When we made aliyah nearly two years ago, we moved to an apartment in Kochav Yaakov. We had looked at a number of different communities, and eventually settled on Kochav Yaakov because of its location, friendliness, diversity, religious orientation and demographics. It was a wonderful place to come to right off of the plane. We received a very warm welcome from Anglos and Israelis alike, found good day care for Moshe, and in general have been pretty happy.

However, the time has come to move on.

There are a few reasons why we are going to be moving out, including social, shul and housing issues. I would rather not post specifics here as I would not want what I have to say be interpreted as being negative towards any one of our neighbors or friends here. That is definitely not the case. In the end, it comes down to our desire to buy some property, move out of our apartment to something bigger, combined with the realization that as much as we like living here, we do not see Kochav Yaakov as place for our long-term residency.

So about a year and a half ago we started looking into other communities. When you take all of the factors into account (religious, dati-leumi, lots of young families, close to Yerushalayim, affordable, growing, attractiveness) there were surprisingly few communities that fit the bill to serve as potential new homes for our family. In the end, we found a place that we think will be very good for us. We bought a home (on paper) almost exactly a year ago, and in a couple of months it should be complete. At that time we will be moving West to…(to be continued)