Two religious teenagers, one a convert from India and the other born in Baltimore, have won the world championship in Thailand-style kick-boxing for their weight class.

Officially known as Muay Thai, the combat sport is known as “the art of eight weapons” because of the use of fists, elbows, knees, shins and feet.

One might expect that world champs in the kick-boxing sport would be huge gorillas from the Amazon, but two winners in the girls’ championships held in Thailand recently are none other than two religious girls from Israel.

One is Nili Block, who was born in Baltimore and moved with her family to Israel around 15 years ago. The other is Sarah Avraham, whose family was close friends with Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, two of the six victims of the Muslim terrorist attack in Mumbai in 2008.

Having already been acquainted with the Jewish religion through their association with the Holtzbergs, they decided to convert and move to Israel after the terrorist attack.

Nili and Sarah train five times a week at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem, attacking a punching bag to sharpen their skills under the supervision of a coach. Their rigorous regime paid off in Thailand, where they were crowned champions after Nile defeated her Bulgarian opponent in the flyweight class of 112-118 pounds, while Nili beat her British opponent in the 125-138-pound class.

Nili is an all-round athlete. Before flying to Thailand for the championships, she ran in the 6-mile Jerusalem Marathon in March and win first place in the women’s 16-19 age group, finishing ahead of 500 runners in her category. Later the same month, she won the 10th Amateur-Pro Muay Thai Championships in Bangkok.

“Nili is amazing − slim and tall, she’s built for this sport, and she possesses quite an array of weapons. She can devastate an opponent with her hands, knees and feet, and she has perfect technique,” said Shuki Rozensweing, an Israeli boxer who won the World Muay Thai Association and World Muay Thai Federation unified title in April 2011.

He told the Thai BigChili website, “She is a complete fighter with a high IQ for the sport…. A fight is not only won on strength. Nili won all three rounds against the Bulgarian girl, who was physically stronger, by virtue of her superior technique.”

She is in the 12th grade and has to decide this year whether to enlist in the IDF or serve in “Sherut Leumi,” national service.

The IDF would love to have her in its ranks. She says she is not sure if she wants to miss out serving as a regular soldier and suspend her boxing talents, but Shuki thinks she has a good chance to receive the IDF’s special athletic status, which would allow her to continue to train.

Besides that, let’s see what happens if an Arab terrorist starts up with her.

Nile discovered Muay Thai through her other after the family moved to Israel.

‘‘My mother was at that time a volunteer police woman attached to the Jerusalem police department and she was looking for some kind of martial arts which would be beneficial for her work,” said Nili. “I went with her as she looked for a Muay Thai training camp and I started to train with her. I stopped training for two years while going to school and resumed when I was 13.” Her father, a dentist, supports and encourages her to box.

So much for stereotyped-orthodox families.

The most thrilling moment in the Thai championships was hearing the Israel national anthem Hatikvah two times, once after Nili won her gold medal and the second time when Sarah won.

Sarah’s story is no less spectacular than Nili’s.

Her father is a doctor and was the family physician to the Holtzbergs, who ran the Chabad House in Mumbai.

Sarah was 14 years old when the family converted and then moved to Kiryat Arba, where she learns at a religious “ulpana” high school.

Hevron resident Michael Pollack spotted her talent and put her in touch with Thai boxing coach Eddie Yusopov.

Keeping in mind that Abraham and Sarah were buried in the Patriarchs’ Cave in Hevron, Pollack told the Times of Israel last year, “She draws her strength from where we live in Kiryat Arba. That gives her an inner strength that explodes in the ring.”

Are you, or someone close to you, thinking of making aliyah? If so, you’ll probably use the services of Nefesh B’Nefesh, because it’s much easier to settle in a new country with their help. The same principle applies to your finances. It’s much easier to manage your money with the help of a financial advisor.

Here’s why

As most olim will tell you, there’s a lot to do when first settling in. You need to get used to a new language and climate and at the same time, you must find work and a home. The various aliyah organizations, from Nefesh b’Nefesh to the AACI, ESRA, and many more, are all on hand to provide advice, information, and moral support, making your transition into Israeli society much smoother. Through them, you will find out the best job opportunities – or how to retrain in your profession if that’s what is necessary. You will also get a clearer picture of your rights and what kinds of assistance exist for new immigrants. And some of these organizations also provide cultural and social activities, helping you to build up new friendships in your new country.

