Only in Israel (and did I mention that it was sunny and in the mid 60’s? In January!).

All in all, it took us about 3.5 from when we got in line in front of the building, until we left. From what I have heard, this is typical (and it can be much worse). The interesting part though is the number of different lines that we had to stand in.

1. Enter the building. We had to present our meeting reservation printout (which I made three months ago) and got a number to be used inside.
2. Go through one security checkpoint. Get buzzed through to the preliminary waiting area.
3. Wait for at least half an hour until our number is called.
4. Go through another security checkpoint.
5. Go to the main waiting room (much more crowded than the first one). Wait in the checkin line (to let them know what we are there for).
6. After checkin, site down and wait a while for our name to be called.
7. Name is called, go through all of the different documents. Do our business.
8. Pay the cashier.
9. Go to the courier service upstairs, pay them for the envelope in which our passports will be “delivered” (ie: they bring it to their office in downtown Jerusalem and we go and pick it up)
10. Wait by the person who helped us in step 7, give her the receipt and envelope.
11. Wait (a long time) to be called to sign our documents in front of the consul (or consul assistant). Go through an interview to establish that we lived in the US before. Sign the documents and head out the door.

I can’t help but compare this with a visit to Misrad haPnim in which we got a birth certificate and passport:

1. Go through security checkpoint.
2. Get a number. Sit down and wait.
3. Number is called. Do our business, pay the person and leave (with the passport in hand).

Although in most aspects so far, Israeli beurocracy has lived up to its reputation as being, well, large, overgrown and completely obtrusive, in this case it wins hands-down. (Advice to anyone going to the Consulate: make sure you do your research beforehand on what you need, have everything filled out with all documents handy and copies made – one missing piece of paper and you go home empty-handed, one missing form and you go to the back of the line).

Of course, this was made more strange by the fact that the car had been driven to and from Yerushalayim that day, with absolutely no incident. And now, less than five minutes after stopping, the car wouldn’t start. Turning the key resulted in a click-click-click noise. And after a few minutes of trying that, I couldn’t even lock the doors using the power locks, or turn on the radio. Our battery had instantaneously become a worthless hunk of plastic.

Now although we have a nice little merkaz mischari (ie: some stores) in Yad Binyamin, there is not exactly an auto supply store (or anything even close). Though there is rumored to be a mechanic who lives in a neighboring community, we couldn’t get a hold of him. So walking to a shop, picking up a new battery and installing it myself was out of the question. I also had more than one neighbor very generously offer to take an hour out of their schedule to drive me somewhere to pick up a battery, but I wanted to see if there was some other option before taking up time from someone else’s schedule.

Someone on the YB Yahoo! mailing list responded with the name of a man who had helped them before. He works with cars during the day, and at night he moonlights as a private car repairman, in order to make more money. He had helped them out with a similar situation in the past, and they had been satisfied. So Adina called up Elchanan. Due to Shabbat and his work schedule, he wasn’t able to make it over until Sunday evening (the battery died on Thursday afternoon, but it took us a little while to get our act together). He pulled up in a small car. Dropped off what looked like his wife, mother and two children at the nearby park (it seems that they came along for the ride, or he picked them up on the way) and within five minutes, had replaced the battery (and verified that the old battery was truly dead).

Elchanan only charged me the cost of the battery (a good quality one, he said, and he provided the achrayut – warranty – certificate, so I am pretty sure that it was brand new). He said that since it was my first time using him, and since the repair didn’t take so long, he wouldn’t charge me any service fee (I had been prepared to pay him a couple hundred shekalim for his time in buying the battery, bringing it over and installing it). He did ask that I spread the word to my friends. So, if anyone in central Israel needs a private AAA replacement to fix minor issues with your car, let me know and I will send you his number. (If you live here, you will see that private helpers/mechanics/service people are all over the place. It definitely pays to have a few in your virtual rolodex for times of need).

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)

Those Israelis whose income places them in Israel’s top 20th percentile pay 80% of the taxes that are levied in Israel, according to the yearly report published by the Finance Ministry’s State Income Authority Sunday.

In addition, the salary of almost half (47%) of salaried workers in Israel is not high enough to be subject to income tax.

Ouch! (I should know – I have the privilege of being counted among the 20% who shoulder the bulk to the tax burden. My current rate is 37%, not including bituach leumi).

IRIS (who quoted the article first) points out the following:

This is an Achilles’ Heel of democracies. The majority can vote to confiscate the wealth of the wealthier minority. In a small country like Israel, the productive minority can then respond by shielding their wealth through paying off government and legal “fixers” or by staying out completely, which then impoverishes the nation.

In other words, the situation wont be changing soon, as the 47% of salaried workers who do not pay any taxes (and the lowest tax bracket who pays next to nothing – together with the retired they are the overwhelming majority) will try their best to keep it this way. Of course, if Netanyahu wins the next election, we could see some progress…

