5 Things That Positively Suck About Living In Israel
The longer I spend living in Israel, the less patience I have for the rose tinted glasses view that sees every criticism of Israel as a dangerous affront to the existence of the state
You know that uncomfortable mental space that lurks somewhere between when you still have too much energy to go to bed but you’re also really tired and grumpy? So you’re just awake .. but hopelessly tired and cranky?
Good. Because that’s the tenor through which this blog post is being written in. Dir balak(watch out; Arabic).
But on a more serious note — the more live in Israel, the less patience I have for the rose tinted glasses viewpoint of this country that pervades among certain quarters, especially those who dedicate themselves night and day to promoting aliyah.
And because my faculties of “it mightn’t be such a great idea to actually write about this” aren’t currently engaged … here I am writing about it.
So let’s talk about the aliyah bullies. The ones that think that moving to Israel is the be all and end all solution to all one’s problems. And of Israel — that all its ways are perfect, all its doors lined with bounty.
You won’t escape them just by sharing a country with them, you know. When they make it here, those who do so seem to instantly mutate into those whose most cherished vocation in life seems to be to shouting down any criticism of Israel, however mild in the grand scheme of things.
We can argue about how many such characters are really out there. But trust me on one thing: they exist.
Don’t like your local post office? Are you even a Zionist?! Are you secretly holding meetings with Hamas in Jenin to plot our destruction? You are, aren’t you?! They knew it all along.
For such individuals, any line of thinking that contravenes the idea that Israel is a flawless utopia filled with only high tech geniuses masterminding lifesaving algorithms and tanned muscular youth building up the Jewish homeland is like poisonous anathema to their conscious. It stings and they paw frantically to get rid of its stench. Such thinking simply cannot be. And so the default response is to silence it.
For such diehards of the Zionist cause — it may be a fringe element but it’s a significant one — whether you want to nuke Israel or just don’t like it doesn’t matter one iota.
Once you’ve crossed that line that begins and end with government-sponsored propaganda and opened your mind to critical thinking — or the idea that there are some things that are kinda messed up here like the fact that despite its socialism Israel has one of the highest poverty rates in the OECD — you’ve already gone way too far. You’re one of them. The antis.
For such people, there can be nothing even mildly questionable about life in Israel; nor can there be room for improvement or learning from the successes of other nations. Their worldview is uncompromisingly totalitarian. An it can reach an almost comical extent.
If an aliyah diehard were to tip over a bucket-full of chlorinated liquid onto them while walking the streets of Tel Aviv they might praise how ecologically savvy the local denizens are for having the consideration to provide newcomers with a free shower of disinfectant. There’s a pandemic going on, you know? How considerate of them!
Don’t get me wrong.
I support aliyah wholeheartedly. But I also connect much more with the idea that aliyah means joining in a collective project of construction and betterment. To build the Jewish homeland. That idea actually gets me a lot more jazzed up than pretending that everything’s already perfect.
Because Israel is small. The startup nation is a startup itself. It’s malleable. And we can all bring our hammers and our chisels here to make the place better. Blinkering ourselves through drinking our own Kool Aid serves to effectively remove that as an option.
To the extent that unyielding forced positivity is justified by the saying that “if everybody were totally honest nobody would make aliyah” — I disagree. We can set realistic expectations. Silencing valid criticism of life in Israel just makes people feel cowed into silence and like they alone have noticed that there are problems here that need addressing. Which is never a good feeling. Or a healthy place to be.
For most, the bubble bursts at some point — even, I reckon, the zealots among the zealots. Or at least they realize that for all its singularity — it’s the only Jewish country in the world — Israel is in other ways just like any other country on earth: flawed, with good and bad mixed up in different measures.
Bureaucrats seem to relish in making life difficult. Surprisingly, the internet connectivity often kinda sucks. And customer service often leaves a little — make that a lot — to be desired.
Living In Israel: How Things Look From Abroad
Thinking about Israel from across the ocean danielrosehill.medium.com
There Are Plenty Of Things That Israel Does Well — And Some Things Which It Doesn’t
Every time I travel outside of Israel — which I did last month for the first time in more than two years— I get a salient snapshot of how the country fares vis-a-vis that gigantic landmass around it collectively known as chool(a Hebrew acronym for chutz la’aretz).
There’s reverse culture shock to deal with. And then behind that a picture that might be sort of true (because how much can you ever claim to know about a country after a few weeks?)
And guess what?
I returned from this particular trip thinking that Israel is — overall — actually a pretty good place to live.
I thought that the pandemic had turned Jerusalem nightlife into an even lamer version of its previous self (without tourism, many businesses have had to curtail opening hours. Getting food after midnight even on the weekend is now a significant challenge). Then I tried to do the same thing in NYC and realized that perhaps it wasn’t just Israel.
