We first heard about Yad Binyamin from some friends a few years ago. We had been talking about potential communities to live in, Yad Binyamin came up in conversation as one of the new “in”, up-and-coming communities in Israel that Americans (including young families) were beginning to flock to. As we were starting to think that our long-term future might not be in Kochav Yaakov, we made a mental note to go and check out Yad Binyamin some time. Over the next few weeks, coincidence had it that the community was recommended to us by a number of unrelated acquaintances, so sometime in July 2006 we went with a realtor to check it out.

Location: Along route 3 at the junctions of routes 3, 6 and 7. 30 minutes from Yerushalayim, 25-40 minutes from most of Tel Aviv, 20 minutes from Modi’in and Beit Shemesh, 15 minutes from Gedera, Rechovot and Ashdod. It is along the Beer Sheva-Tel Aviv train line which is allegedly in the process of being enlarged from one track to two tracks (which will enable fast passenger train service into Tel Aviv).

A brief history of the place (to the best of my knowledge – I am sure that I have a couple of details off): It was established in 1962 around the same time as a number of other religious moshavim in the area, and was intended primarily to provide services to the neighboring communities in the Nachal Soreq district. In time it grew to host the regional offices, a senior day-center, ganim, a Torani elementary school, a girls Ulpana high school, basketball and tennis courts, a swimming pool, a library, health clinic and some shopping (and a matza factory). Up until 3 years ago there were less than 50 families living there, almost all connected with the various schools. (Some pictures).

All of this changed with the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif. In the preceeding years, there had been some pressure to switch the direction of Yad Binyamin from an educational center to a regular living settlement. For undisclosed reasons (I have heard a few different theories why), a few hundred families from Gush Katif (from Ganei Tal and other settlements) along with all of Yeshivat Torat Chaim (the yeshiva from Nevei Dekalim, headed by Rav Shemuel Tal) were all transplanted into Yad Binyamin. The Yeshiva went into an unused gym, all of the refugees were housed in caravans (intended to be temporary), and money started pouring in from the government to improve the yishuv and make it more livable for its new residents. New ganim, streets, parks and facilities were built. And a large portion of the perimeter of the yishuv had its zoning changed from agricultural to residential.

In the past three years, about a dozen different housing projects have begun to take shape in this new residential area. Some of the land is set aside for local residents or refugees from Gaza, while other parts were opened up to bidding from different contractors (a contractor buys the rights to a specific zone, designs the houses to match the zoning requirements, and sells off the individual homes to buyers) and single plots were auctioned off to individual buyers (who would design their own house and build it with their own contractor). The first few projects were finished last Summer, 4-5 projects (each of which is equivalent to 1-2 blocks of houses) should be done in the next year, and another group of projects are in the early stages of building or are still being designed and planned out. Currently there are around 300-350 families living in Yad Binyamin (including Gush Katif refugees, some of whom will eventually be leaving, and some of whom will be given permanent housing). When all the dust settles in a few years, there will be around 700-800 families living there.

We chose to buy in Yad Binyamin for a number of reasons:

• A good number of English and Hebrew speaking young families
• Good location
• A religious community with a diverse population
• Nice educational options to choose from in the future
• A well-known yeshiva in the neighborhood
• A new community that we can contribute to with access the amenities of an older, more established community
• Nice houses to choose from
• (And if things don’t work out, a good investment – since we bought one year ago, prices have already gone up 20-30%).

We bought a house from Meshullami builders (the development is called Neve Binyamin – we got half of house 72). Over the past year, we have gotten a mortgage, signed a contract on the house, hired an architect to help us customize the layout and interiors, and have seen the house go from nothing to a finis hed structure (right now they are installing the air conditioning, finishing the floors and putting in windows). We will, God willing, be taking possession within two months, and will be moving in within three. We are very excited to be moving into our new home and community (and very excited for the building process to be over).

That is it for now. If I get around to it, I hope to post more on the different parts of the buying/building process that we have gone through.

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)

From the mission statement:

The purpose of this blog is to provide a constant stream of bite-size Divrei Torah relating to the Torah portion of the week.

Unlike many other parsha-related sites on the Internet, the typical article on Parsha Blog will not be very long, will not draw from half a dozen sources and will not be overly complex (at first glance, that is).

Why not do it this way? Aren’t long articles featuring multi-faceted approaches to complex themes very interesting? Yes, of course they are. If you want to read them, they are published weekly on many sites spanning the Internet (a resources page will soon be posted for those interested in pursuing this path of Torah study). However, in today’s world, many people do not have time every day to sit down in a quiet place free of interruptions, and read a complex and introspective piece of Torah. If you can do this, Kol haKavod (non-literal translation: more power to you)!. For those who cannot do this every day, how can one be sure to learn a bit of Torah every day relating to the portion of the week?

To answer this question, I offer Parsha Blog. The average Dvar Torah posted on Parsha Blog will be 2-3 paragraphs long, will be based on a small number of pesukim from the coming week’s Torah reading and will draw on the interpretations of one or two commentators. Most posts will raise a question about the topic at hand. Sometimes these questions will be answered, sometimes they will not. Almost all will be thought provoking (and hopefully comment provoking as well). And with God’s help, all of the words of Torah written here will in some way help the readers and their extended communities to further their relationships with ????? ???? ??? and their commitments to ????.

The RSS for the blog is http://feeds.feedburner.com/ParshaBlog. The first real post is also up. Please let me know what you think, tell your friends, etc.

(Um…You would be proud too if you were me…)

• A new domain name – Aliyah Blog is now located at http://AliyahBlog.com. Be sure to update your bookmarks
• The addresses of the RSS feeds are now http://feeds.feedburner.com/AliyahBlog for new posts and http://feeds.feedburner.com/AliyahBlogComments for comments. Be sure to update your links for these as well
• The layout of the site has been totally be redesigned. Check it out and please let me know what you think (I would like to think that it is an improvement)
• I have switched blogging engines from b2evolution to WordPress. Although b2evo was nice to start out with, its lack of support and small community cannot even begin to compare to the features offered by WordPress. I plan to play around with the features offered by the WordPress community to help provide an optimal user experience
• As posted earlier – if you are looking to write about aliyah/Israel/Torah and related topics, we are looking for new contributors. If you are interested, please email me at info — at — aliyahblog — dot — com.

More real content on the way soon…

Right now I am working on changing the look and feel of this blog, moving it to a new blogging engine and to a new domain.

Also, I would like to open up the blog to other writers. As tantalyzing as my twice-a-week postings may be, I recognize that it would be much cooler if there was more content, different points of view, etc (note: I will retain my position of blog-dictator).

So if anyone out there would like to become a bloger on aliyah blog, please let me know. I am looking for people who are planning to make aliyah or who have already done so, who would like to share their feelings about aliyah, Israel, Torah and anything else that is even barely relevant. Send email to info — at — ellisweb — dot — net for more information.

This blog is a compilation of all of the different entries in the different subblogs:

• aliyahLog – A log of the personal aliyah journey of my wife and myself.
• aliyahArticles – Torah, articles, thoughts and more related to Israel, Aliyah, the Jewish People, and anything else I am in the mood to post about.
• aliyahLinks – A Collection of links related to Aliyah and Israel.

Comments are always welcome, either on the blog, or by email to yaakov at ellisweb dot net.