Naomi Ragen Rejoicing!

Naomi Ragen shares:

Dear Friends,
Just as I share all that is troubling with you, I'd like now to share my great happiness.
On Wednesday, November 25, at ten to seven in the morning, two days after my 40th wedding anniversary, a day after my dear husband's birthday, my son and daughter-in-law, Asher and Anat Ragen, welcomed a new baby boy into their lovely family, the first brother for his three beautiful sisters.
Our happiness knows no bounds.
With the birth of this little sabra, the ratio between our grandsons and granddaughters grows closer: six girls, and five boys.
I am writing this not only to share this blessed event, but to publicly and with heartfelt joy, thank God for all His most wonderful blessings to me and mine. Ever since we made aliyah, following God's commandment to "leave your father's house and your birthplace" to live in the land of Israel, we have been showered with blessings that only God can give. Thank you, Hashem.
May all your people enjoy your endless bounty and kindness, and may the people and land of Israel know only joy through their closeness to You.

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For more articles, please visit my Web page at: http://www.naomiragen.com/

A Country that Eats its People (Part 6)

This story is about an American family

that made Aliyah

Arrived 1987 - Departed 1989

by Aryeh Weiss

A Country that Eats its People (Part 1)

A Country that Eats its People (Part 2)

A Country that Eats its People (Part 3)

A Country that Eats its People (Part 4)

A Country that Eats its People (Part 5)

continued...

FINANCIAL AID

Financial aid is the most important to get right. Some choose not to work and are instructed how to accomplish that through Israel's fuzzy socialistic system. They can secure unending hand-outs. True it supplies the meagerist of life styles, but there are plenty of ways to supplement that condition, with under the table methods. For those not wishing to live in this style, jobs are quickly found for them, supplying sufficient income for a comfortable life style. This aid is said to be available for all at the Merkaz. If only that were true.

Where do you think most find help? From their supportive organizations of course. Americans not being as fortunate, constantly shoulder a burden of one unsolved situation piled upon another. Transition from the Merkaz to the outside world, is further enhanced for most Olim, by the entire process being discussed in their mother tongue. This is invaluable when no one has not yet become proficient in Hebrew.

Americans on the other hand are laboriously prying bits of information from surly caretakers, that speak rock Ivrit (only Hebrew), or inadequate English at best. It takes (according to consensus), three years to master the language well enough so that important nuances can be understood. Why won't they or why can't "they speak English" when English is a mandatory language in all Israeli schools.

There is an easy way to remedy the problem. Hire Americans fluent in Hebrew. Many would jump at the opportunity. Many have applied for such work. I never saw one employed. Why?

THREE MONTHS HAVE GONE BY

Into the fourth month at the Merkaz, pandemonium still thrives. Conflicts grow more intense. Americans keep leaving, returning to the U.S.. For those remaining the system nibbles away at our resolve day after day, but somehow we fight on. Not everyone could maintain the stamina to forge ahead.

Looking back I am tempted to characterize the word stamina as stupidity. Incorporating resolve, stamina and whatever else available to hype myself, I arrange numerous appointments for job interviews. This was no easy task, by now you must realize nothing is. There has been no thought to equip the Merkaz with a system that enables communications needed for a job search. You may seethe all you want over this absence of an obvious need, but only you, will become aggravated.

There are no telephones allowed in the rooms although the connections are there. You must use the one and only public phone in the lobby, to make appointments and receive incoming calls. After waiting in line for half an hour or so, when your turn comes the phone has usually stopped working. More than once I have seen frustrated individuals tear the instrument from the wall. Getting the picture of job hunting?

Eventually I am told the front desk will take calls, write messages, and place them in your mail box. After receiving those garbled notes written in Hebrew, most deposited in your box a week after being received, you chalk that service up to another failed fantasy. Imagine, no help from your job councilor, no provisions to support your own attempts to find work. This is one kettle of fish you are bound to choke on.

Somehow I kept going and managed to arrange a day of meetings in Tel Aviv. It was exciting to have actually gotten this far, even if what should have been a weeks work took two months. With my rudimentary Hebrew learned on the street (not Ulpan), a pocket full of maps and travel instructions, I departed Karmiel for my first view of Tel Aviv.

Sitting at the back of the bus as I watched Karmiel recede into the distance, tension disappeared and I was in the best of spirits. Having grown up in New York, arriving in the big city was like old home week. It was teeming with activity, and I loved it. There was no end to the shops offering every conceivable item you might want. When I needed directions, and my attempts at using Hebrew failed, they switched to English effortlessly.

Every appointment was kept and the interviews couldn’t have gone better. Imagine interviews being pleasurable, never any tension and most important conducted in English. To be polite and demonstrate my desire to learn the mother tongue, I did manage a coherent sentence or two, and the effort was well received. The day was so enjoyable that not until it was coming to an end, did it dawn on me that the propaganda of the Merkaz Klita (the immediate necessity to learn Hebrew) was just that.

They were driving us crazy, insisting we learn Hebrew (which they didn't know how to teach), and yet I had spent a very important day speaking only English. It doesn't compute now, but it will later on.

continued...

Can’t Anyone See what is Happening?