While I sometimes find myself gritting my teeth at the occasionally appalling rude mannerisms on full display here — especially when dealing with the almost comically titled “customer service — I equally found myself rolling my eyes at the latest serviceperson who asked me “how can I help you today, sir?!” only to actually fail to be of any assistance in the most minimal possible way when taken up on the offer. Give me Israeli brusqueness over fake politeness any day of the week. Maybe.
And I also saw things that I think the US does far better than the country in which I currently live.
Take, for instance, gaunt consumerism. Love them or hate them, but Amazon Prime has taken online shopping and elevated it into an art form.
You order things that arrive the next day. If the order arrives defective, their customer service trips over themselves to make things right. Need to return something? Head over to UPS. The clerk scans a barcode and ten seconds later you’re done. No shouting needed by anyone, including you.
Also no inexplicable weeks-long waits for things to show up that you ordered in Tel Aviv. No couriers that show up randomly and think that it’s acceptable to shout at the customer for not being home when they arrived unannounced and demanded to know why you weren’t home (at 15:02 on a Tuesday afternoon). The state of online consumerism in the US is something that those of us living in Israel can only currently dream about replicating. You can tell me that Israel does online shopping better. And I’ll tell you that you’re either brainwashed or haven’t had a Prime membership.
Setting up signage to get Amazon orders delivered. The signage itself was purchased on Amazon. Photo: Author.
I also learned,while there, about the cruel rudiments of the American healthcare system and found that — if I happened to be uninsured — my monthly supply of ADHD medication would cost me more than $500. The same drug that Israel gives to me for about $70 a month whether I’m rolling in millions or putting falafel balls into oil repeatedly down the road.
Nevertheless, there are a few things about life in Israel that I do really think suck. Objectively — and not just for me but for a lot of people.
And just like the perennial yay-sayers I will tolerate zero dissent about this. If you want to have some of your newfound enthusiasm cut down a notch by a grumpy man typing on his computer at six in the morning .. keep reading.
The Cost Of Living
Israel is ridiculously overpriced and this is a dynamic that has been going on for way too long — and received far too little attention among our ever-bickering political class.
We seem to consistently pay double for often worse merchandise backed by poorer customer service. And we’ve become too accustomed to being fleeced by monopolists of every stripe and color to actually take it as anything other than an immutable part of life here.
Crazy Financial Statistics About Israel
Will Israel’s Cost Of Living Fall Post-COVID? medium.com
Want to take a staycation in Israel? The idea appeals to me too but honestly — like many — I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll put getting a decent holiday above raw patriotism.
In that vein, I’ve made the point before that if I wasn’t Jewish I probably wouldn’t visit Israel. Or perhaps I’d see it once and never came back (unless I was a history buff, which I’m not). I stand by the remark. From a value for money standpoint, the country is a bank account draining rip-off, pure and simple.
You want sun? Jump across the border in Taba (from Eilat) and hotels will miraculously plummet in price. You want history? You can get to Rome without facing an obligatory interrogation simply to leave the airport (even though you hold the country’s passport and voluntarily moved your life to that country…). Pro tip: you can probably fly to Europe with Ryanair and stay in a hotel in Budapest for less than the cost of a few days in a zimmer up North that looks oddly dilapidated for its overbearing price tag. The hotel will probably be cleaner; the staff more attentive.
Compound that with generally low salaries outside of the high-tech bubble — which receives a lot of hype but still employs only about 10% of the population — and you’ve got a painful financial picture for many.
Did I mention that Israel is one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world — and one which seems to keep going up despite whatever the world economy can throw at it, including a pandemic? For many, there are precious little financial upsides to moving here. It’s sucky that that’s currently the case.
The (Frequent) Rudeness, The Unnecessary Aggression, The Road Rage
Three in one deal coming right at you here. You’re getting more out of this listicle than you bargained for, right?
But I’m bracketing them under one heading because I believe these all stem from some common place of frustration.
People here don’t seem to have an escape valve. That goes for me too. Although for whatever reason creative pursuits (I love writing, and am now exploring video) seem to bring me great peace of mind. Failing that, happy hours are (thankfully) abundant here.
Too often people treat one another poorly here — with raised voices and short tempers. The cultural textbook writers are quick to point out that just as arguments can escalate quickly here they tend to simmer down at a comparable pace. It’s all Mediterranean theatrics they will argue. But is that really an excuse?
Why does there seem to be so much aggression in Israel in society? And manners that pass all parameters of what could be considered ‘brusque,’ are flat-out rude, and yet which — often without reason — gets brushed off as “refreshing directness” (wait … did I just do that?!)