1. If you can’t sing…don’t – This applies to anyone who cannot hold a tune. The job of the chazzan is to lead davening. If you know how to sing, are able to start the tune well, have a loud enough voice to make yourself heard and are able to lead everyone throughout, than go for it. However, if the above sentence does not match your singing abilities, you are normally out of tune, have a sore throat, etc – don’t sing. Nobody wants to hear it.
2. Don’t start too high – So you can sing. Congratulations. However, it is all for naught if you start Lecha Dodi so high that no one else can sing with you, and most of the men in the shul have to sing with their very very deep voices in order to sing along (know what I mean?). It sounds bad, and people did not come to hear you sing the high-parts solo. Some people just naturally sing high, and some people have normal voices, but start things too high on the spur of the moment. One piece of advice I have received is to take whatever key you are about to impulsively start the song in, and than go one full octave down (since many people, full of enthusiasm, will accidentally start too high and will be forced to either go on with the high voice and pretend that they meant to sing falsetto, or try to pull off the potentially embarrassing move-one-octave-lower-and-hope-that-no-one-notices maneuver). Something else that has worked for me is right before starting the song, to sing the end of the chorus (which is normally higher than main tune), and then start with the matching low tune to match the chorus.
3. Only sing songs that you know – This should be obvious, but I have seen on more than one occasion a chazzan start a tune that they just don’t know. Just because you heard someone else sing it before does not mean that you know it. Not only that, but knowing the tune sufficiently well to hum it (or “neye-neye-neye” it) is not enough. You have to be able to properly match the words to the tune (without repeating words or totally messing up the grammatical structure – remember, David haMelech did not randomly insert periods into Tehillim). It is not fair to the congregation (nor is it smart) to sing the first line, than stop singing and hope that everyone else picks up the slack. More often than not, you will just be embarrassed.
4. Clarify the Nusach and local customs beforehand – This is important everywhere, but you can get into more trouble in Israel than in the US. Many shuls in Israel do Ashkenaz some of the time and Sefard some of the time. Others (like the shul that I currently attend) are very particular about following one specific nusach and not deviating from this nusach (or the pronunciations of specific words) at all. If you are at all in doubt, ask the gabbai beforehand, or just don’t be chazzan until you have heard a local go through that particular service once before.
5. Keep the pace – One of the things that I really can’t stand is when everyone within a 10 foot radius of the chazzan is singing at one pace, and everyone else is singing at another (faster or slower) pace. I always end up being 11 feet away, and caught in no-man’s land. There is no really good resolution for this situation. And it is the chazzan’s fault. He is supposed to be leading the prayer. Be a leader! If you don’t have a strong enough voice and the will to get everyone to follow your lead, you shouldn’t be up there (and if you don’t have a choice, than don’t sing – chant).
6. Don’t waste time – In the halachot regarding prayer, one theme that keeps recurring is the importance of avoiding tirchah de’tziburra – putting a strain on the public. Also known as wasting people’s time. For those of us who daven three times a day in a minyan, we are putting in (at a minimum) around 8-10 hours every week in shul. That is fine, it goes with the territory. However, if my normal 35-40 minute shacharit davening turns into a 50 minute affair because the chazzan decided that he needed to have an extra-long silent Shemoneh Esrei while everyone else had already finished, I (and everyone else) will not be happy. Part of the job of the chazzan is to keep things moving at a nice pace – not so fast that people are unable to concentrate on what they are saying, but definitely not too slow. Know your crowd! If people are used to a 15 minute Pesukei d’Zimrah, than 20 minutes is usually not acceptable (and vice-versa). There is not commandment from the Torah to always do Carlebach for Friday night (I personally will not do Carlebach nusach unless the minyan requests it, or unless I am able to compensate in other areas to keep the overall service length the same as it would have been without Carlebach tunes). And above all, the chazzan should never keep everyone waiting with a long silent amida. (I remember when I was at Yeshivat haKotel, Rav Neventzal sh”lita was in aveilut and often led davening at the Ramban shul in the mornings. When he was not leading, he was almost always one of the last people in the room to finish his silent amidah prayers – and he made sure that the repetition did not wait for him. When he was leading, he was one of the first people to finish. No one every waited for him. He held that is was more important to daven more quickly than he was used to than it was to lengthen the service by even a few minutes. And if Rav Neventzal can handle that, than so can you).

(This post was originally going to list 10 things, but I couldn’t think of any others. Do you have something to add?)

I did not know what to expect when I went – however, once there I was very much impressed with what I saw. It was fairly large, there were lots of different animals, well-designed and clean exhibition areas, nice grass & shade and lots to see. We bought a membership (just 350 NIS for a year – it would cost over 80 shekels for two adults, so we start saving money on our fifth visit). We all had a great time and will hopefully be going back soon.

Moshe loved it. We stayed at my parent’s apartment with my mother and sister for Shabbat, and he was happy to go up to them and say “zoo…zoo…zoo…” excitedly (and then at our prompting start to make some of the animal sounds that he knows).

Fast forward to last night. Moshe was having trouble getting to bed (the air conditioner timer wasn’t working properly so I couldn’t turn it on until after Shabbat was over) and sometime around 9pm started calling for me to come into the room where he was sleeping. When I went in, I found him standing up in his pack-n-play crib, saying “zoo…zoo…zoo…”. I told him that if he would lie down, I would sit down next to him and tell him about the different animals that we saw in the zoo. He lay down, so I began: “We saw some monkeys, penguins, ducks, cheetahs, fish, turtles, elephants, kangaroos, you fed the goats, we saw more monkeys, groundhogs and a hippo.”

When I got through the list of animals, I thought that he might be sleeping. All of the sudden I hear him say “!חמור! חמור” (donkey! donkey!). Not only was he listening intently to the whole list, but he realized that I forgot to talk about the donkeys (and decided to remind me in hebrew). So I confirmed for him that we had indeed seen the חמורים at the zoo. He repeated it one more time and fell asleep for the night. (It was very cute).

English: “No, No, No, No!!” (or its close derivative “No way, No way!!”)
Hebrew: “לא, לא, לא, לא!!”

He is very happy at his new-found knowledge and uses every possible opportunity to show us.