Israel: Nation or Dysfunctional Family?

This morning Israel commemorated the holocaust with its annual minute of silence, accompanied by the haunting sound of the country's air raid sirens. I stood outside my Jerusalem apartment and watched cars pull over and drivers stand by open doors, buses stop, old ladies with shopping baskets stand with heads bowed and even the kindergarten teachers opposite my home made a valiant attempt to have their young charges stand quietly. The atmosphere was palpable: an entire country joining together in collective respect and even grief for the generation of European Jewry that was wiped out by Hitler & his Nazi followers.

The minute ended with the siren fading, and immediately normal life started up: car doors closed, children started to laugh & squeal and pedestrians walked on. I turned to go in to my apartment when the air was split with the raucous sound of car horns and angry shouts as two Israeli drivers engaged in the national pastime of driving badly, then loudly blaming the other driver for any near miss that may occur.

How can a nation bow its head in grief one moment and then have its citizens start berating each other the next? What happened to the feeling of unity and shared experience that had bound us all together moments before ? Perhaps the answer lies in a biblical name for the Jewish people, 'Bnei Yisrael', the Children of Israel. We are not simply 'Am Yisrael', the people of Israel, who by pure chance happen to be citizens of the same country, but we are also the descendants of a single family who lived in this area long ago, and in some ways after all these millennia we still are one large extended family and like most families, we are a little dysfunctional!

This explains a lot about some of the quirks of Israeli society: We have our disagreements, we irritate each other, and we often take the feelings of our fellow Israelis for granted, but we equally love to celebrate each others 'simchas' and share each others pain. We can stand and shed a tear together and then shout at each other a moment later, because like most families we care deeply about each other, but we don't always get on that well! This perhaps goes to explain other aspects of Israeli society like 'protexia', where who you know can open doors, perhaps unfairly, but after all, we'll all try to help out family... right?? The way we drive, always wanting to be in front even when there is nothing to be gained, is that any different to siblings who just have to beat each other to the most trivial things? The way we Israelis stick our nose into discussions and disputes that are none of our business, who doesn't have family members who do just that?

To the outsider then, Israeli society may often seem torn by divisions, and bad behaviour toward each other, but to those visitors I'd suggest you watch our shared grief when the memorial sirens blare; look at our shared concern and care for the young people we see as almost our own, as they give up years of their lives to serve our army, or observe the genuine joy every Israeli feels on hearing of an engagement or birth even concerning total strangers.

So next time you get yelled at by an Israeli driver who just cut you up, don't let it get to you, simply honk back and smile, after all who drives us more crazy than our own family?

Isratransfer

There are basically two ways to legally transfer money in and out of Israel (discounting money belts, which tend to itch on long flights!):
1. You can do a bank to bank transfer
2. You can use the services of a private money change business in Israel.
Both methods have their drawbacks: Israeli banks basically gouge their customers by wracking up the charges and offering a poor exchange rate far below the interbank rate, and the reason they are able to get away with this is because they are aware of the drawback with private money changers in Israel, which is they may be far less expensive and offer much better rates, but they are simply not as secure.
In recent years there have been high profile cases of money change firms going bust and of clients in the middle of a transfer losing their money. This happens because basically when your funds arrive in Israel, they land in the money changers accounts, and they then transfer the money to wherever you want it sent, but before they do, they have full control of the funds, which means the clients has to trust they money changer to do the right thing, which obviously they must do or nobody would use them again... unless you happen to pick the day they go out of business!!
There is however a money changing firm that have voluntarily added a layer of protection, arguing that clients shouldn't have to trust them, but rather they should be able to trust the system. That has always been the bank's advantage: I mean who really trusts bankers, but on the whole, we do trust the banking system.

I found out about Isratransfer's system when I was doing my daily radio show here in Israel. One of the founding partners did the financial news for me, and the system of transferring money was actually developed in partnership with the radio station's parent organization,  a highly respected non profit called The AACI (the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel).

Essentially what happens is that the AACI act as an independent 3rd party, approving transfers.Without the AACI approving a money release, Isratransfer are unable to do anything with their clients money. As soon as money arrives in the account, it is immediately released to the destination specified by the client when the money was sent and there is absolutely nothing else that can happen to the money. In fact, even if Israetransfer was to collapse while your money was in transit, it would still have to go where it was supposed to.
So with this system you get peace of mind and you don't have to pay the ridiculous bank charges and poor exchange rates of the banks. How much do I believe in what I say here? I have used Isratransfer myself  on multiple occasions and saved a lot of money, not to mention aggravation (the one thing Israeli banks give you that Isratransfer doesn't!) and now I'm trying to encourage people to use their services.
If you want more info, click here and I'll try to help