Driving in Israel is a good case in point.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure, it feels like taking a go at a dodgem track (American: bumper car) where all the other users at the amusement park are very irate and on some mixture of cannabis laced with cocaine topped off with Tubi that seems to be having an unsettling effect upon their state of mind.
As the cannabis kicks in they drift carelessly across lanes oblivious to the four lanes of traffic having to slam the brakes to avoid a collision with their vehicle. Then a molecule of cocaine joins the party and they pull some crazy overtaking on the blind side maneuver to jump ahead of the next guy for no particular reason (after five to ten seconds of mandatory tailgating, of course). You’re left wondering whether traffic police exist here and why you got a fine for jaywalking while the guy who almost drove into you got off scott-free.
The dodgem-drivers also seem to have skipped out of driving school after the third lesson and to have forgotten where the indicator lights are located if they even have them installed at all (the great irony is that Israel is insanely over-regulated and bureaucratic in far too many respects, including driver’s ed. The people jumping lanes went to driving school all right. They just somehow forgot everything the moment they got their license.)
They tailgate. They beep. They tailgate again and flash their lights at you to pressure you to speed up even when you’re driving up a treacherous windy mountain road somewhere in the Golan (yes, this really happened). They gesticulate. They jump three lanes at a time without indicating while your blood pressure climbs the same amount in systolic points.
It’s needlessly stressful. It’s sometimes deadly. And a good chunk of it is predicated on some bizarre national aversion to the idea of being a sucker — which unfortunately often translates to treating others with consideration or letting another road user go first in traffic (or somebody else go first at the supermarket, etc).
Just because Israel has had to fight for its survival many times — and won — doesn’t mean that buying a six pack of tuna has to be a miniature version of the War of Independence. Israel can do better. The line of thinking that celebrates never apologizing and always being aggressive as cherished Israeli virtues has a lot to answer for here.
Could 'freier culture' be behind Israel's pandemic figures?
Browsing through my Facebook feed recently, I came across an interesting parody of a Ministry of Health poster. It was… blogs.timesofisrael.com
The Yelling. The Noise Pollution. The Drilling. The Drilling!
The Jerusalem Municipality once had the consideration to literally park construction equipment — every weekend — outside my apartment. The construction schedule was also 24/6.
Israel is too loud and the earplugs cost too damn much to block it all out (so don’t tell me to use those; my budget got swallowed up on Tubi and bad, overpriced hotels instead.)
For what feels like the majority of the past [insert years since aliyah] years, I seem to have lived in almost immediate proximity to one or more construction sites.
In fact, what would you know?
There’s one going on right outside my window as I type this. The familiar sound of a drill meandering its way through whatever drills meander through in Israel to make that distinctive buzzing sound.
Drilling. Yelling. More drilling. The dreadful noise that the backup beeper on a JCB makes when it gets activated precisely one minute after the noise ordinance ends. The unhelpful iriyah(local municipality) that is undertaking 24/6 construction outside your window and yet which has no idea when it might reach a merciful end.
The cars that insist on beeping — yes, beeping! — at the guy who holds up the sign to block traffic while the road team work on putting down some tarmac. Just to interject a little bit more balagan(chaos) into the morning rush hour.
Israel is small. It’s also densely populated. And houses need to be built to accommodate those people. Too bad the whole process makes a lot of noise.
Consumer Rights, Tenant Protection Rights, Privacy Laws
Moving to Israel from countries that have moved past the point in their histories when they fight for their survival and … put down a road network … often feels like a backward evolution.
That’s what makes aliyah (moving to Israel) such a curious phenomenon.
It’s a migration pattern that’s predicated on a sense of national allegiance and a feeling of returning to an ancestral homeland and of being at home in the only country on the planet that has a Jewish majority. It exists in spite of the fact that it seems to often set back careers, make saving money significantly harder, and involve putting up with things like … sucky consumer protection law.
Tenant protection law in Israel? It ain’t so hot either. (Does it actually exist?)
As a renter you’ll be expected to foot the rental contract as well as the municipal tax and you’ll even have to pay the real estate agent despite the fact that the parliament attempted to legislate against this and they may also be taking a cut from them (the ‘how’ is a story for another day).
Consumer rights? You have the right to purchase the good or service. What more do you want from us? Please sign on the dotted line. Service isn’t included by the way.
Freedom of speech? You can speak and the good news is that there’s no tax due on it and it doesn’t have its own customs code yet (if not, the country would be bankrupt by now).
But just know that if you write a negative review on the internet about the pizza that arrived after Dudi had taken a blowtorch to it for his science project and flipped off all the toppings to feed them to his cat and then served it to you … just know that you could wind up in court over your outburst
The Appalling Customer Service
Sorry, I am legally precluded from saying anything more about this.