A Voice from Hebron by Gary M. Cooperberg
P.O. Box 1444, Kiryat Arba-Hebron, Israel 90100
Tel. 972-2-996-3761 Fax 972-2-996-1778
Email: gary@projectshofar.org - Website: Project Shofar

Can’t Anyone See what is Happening? — September 16, 2008

I remember, many years ago, discussing with friends and neighbors in the Jewish community where I then lived, the possibility that America may one day be dangerous for Jews. One fellow boldly stated that the minute he sees such dangers he will pack up and make aliyah. He failed to recognize the futility and impropriety of such a statement. First of all he, and those who think as he does, will never see the danger even when it stares them in the face. What he was really saying was, “it can never happen in America because America is my home.” This is the real problem.
As Jews we should be planning to come home, not because the place where we live now is or will become dangerous, rather because we are able to go home to our destined homeland for which we have been praying for over two thousand years! It is not merely a mitzvah, a commandment, to live in the Land. . . it is an amazing privilege which we should all be yearning to fulfill.

There are two opposing concepts which our rabbis tell us cannot coexist... Exile and Redemption. For Redemption to be complete the Exile must come to an end. The idea of a Jew witnessing Redemption in all of its glory while living happily in the USA is an expression of complete ignorance of the concept of Redemption. G-d wants us to choose to fulfill our destiny. He is giving us every opportunity to recognize our potential and to fulfill it. Instead of seeing the great miracles He has performed in our time, we find all kinds of rational explanations and insist upon being like all of the other nations in the world. Leaders in both Israel and the USA really think that they can make peace by violating Jewish obligations. All this will do is make things worse for everyone.

Every time the USA threatens Israel, G-d has sent “natural” disasters to warn it to stop. I was amazed to watch on television the incredible similarity to the evacuation of New Orleans to the evacuation of Katif.

After 9/11 President Bush still insisted upon looking at Islam as a peaceful religion. Or maybe he was just trying to pacify his Saudi friends. Yet the bombing of the Twin Towers was praised by so called “Palestinians” in Israel as they handed out candy in the streets to celebrate.

Every crisis in the USA also is a warning to Jews to go home while they still can. But Jews consider themselves American first and Jewish second. . . much like the Jews in Germany in the 30's who thought themselves loyal Germans first. I don’t know if the latest financial crisis in the USA will become the beginning of a new nightmare or not.

Perhaps America will find a way to recover. It is also possible that the first domino has fallen and the entire world may find itself in financial chaos. It doesn’t take a prophet or a genius to see how such a situation can become a breeding ground for rabid antisemitism. When people are hungry and desperate they seek a scapegoat to blame. History has always found the Jews to be the convenient scapegoat. There is no reason to assume that this won’t happen again.

The G-d of Israel has already begun the process of Redemption. This process will not stop until it is completed. Those who seek to thwart it only invite disaster upon themselves and will fail in their efforts.

Those who truly believe in G-d will seek to please him. For the Jew it is time to just come home. For the Gentile it is time to recognize that the Jewish State is a Biblical process, not a political one. There is no room to negotiate its future as it has already been determined. Those who seek to replace Biblical destiny with man made “road maps” only invite disaster. Listen to the sound of the shofar and wake up before it is too late.

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Project Shofar is dedicated to spreading these truths wherever it is possible to do so. It is sounding the alarm, to Jew and Gentile alike,to open our eyes to the G-dly process that is presently underway, and work to support it. We dare not stand idly on the sidelines.

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Jews Fail to Follow Judaism

A Jewish Homeland

Don't Expel Jews From Gaza!

Jews Fail to Follow Judaism

Rambam doesn't insist on aliyah. He lived in Egypt, you know.

I've quoted the Ramban (Nachmanides) who said Jews are commanded in every generation to live in the Land of Israel. Are you saying he was a hypocrite or what? Or the Rambam (Maimonides) who said Jews should live in the cities of Israel even if the majority there were Gentile idolaters? Was he a hypocrite too or what?

Why Do So Many Religious Jews Live in America?

The Ramban writes that the commandment to settle the Land of Israel is one of the 613 mitzvot of the Torah. He bases this on the language of the Biblical verse, “And you shall dispossess the inhabitants of the Land and dwell in it.” We are enjoined with two tasks: first to conquer the Land, and secondly to dwell in it. The Ramban states that this mitzvah (commandment) applies in every generation. Furthermore, all of the early and later Torah authorities (Rishonim and Achronim) who formulate Halacha agree on this matter. [Emphasis mine throughout.]

In his sweeping Halachic (Jewish legal) compilation, the Mishna Torah, the Rambam quotes the Talmud: “In all times, a Jew should live in the Land of Israel, even in a city where most of the inhabitants are idol worshippers, and not live outside of the Land, even in a city where most of the inhabitants are Jews.”

Our Sages stated that the mitzvah of living in the Land of Israel is equal to all of the commandments of the Torah combined.
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Regardless of the Ramban or the Rambam, why do Jews resist the return to Zion? Why do Jews turn their back on the Promised Land of Israel? Why don't they yearn to return and GO? Why demand the Messiah do for you what you can do for yourself? If you so despise the Jewish Homeland, how can you expect non-Jews to hold it in high esteem?

And don't blather that it's only because of some alleged "Armageddon" beliefs that Christian Zionists want Jews to make the move, to follow their Judaism to the Jewish Homeland of Israel, because Judaism also teaches that such aliyah [immigration] is a blessing and hastens the coming of the King and is a part of the process of redemption.