We are moving to Yad Binyamin. 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. [...]

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 [...]

On most streets in Israel, if you look carefully, you will see electrical boxes. About five feet tall, four feet across. Usually painted grey or some other boring color. However, sometimes people (or municipalities) take things into their own hands and decorate these boxes in an attempt to make the neighborhood look nicer. And it [...]

In a comment to this post about our visit to Neve Daniel, Shoshana asked the following: I’d like to know what hit you the ‘wrong’ way (about Neve Daniel). We are also looking for a community we would like to live in. We have already visited kochav yakov and I’d like to know what you [...]

Check out this inspiring article from the Baltimore Sun about the Jasper family, who made aliyah last Winter from Baltimore to Kochav Yaakov.

When my wife and I traveled to Israel last December/January, the primary purpose was to try to find a community to which we would move to when we make aliyah. As our aliyah is planned for either this upcoming Winter or the Summer afterwards, and we did not know if we would be back before [...]

For the second Shabbat during out pilot trip we went to Neve Daniel. Neve Daniel is a yishuv of about 200-250 families (with plans to go to around 350) located in the Gush Etzion area, south of Yerushalayim. When you come our of the tunnel on the highway south of Yerushalayim, Neve Daniel is one [...]

Before our pilot trip, we had been considering, at least slightly, to live in locations that were not very close to Yerushalayim. After all, if all of the hi-tech jobs are in the Tel Aviv-Raanana area, wouldn’t it make sense to be a little bit closer to the action? However, while visiting Karnei Shomron our [...]

On the Sunday of our pilot trip earlier this month, we went to visit Karnei Shomron. Karnei Shomron is a yishuv in the Western part of the Shomron that is spread over a number of hilltops, each hilltop further subdivided into different neightborhoods. The location is good if you need to do business on the [...]

Heard from a new friend in Kochav Yaakov (as accurate as I can remember): “Many Americans come to look at communities in Eretz Yisrael with the attitude of ‘what will this community be able to do for me’. In my opinion this is the wrong attitude. Instead ask ‘what can I do to help make [...]