs. That have made it. All different ways to make it work. With israeli jobs.

shabbatiscoming

Fri, Aug 04 2023, 11:34 am

amother Oldlace wrote:

For myself, what are well recommended job boards to look at? I just wonder if I am better off trying to find a remote friendly job in the next 18 months while still here vs looking for something once I get there. Have experience managing office, managing staff plus financial end oversight (like billing, bookkeeping, compliance etc...). Have varied otherother skills that haven't used professionally recently such as graphics, education, writing...very open to ideas. What do jobs like office manager (not secretary) or maybe even bookkeeping pay? I don't know if would want to go into standard bookkeeping, but maybe would do that while looking for something more?

An office manager salary will depend on so many things. Location full or part time, also a PA? So many variables.
In the Jerusalem area, as in, not the mercaz, an office manaher, working full time, could make anywhere from 6k (yes, very low) to maybe 12k (but in jerusalem thats pushing it.

LovesHashem

Sat, Aug 05 2023, 2:04 pm

shabbatiscoming wrote:

An office manager at a marketing or high tech firm in Jerusalem will also make more than one at a non profit org. One in tel Aviv can make wayyy more.

Reality

Sun, Aug 06 2023, 10:27 am

shabbatiscoming wrote:

Of course there are. And some of the amothers on this thread who are contemplating aliyah have now added they are bilingual. That is a huge plus and makes finding a job so much easier.

I only know my own experience. I only know what is common in my area. In RBS it is extremely common for one parent to work American hours. It is so common that schools schedule graduation on the evening of July 4th because people will be off from work.

I think when it comes to jobs, scanning the NbN job boards is a great place to start. NbN also has employment advisors who can help you if you want to switch careers.

Again, I want to make one point clear. I don't want to scare people off. On paper, financially, we were told by people not to move because we will never make it. We were determined and with Hashem's help have made it work.

Most people are not on the madrega of leaving everything to Hashem. We did our hishtadlus, planned to the best of our ability and had faith in Hashem to make sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit. The overplanners many times never move and if they do move, they have a hard time rolling with the punches when things don't go according to plan. At some point, making aliyah is always going to be a leap of faith.

To sum things up for established families contemplating aliyah. Underplanning is a recipe for disaster.Overplanning bogs people down. You don't need to work out every last detail but need a realistic plan in place financially.

Our financial plan when we made aliyah was DH working remotely and I would find a job when we arrived.

What actually happened: DH works remotely. I found a job 6 months later. During that time, my DH started a little side job remotely, something he has always dreamed of doing but didn't have the time for. BH, it has blossomed. So my DH has 2 jobs that he loves doing. Because he works from home, he still has a good work-life balance. He loves being more present in day to day family life.