Is the grass greener in Israel? Someone asked me that recently as I always talk about it very fondly. So here is my answer, I don’t know cause because all the time I spent there I never had to mow the grass both literally and figurativlly. Let me explain, the first time was there was on a 10 day trip with Taglit..and if a vacation isn’t an enough of a selling point of anywhere but it was free…yeah have you ever met a Jew or anyone for that matter who doesn’t love FREE stuff? It was at this time I thought about moving to Israel but didn’t think that would be prudent after a 10 days trip in which my only responsibilty was making sure my own luggage made it downstairs in the morning. Yeah it was brutal..
Round two, a much longer trip but again epic fail, living on kibbutz is like living in one big household sure I had “chores” or a job as they called it, but i didn’t have to do my own laundry or cook my meals…so where is this real life Israel? I mean having bills to paydrfgfv and arguing with the cell phone company over my bills..an argument which i am sure I would lose because NO ONE argues like Israelis..
I read that roughly half of the people who make aliyah return to thier home country within 5 year, but don’t quote me on that. So whats the deal? Do us Americans who speak of Israel passionatly, is it out of love or lust of the idea of the promised land? Maybe both. There is a fine line between love and lust, perhaps the only way to find out is to jump in with both feet, but for most of us, myself included, we will run around the pool wearing our arm floaties!