Israel's Middle Classes Rise Up

Israel is experiencing a summer of discontent: Tent cities have sprung up in response to rising housing costs; Dairy products have suffered mass boycotts that have turned that industry upside down; doctors & nurses have been involved in industrial action for over 120 days and now parents with strollers have protested the prohibitive costs of child rearing in Israel.
First, lets dispense with that these protests are not: they are not an Israeli 'arab spring'. The Arab Spring demos are about fighting for basic democratic rights. Autocratic arab states have been prepared to kill these people rather than allow them say in the way their country is run. Here in Israel it could not be more different, because Israelis have enjoyed those democratic rights since the founding of the State of Israel. In fact, these demos are a reflection of the vibrancy of our democracy. No, the Summer of Discontent in Israel is about the Middle classes: People who's education and careers would normally lead them to basic financial security, but in Israel they find themselves increasingly unable to move forward with their lives: Wages don't stretch so hard working people find themselves working two jobs and spending even less time with the families they are working to support; house costs in cities where they make their homes are rapidly becoming prohibitive leading to a generation of Middle Classes facing the prospect of never getting a foot on the housing ladder; early child care is so expensive that it is hardly worth both parents going to work, and yet impossible to make ends meet if they do not both have jobs; and the cost of basic utilities keeps rising whilst wages more often than not, stay static. This then is the root of the Summer of Discontent: the middle class of Israel feeling squeezed, overburdened and as a social class, burnt out.
There are many ideas floating around, and I do not pretend to have the economic or political knowledge to say what we should do, but I do know,as a member of this middle class in Israel, that we have to do something soon! Ideas that listeners have suggested include state support for early child care (Mishpachtonim) so that going back to work after maternity leave does not mean a drastic cut in take home pay; reducing the number of flat taxes such as VAT (Ma'am) and increasing means based taxes; less child support emphasis on larger families (aimed at the poorest HAredi & Arab sectors) and more on smaller families; rent control for cities like Jerusalem where the middle classes find themselves priced out of the market by wealthy absentee overseas owners and Haredim moving into areas making them inappropriate for other sectors; Increasing local and purchase taxes for overseas owners as well as incentives for absentee owners to rent or sell to locals.
My fear is the result of all this dissent will be either a 'band aid' over the concerns - some type of appeasing gesture that does not address the genuine pressures on the Israeli Middle Class or it will being the Netanyahu government down which will almost certainly dispel the anger and cause the tent cities to be taken down, but will then lead to business as usual. This is Bibi's fault, but it's also Olmert's Sharon's, Peres's, Rabin Shamir and Begins ! This has been 25 years in the making, but if we don't want to see the growing Middle Class exodus of Israeli's and Anglo Olim then it needs to proper long term policy decisions to be made a sea change in thinking toward Israel's Middle Classes.

Finding The Real Israel

There's a multitude of images of Israel in the world - there's the CNN / BBC image of a war torn land, filled with violence, divided by a giant wall, and run by an arrogant military; The Islamist almost medieval blood libelous view of Israel; There's the Christian image of Israel, which is a place where you can see the footsteps of Jesus at every turn, a country of biblical sites linked by air conditioned bus rides; theres the Jewish day school Israel - a country of kibbutzim, pioneers and wars to memorize; and finally there's the Israel you never really get to hear about, which is where I actually live: It's the real Israel - the country of honking cars, learning to speak Hebrew, dealing with a new education system. A country with a vibrant theatre & arts, beautiful views & promenades, frustrating bureaucracy, amazing medical services, horrendous drivers; a country that beats to the rhythm of Judaism in all its forms...it's the Israel that myself & the other staff & volunteers at Rustymikeradio.com try to present in our programming every day.

Yesterday is a great example of what I am talking about - Yom Hashoah (Israel's Holocaust remembrance day) - Elsewhere in the world a holocaust remembrances would focus on the history, the evil, and the suffering, tempered with synagogue services & school choirs singing but here it's different: This is a country where a high percentage of our citizens are survivors or decended from survivors and where few do not have family members amongst the Six Million. It makes Yom Hashoah immediate & relevant & not historical or stale. Our station, along with every other radio station in Israel played only sad music, & no advertising or jingles & our interviews had a connection with Shoah education, & events . At 10am every person in this country stopped what they were doing for 2 minutes while the sirens wailed. It's a uniquely Israeli experience as an entire nation stood silently by cars, in supermarkets, schools. hospitals & in their homes. We broadcast that siren to the world. Its a powerful annual moment of national unity, and we try to share the feeling here with Jews & friends of Israel worldwide. Next Monday is Yom Hazikaron (Remembrance day for our fallen soldiers & victims of terror) when we'll do this again. Rustymike Radio will relay the experience of the Yom Hazikaron from our anglo-Israeli perspective to the world. You won't see that on the CNN , Sky or BBC and if it is mentioned it'll be in the context of current affairs & moral equivalency. For us its Israel, it's who we are, where we live, what we have suffered & what we have achieved despite that.

I think the reason Rustymike Radio is so vital is that it is that while the CNN Israel does exist in places, that isn't the Israel I live in. There's a missing voice talking about the real country, its laws, customs, events, people, problems, kids, elderly, humor, arts, and yes sometimes we talk about the "Palestinian question" too - thats part of our life here, but only part & by no means the biggest part. If you want to know the rest of the story then you only need to sift through our several hundred podcasts or listen to a few hours of live output to find it.