It hasn’t been even a year yet since we decided to move to Israel, but one of the things that was a very big concern about considering making this move was the issue of employment.  We know people who had lost their jobs in the US and were doing so badly there, that they figured they might as well live in Israel and struggle here.  And we know of others who saved for many years, sold homes that had dramatically increased in value, came with very significant financial resources behind them, had some kind of US based income (pension, the ability to continue working for their US employers from a distance)…but that wasn’t our situation.

My husband was employed at a position where he was making a decent income, but since aliyah was a sudden possibility, we didn’t have years of financial planning behind us in making the move.  Nor did we have the financial perks that come with being a new immigrant (free flight, absorption stipends – this would have amounted to over $60,000 for a family our size moving to the north).   Leaving the security of a regular salary and moving to another country to start over with a large family support was an intimidating proposition.  Especially since I’m a financially conservative person who avoids debt to the best of my ability.

I knew with certainty that G-d provided for us in the US, and He would provide for us in Israel- He’s not limited by our geographical location.  This intellectual belief is what made me comfortable with the idea of moving here, even though it would mean using all of our financial resources without knowing how long we’d be without an income.  But emotionally, I literally every single day for at least the first two months after deciding to move, felt almost overwhelmed with fears about what we were doing.  To overcome this, I worked very intensively on feeling (rather than knowing) trust in G-d.  (And I blogged very little at that time because it was such a sensitive process, though now I wish I had because it was very powerful.)

We hoped that dh would find work within three months  (based on the feedback of a gifted intuitive who I had spoken with about issues that she had great insight on), so we planned financially for four months without an income.  Three months came and went, four months, five months – and the Friday of ds13’s bar mitzva, dh had an interview and came home with the exciting news that he was hired!

This was very exciting, although it was in the extreme busyness of the bar mitzva preparations that he told us, so our responses were somewhat mitigated by all that we were doing right then to get everything organized.  Dh was told he was being hired in a outsourcing capacity for the first year (I don’t know what the actual term is – they would send him work and he’d be paid hourly for it by them) and then brought on as a salaried employee after a year.  He was very impressed by the company hiring him for a number of reasons, and the starting salary was decent, enough for us to live on.

But days went by and they didn’t contact him with work, and they weren’t following up with other things.  So as impressed as he was with them initially, he couldn’t continue to consider himself hired without getting work and a salary!  He interviewed a week ago with a smaller company, and came home rather negative about it for various reasons.  He said he was offered a job, but the starting salary was half of what he was offered before (the first offer was the industry standard for starting rates).  After a year, it would gradually go up to the starting salary offered at the first company, and he needed to commit to stay with them for a year (or two? can’t remember now).

We both know that you have to start somewhere, and getting your foot in the door for the first time is the hardest part.  We weren’t approaching this as Americans who don’t understand the salary differences between here and the US, and he wasn’t insistent that he start at the top of the totem pole by any means.  But this seemed like a really low place to have to start.  (In case you missed the implications of this salary, it would be half of what we needed for our very frugal standard.)

We talked about it and agreed he’d turn it down, but then he spoke with a couple people who have been in the business for a long time who he has developed a good relationship since moving here (he plays tennis with one of them twice a week :)).  They told him to research the head of the company, and when he did, he got very good feedback – honest, hardworking, etc.  So they told him to take the job, that he’d learn a lot and get good experience of working here in Israel, but not to commit to continue working with him for a year.  And that’s what he did.

Dh started working this week, exactly six months after arriving.  (If you’re wondering how our finances held up, well, you know already that I’m very frugal, right? 🙂 It’s a good thing I didn’t know from the outset that we’d be in that situation for so long because I couldn’t have visualized managing so long without income.)  And I am so, so happy to say that he’s already loving it! He’s working from home, something he’s dreamed of doing for years, and this is work that he’s so well suited for.  (Not sharing personal details on this field, other to say that it’s something he had experience with in the past – though not in an official capacity – and did additional training here when he arrived.)

