Posted on 10/08/2001 5:44:47 AM PDT by Israel
Better Than America David Kaplan
07 October 2001
So what´s it like to live in Israel now?
Were we surprised! Compared to our life in America, life here this past year has been much easier. Trying to picture life in Israel by reading news stories is like trying to picture life in America by watching crime shows. There are kernels of truth but they´re distorted:
Yes, many Americans are so afraid of crime that they won´t answer their door if a stranger knocks. (People answer here.)
Yes, some Americans are so fearful they buy home security systems. (We don´t need them here.)
Yes, parents tell their kids not to trust strangers - and certainly not to accept candy from them. (Here you can.)
Yes, many Americans are afraid to hitchhike. (We hitchhike with strangers.)
Yes, many people - especially women - are afraid to walk alone, especially at night. (Here, young women wander by themselves at 11:30 pm on Friday night.)
However, that doesn´t mean American life is uncomfortable. For many, it´s cushy. It´s just hard to explain that to someone whose image has been molded by crime shows.
The media image of daily life here is similarly misleading. For starters, life here is far less violent than in the US, but in both places, people who are afraid take precautions to avoid becoming victims and go about their normal lives.
What makes our life here so much easier? Materialistically, here in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit El, houses are as big as in America, they´re cheaper - even though they´re hard to find in Beit El, because so many people want to live here - and you don´t need a car. Our living expenses here have dropped by at least half. I don´t have to work nearly as much. The closest grocery store is a 5-minute walk and they deliver. The medical clinic is a 15-minute walk. In Dallas, when our baby had a rash, we had to go by car to the emergency room. The drive and wait took 5 hours and we were charged $200. Here, we call the doctor or nurse at home and walk over or they´ll come to us. And it´s free.
In the US, when you give birth, you pay the hospital. Here, they pay you. When I did take our son to the clinic, one stranger waited 20 minutes for us to finish our appointment so she could take us home. I thanked her, and she thanked me for the chance to perform the mitzvah. When we went to the dentist (another stranger), he saw everyone in the family and refused to accept payment. Instead, he asked us to give to tzedakah for him. Things like that never happened to us in America.
People here depend on each other. Mutual reliance built the land and continues to do so. When we arrived without anything, neighbors (strangers) donated everything -beds, tables, chair, refrigerator, stove - until our furniture and appliance delivery arrived. When I couldn´t pay rent for several months, it was no big deal to our landlord. There are 200 kids on our block here and everyone keeps kosher.
That´s without discussing the spiritual benefits - like celebrating Lag B´Omer with everyone singing and dancing for hours with kids on hilltops, telling stories by the bonfire, looking out over the hilltops of Judea, seeing one bonfire after another and realizing that this is the first time we can do this again after 2,000 years. And Lag B´Omer is a minor holiday.
In retrospect, our decision to move to Israel was like our decision to have kids. People asked us, "Why do it? Why turn your lives upside-down?" Yet our lives would have been so much shallower had we decided not to do so. In both cases, a key piece of our lives would have been missing.
Even to newcomers, the feeling of belonging here is palpable. I chuckle. If people knew how much better life was here, they´d all want to move.
------------
David Kaplan has written for the Los Angeles Times, Baltimore Sun and Dallas Morning News and taught journalism at UCLA. He is a correspondent for Arutz Sheva Israel National Radio.
I dunno, this seems to be like welfare utopia. There'S no such thing as a free lunch ... and a free peace. Both require work, one in the mud, the other in the blood. One way or the other, the welfare recipient will ultimately labor as a slave in the mud, and the irresponsible peace welfare recipient will ultimately be slaughtered by his god father... out of lust or sheer irritation.
America's Death Wish
Why is all of Christendom committing suicide? Why do Americans have a death wish? Repent and live: you started as Puritans and did well. But you will finish as pagans with many Christians fleeing to Israel. Why this willful blindness?
If the mind set on the flesh is death, then every law enacted in America carries the stench of death. An obsession with things; institutionalized envy; high minded stupidity.
I agree with this however. High minded stupidity of a Western elite that believes itself immune to propaganda, superstition and lies, while finding value in Larry Flint's porn, is laughable indeed.
Mind on the flesh is set on death. Nazi white skin preferences, anti-child abortions, gay sex preferences, servileness to materials instead of material servilness, nature freaks ecoterrorists lead by the EPA, and what not, are all things intent on destroying America, things set on the flesh. What they are in fact is pure and simple welfare mentality degenerating into capricious aesthetical wishes for trivial perverted "values", and yes, whether they are set on building death camps, or making people welfare sitting ducks ready to be shot, all those things ultimately are set on death.
This baffles the laws of supply and demand, I don't buy it.(pun intended)
Did you miss watching the news yesterday?
I never was against a collective effort of war and national security building. The problem, in peace time, this national security based collectivism has to give way to responsible behavior. Somehow Israel's blessings have been slightly abused by the Peace advocates, taking complacence because of perceived Israeli superiority and survivability.
Being well fed does not mean one is well off. THe starving Somalie with a fully loaded AK47 is richer than the richest of Wall Street businessman who does not carry one. After all, liberty is above all things, even life itself, let alone wellfare.
Israel has held its finger in the hole of the Islamic dike for decades.
Think Iraq's nuclear facility as one of thousands of examples.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.