But if you’re really curious:
How Israel’s Draconian Defamation Laws Shield Abusive Businesses From Consequence
In a country in which even leaving a negative Google review can trigger a legal action, residents say the strict legal… danielrosehill.medium.com
Internet Access On My Street In South Jerusalem
I can like … get so many photos on Facebook about my frustration with internet speeds with this connection.
If there were a Nobel prize award for over-complicating things, the State of Israel would probably be up for contention. No, it would be the runaway winner.
For kicks this week, I had a go at navigating the bureaucratic minefield known as attempting to import wireless equipment into the country while evading the collective router-grabbing clutches of the customs authority and communications ministry.
There’s an approved list and a non-approved list. But unfortunately neither actually have that many devices on them from among the tens of thousands of wireless devices that exist in the global world of electronics.
If your wireless device isn’t on it, you can submit a request for a permit (note: Israelis are obsessed with permits; the word in Hebrew is ‘ishur’ and I’m convinced that I might need one to publish this article).
It will be processed within 14 business days.
The bureaucrats will be stern and unyielding in their investigation and will sometimes summon it to inspection in a laboratory.
As a result, you’ll need to ask a perplexed eBay seller what the rated transmission power on the wireless intercom he’s selling that works over WiFi and has a capable range of about 20 meters might be. The computer demands it.
Oh, and to send in the application to have the device approved, you’ll have to include an invoice and hope that it won’t be seized (if it is, you may be liable for warehousing fees as a going away present). Which basically means that you’ll have to buy something and hope the customs people okay it. I wrote to the customs people to tell them that their system sucked. I got a call back. “Do you have a specific question?” they wanted to know. I hung up.
Getting internet in Israel is a unique experience worth writing a postcard about too.
There are (in most parts of the countries) only two infrastructural providers (more evolved areas have fiber optic; us humble Jerusalemites mustn’t have been deemed worthy). But there’s a veritable panoply of ISPs reselling their connectivity.
While this creates a nice mirage of choice, in my experience none of them are that good. If you can’t get internet access, one will likely blame the other. The law mandates this strange separation of powers beneath our roads and houses. It still doesn’t seem to me like it actually makes anybody’s life better.
Speaking of internet access, I’m trying this blog post from a hotspot. Because in a relatively central part of Jerusalem — the capital of the Startup Nation, the place you’re always hearing hyped up as a regional tech superpower — I have tried and failed (repeatedly) to get reliable internet access.
I managed an upload speed of 5 Mbps once and took a screenshot to gloat about how I could get a few photos up to Facebook in mere seconds. A cousin in a far-off land in Europe barely knows how to use a computer but sits on a 100 Mbps symmetrical line that I can only dream about.
Whichever infrastructural provider I go with, it tends to go down for hours at a time. I tried to pick up a cellular SIM tonight but the phone company randomly closed the kiosk (I mean “service center”) an hour early and the call center apparently didn’t have an idea. I doubt very much that I’ll receive so much as a cursory apology for the time it took to get to the mall and back.
I’ve had to bail on podcast interviews (as the guest). Abort Zoom meetings during which I was billed as the tech-savvy writer ready to save the day by bringing my tech wizardly know how to bear upon … I can’t remember what I do for a living any more.
For the most part, Israel is a good country to live in.
The healthcare is excellent. When there aren’t elections every three months, the country seems to somehow hold itself together.
Food is tasty and varied.
Public transport is eminently affordable — which I think is tremendous and should be the case in absolutely every country that wishes to do the obvious thing and reduce citizens’ dependence upon private transport to get around.
The weather is also great. Or at least very sunny for a very long amount of the year.
Goldstar and Maccabi are both somewhat drinkable lagers.
Tubi 60 tastes like paint stripper that some shiputznik(renovator)__ accidentally left to ferment and then resold to college students because it had developed alcohol after spending enough time in the sun. But it’s also oddly delightful in its strange citrusy glory (it was cheaper outside of Israel, but let’s not split hairs here).
And it’s also the Jewish homeland and the only Jewish country in the world.
It’s a good place to live in. Some would even say a great one. But a perfect utopia it is not.
I think I’m done now.
For More Assorted Moaning And Groaning, Please See:
Why Does Everything In Israel Seem To Cost Too Much?
Why are we, in Israel, consistently paying inflated prices for low quality products backed by (often) terrible customer… danielrosehill.medium.com
Ireland vs. Israel (As Places to Live, That Is!)
(About a month ago — just when I was resuming my self-publishing voyage — I wrote this rather detailed run-through of… medium.com
The Pros and Cons of Living in Israel
(And Why I Still Think the Cost of Living is the Elephant in the Room!) medium.com