To find work after six months is actually considered pretty fast!  Dh has really applied himself from day 1 to staying focused and every single day, putting in hours learning new skills, networking, and learning more skills.  Right after moving in, we made our walk-in closet into an office for him so he’d be able to focus on his work, and he treated his preparing for a job as a job – he didn’t get discouraged when it was taking time, and he continued to believe that he’d find something suitable within a decent time frame.  And he was right.   (I personally consider his ability to master his fears and stay positive in spite of everything, including feedback from everyone about how hard it is to find work here, the discrimination for people above age 40, to be a very impressive accomplishment – it took constant conscious effort.)

As far as the income, am I worried?  Well, to be very honest, right after he accepted the job I was having a hard time getting too excited about this precisely because of the pay scale.  That’s why I didn’t post about it in the beginning of the week.  But now that I’ve seen how my dh is taking to this work like a duck takes to water, and I really believe that when a person has positive energy, good things will be drawn to them.  Seeing his feedback has made me 100% positive about him accepting this job, and I’m confident that it will lead to continued good things for our family!

Avivah

In Israel, there is a mandatory draft into the army of males and females over the age of 18.  There are exemptions, or more commonly, deferments, but one has to quality for these.

Before we moved here to Israel, I made some calls to clarify what would happen to my oldest two children with regards to the army: my oldest daughter would turn 17 soon after moving here, and the initial enlistment notices arrive at that age.  My oldest son would turn 18 six weeks before arriving, and I wanted to be prepared in advance so we wouldn’t stumble into a situation that would force him into army service immediately after arriving.  (My husband is exempt due to his age and family size.)

(Those of you reading who are already getting upset by the mention of an 18 year old who isn’t interested in immediately serving in the IDF, realize that my children were raised in the US with no expectation or even concept of serving in the army and this is a foreign idea to them.)

Here’s what I was told.  Religious girls are given the choice of exemption or national service, but they need to bring proof from an Israeli rabbinate that they are in fact Orthodox.   Regarding ds18, I was told that as a returning minor, he had an automatic deferment for a year before he would be called up.

When dd turned 17, she got her pre-draft notice, and traveled to Haifa to the rabbinate to get authorization of her religious status.  Along with the notice was a note stating that the authorization needed to be mailed to the army.  But there was no address given!  She was given a date that she needed to show up for her pre-draft appointment, but dh called the office to postpone the appointment date to give the letter she sent time to arrive.   He was called a little later by an army representative, wanting to know why she missed her appointment date, and dh explained that it had been postponed to allow time for her paperwork to get there.

I didn’t know anything about this until the next day.  I got a call from someone who demanded, “Where is (name of dd)?”  I consider this very rude telephone protocol, and told them she wasn’t home that moment and that I’d like to know who he was.  He said they were calling from the army, and told me she missed her appointment with them.  I explained that her appointment date had been changed, and she had mailed her religious authorization in the meantime.  Suddenly he said to me, “Is your husband also an American?  Does he speak like you, with an accent?”  This same person had spoken to my husband just the day before,  and knew that we had taken care of anything, but continued on to tell me that if we don’t get the paperwork to them, they’ll (fill in the blank with some stuff that was supposed to intimidate me but I didn’t understand all the army terms except for ‘medical physical’).  Then he told me he’ll grant an extension until Mar. 1 (we already had an official extension and hadn’t missed the appointment but whatever).   When I got off the phone, I learned that he had told dh the exact same thing the day before, including making his ‘generous’ offer of giving us until Mar. 1 to have the paperwork in.  So much for efficiency – he didn’t even have the grace to be embarrassed to be threatening us for something we had taken care of already.  Anyway, hopefully she’ll soon receive her exemption.

Now as for ds18, whose situation is much more complicated and frustrating. Based on what I was told by NBN (and I think also the Israeli embassy in DC), I thought we had a year until he’d get a draft notice.  When we were getting Israeli passports for everyone else, ds17’s was delayed because due to his age, he had to get a temporary three month army deferment before he’d be allowed into the country.  So between the 3 month deferment and the one year exemption, I thought we were set.

Very soon after getting here (maybe six weeks?), ds18 received his enlistment notice.  This wasn’t what we were expecting, but were sure it would be quickly straightened out, since he is not only a returning minor, but a full-time yeshiva student (both of which would qualify him for a deferment).  This proved to be very positive thinking on our part.

Since my dh took care of all of this, I’m sure I’ll mix up the technical terms and the order of things.  So I’m going to fast forward from all that they’ve done to where we’re at today, except to say that what we were told about him getting an automatic deferment for a year was totally false.   Dh and ds18 have spent numerous hours on the phone and in person for the last few months trying to get things straightened out.  Really, you wouldn’t think this would be so complicated since thousands of yeshiva students have gotten deferments and it’s a common process.  Maybe as Americans there’s something we don’t know about how to work the system.  Ds18 finally got the necessary paperwork from the ‘committee for yeshivas’, went to a lawyer to take care of some other aspect, and traveled to Tiverya (Tiberias) from Jerusalem this morning for his appointment with the army to officially present proof of his being a yeshiva student to them.  (This appointment was postponed twice, since he was having trouble getting this paperwork from them.)

He spent six hours there, and in short, was told that they refuse to consider him a yeshiva student since the law changed yesterday – yes, yesterday! – and if he can’t document having been a yeshiva student since when he’s 15, it doesn’t matter if he’s a yeshiva student now.  As a homeschooler he’s had a yeshiva education at home for years, so you’d think there’s no problem, right?  Wrong.  The representatives at the army don’t understand the concept of homeschooling, and said that since ds wasn’t attending a yeshiva, he’s lost his right to be considered a yeshiva student for all of these years.  (By the way, he attended a recognized yeshiva when he was 14 and when he was 17, so the only issue is the years he was homeschooled as a tenth and eleventh grader.)

Ironically, part of the problem is that his official records are from a recognized homeschooling oversight program – this would readily be recognized at colleges across the US – but despite having transcripts for a full Judaic program, they won’t consider him as a yeshiva student.  He  graduated over a year before we moved to Israel, and at that point I thought I had researched all the possible complications and taken care that there was official documentation of everything.

The potential complications of homeschooling that no one ever talks about!

So ds18 had to go through the entire pre-induction process, including his army physical. They’ve notified him that he’ll be inducted in one month, which means that now I’m working against the clock to find a way to document his religious studies that will be recognized by the Israeli army.

I have to say that ds is taking this entire situation very well.  When I told him we were moving to Israel, he was very apprehensive about the army situation. I reassured him repeatedly by telling him as a yeshiva student, he’d be eligible for a deferment until he was ready to serve.  And then I did more research and was told that he would automatically receive a one year deferment.

I feel kind of like I’m leaving him holding the bag for a situation he was worried about getting into before we ever got here, despite having done all the right things; dh and I kept reassuring him (before we got here and since then) that it was a routine situation that would easily be taken care of.  When I told him today how sorry I was he was in this situation, he told me that he doesn’t blame me or hold me responsible in any way for it – he sees that it’s a beauracratic mess here.

So despite all our efforts, don’t have the situation with dd17 or ds18 resolved yet.  I’ll keep you posted when this is straightened out!

Avivah

Wow, as of today we’re officially here for six months! Really amazing how time has flown by, and especially amazing when I think that a year ago, we had just started tossing out the idea of making the move.

Today I’m going to share about my experiences with the local schools in responding to the needs of our children as new immigrants. I’m going to warn you in advance, it’s going to sound kind of negative and I don’t like being negative, but people who are considering aliyah should know the reality they may face.  So here is my experience to date.

I’ll skip over the littlest kids since they don’t really get or need special help in adapting to the schools. Thank G-d, ds4 and ds5 are doing well, even though ds4 asks to stay home every single day.

The government has mandated hours that new immigrant children are supposed to receive to facilitate their absorption into Israeli culture. This mean every child is entitled to a certain amount of ulpan (Hebrew language) hours. Here’s the current guidelines: if there are 1 – 2 students in the school who are new olim, there is funding for six hours; 3 – 5 students, funding for ten hours; 6 – 7 students, funding for twelve hours. It seems that because our children are in the chinuch atzmai/independent religious school system, that they don’t get the government hours that all the other schools in the country get.

Notwithstanding the lovely sounding hours that children are supposed to get, not one of our kids has ever received more than two periods a week – at best. Ds9 -his school has been most responsive, and immediately began giving him tutoring assistance when he arrived.  However, his tutor is also assigned to tutor anyone else in the school who needs help, and to fill in for teachers who don’t show up, which cuts into his availability.  Ds9’s participation in the program that he was supposed to begin immediately after the meeting with the principal a couple of weeks ago, which I agreed to because it would give him more one on one support (that my attendance at the parenting classes is mandated for), has yet to begin.

Dd11 – gets two periods a week when the tutor is available; if she doesn’t come for whatever reason, there are no substitutes.  She didn’t begin getting tutored until about two months into the school year – that meant sitting for hours in a class with absolutely no comprehension, and no assistance in building a rudimentary language base.  When she was willing and open to learning the language, no one was there to help her, and when she finally got tutoring, her tutor was teaching her at well above her ability.  (I wrote about this a while ago.)  Now she has a good tutor to work with her, who I’ve spoken with at length and who understands where dd is coming from.

Ds13 – his school said it’s too much work to file the paperwork to apply for the funding available for him, and that it’s up to us to hire a private tutor. Their help to him has been being gracious enough to let him sit in their classes and take our tuition money.  🙂

Dd15 and dd17 – they began getting tutoring two months after the school year began. This took some time and advocating on my part, but once they got a tutor, she was fabulous. Dd15 is really getting a lot out of this. The only concern I had was it seemed that dd17 wasn’t getting much tutoring. At first I thought they were giving dd15 more help because dd17 started with stronger spoken Hebrew. Then we thought her absences were coinciding with her tutoring sessions (it’s not at a regular time), or that there were other reasons she rarely seemed to be getting tutoring.  It’s just come to light that they have totally dropped dd17 from the tutoring roster – I’m giving the benefit of the doubt that it’s because they know she won’t be taking the matriculation exams, though the reason she’s supposed to have the help is for language acquisition, not because of these tests.  I have another meeting scheduled with her principal to talk about these concerns on Tuesday morning.

In the last ten days, I’ve had a number of meetings with principals, teachers, and tutors. It takes so much energy to explain the reality of kids having to start over with a new language, culture, friends, home.  They really don’t have a realistic understanding of what’s involved, which obviously limits them in how much practical or emotional help they give.  The administrative knee jerk reaction when faced with a child who isn’t performing at a typical level, is to label a child as being emotionally closed, perfectionist, learning disabled or whatever else rather than really be in tune with the level of changes immigrant children have to make, and look at how little support these kids are getting within the school system in making the transition.  (I had a fascinating and telling experience with this last week when I took ds5 for his evaluation prior to registering for first grade.)

I’m not an unreasonable and pushy parent, and I’ve been pretty positive about the school system until now; I’m not actually feeling negatively now.  What I’m doing is sharing the reality that I’m consistently seeing regarding academic assistance for our kids – it’s been pretty pathetic.  It makes me wonder how other people who are new to the country are dealing with the schools.  I speak Hebrew well and have consistently been able to advocate for my kids – for those who don’t speak Hebrew well (which is most new olim/immigrants) and aren’t able to supplement their children’s education at home (I’ll share about what I’ve been doing in another post), how are they handling this?

I wonder how much different this would be if we lived in the center of the country, where there are loads of Anglos, rather than in the periphery, where our kids are among the very first that these teachers and administrators have had to deal with.  I think it’s likely it’s hard for everyone everywhere, because making such a big move is really a big deal, with a lot of potential for trauma.

To sum up about the  issue of school responsiveness.  I don’t know if my experience is typical or not.  I would expect it would be, since our kids are emotionally healthy, they have a great attitude, and overall their adjustment has been good.   Our experience is probably better than many for those reasons.  But I wouldn’t say their school experiences have been an incredibly helpful or positive factor in their acclimatizing well.

Avivah