In the same way, when you want to begin investing, going it alone is not such a good idea. Do you have the time to do all of the necessary research into investments and markets? Are you familiar with the investment and tax problems that U.S. expatriates have? And do you have the financial background to understand the all the available information? Remember that time is also money, and you can lose a lot of money through inefficient investing.

So if you want to manage your finances more effectively, don’t go it alone. Get some help and make a plan. Call your financial planner today.

I had the pleasure of seeing the band Shotei Hanevuah (Fools of Prophecy) perform live during my first and only trip to Israel prior to making aliyah, and I’ll likely forever associate their sound – a fusion of dub reggae, hip-hop, dance and eastern Mediterranean music - with the magical time when I first fell in love with Eretz Yisrael.

Here’s a very raw live version of their hit song “Ein Ani,” performed in front of an IDF unit in 2012.

I finally went to the Orthodox Union’s annual Jewish Communities Fair. As a long-time pro-Aliyah activist, I had been curious about this event, and so while on tour in America, I joined the hungry Modern-Orthodox masses at Manhattan’s Metropolitan Pavilion as they searched for new communities and a new life in far flung locales like Jacksonville, Florida, Louisville, Kentucky, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin – but not Israel.

I expected to see a moderately attended event. But to my surprise, the venue was packed with over 1,300 people, exploring the forty-one different communities represented. There was so much noise, I had to stand close in order to hear community leaders make their pitches.

You may wonder, as I did, why would Modern-Orthodox Jews want to leave the kosher conveniences of the NY area and move to remote places like Southfield, Michigan. It turns out, that first and foremost, the answer is affordability: cheaper housing, cheaper education, and getting more for your money. A high quality of life at an affordable price. And incentives. Some communities promise incentives like a $20,000 gift for a down-payment on your home, and free tuition from kindergarten through grade 12.

Josh Elbert, who flew in to represent Southfield, shared with me how he had come to this fair a few years ago and was skeptical when the Michigan people approached him. They said to him, “Don’t judge until you see it,” and indeed, when he saw it, he was smitten. “I am a success story of this event. Because of the connections we made here, we were able to provide a terrific opportunity for our family,” he told me. Because of the drop in real estate, he mentioned, one can buy a very large home for $115,000 in Southfield. Someone who makes forty-five thousand dollars a year can live next to a millionaire.

But there are other reasons to move to the American periphery – such as the opportunity to join a tight-knit community and make an impact on a growing shul, or aging congregation seeking new blood.

I spoke with Rabbi Aaron Winter who came to Chesterfield, Missouri twenty two years ago to serve as their rabbi. He explained to me that Chesterfield is part of greater St. Louis, that they have a congregation of 80 Orthodox families, and their own mikvah and Chafetz Chaim Mesivta. He told me that his shul had succeeded in bringing many non-affiliated Jews closer to Torah. As he put it, “we are on the front lines of Orthodox Jewry in St. Louis.” Now, Chesterfield is looking to grow and they are offering up to five families a grant of twenty thousand dollars each towards the purchase of a home. “When you are an out-of-town community, even one family is gold. People appreciate you being here,” Rabbi Winter told me.

So cheaper housing, affordable education, a sense of community, and the promise of a better quality of life, are luring Jews to middle-America.

Understandable, reasonable, and respectable!

But what about the Israel option? Were any of the Modern Orthodox attendees at the OU’s Community Fair considering moving east of New York, to Jerusalem or Tel Aviv? There was no way to really know because there were no tables representing emerging communities in the emerging Jewish state. Had there been a table for, let’s say, Efrat, Modiin, or Maale Adumim, then one could gauge how much action that table saw as compared with Portland. But alas, that option did not exist. The message of the fair was clear enough: If the Orthodox Union is going to help you find a new future – it is going to be in America.

That should come as no surprise. If you go to the OU’s website, you will see lots of pro-Israel links. But if you hover your mouse over the flag of Israel at the top of the site, a text pops up which reads: “Our ‘home away from home’ in Jerusalem, the OU Israel Center, annually welcomes over 100,000 visitors and residents.” The obvious implication is that Israel is a home away from home, but home is America. Another proof of this thinking was laid bare in the ‘Communities Guide’ which was given out at the fair. In it were page after page of US destinations for “Home & Job Relocation” with pictures, contact numbers, and websites. Yet on the back cover the full page glossy called on all to: “Join Us in Celebrating Israel’s 65th Birthday – March with the OU at the Celebrate Israel Parade.” Again, the message is clear: you can celebrate Israel and love Israel with the OU, but if you’re looking to move, consider Cleveland.

President Shimon Peres last week presented the annual President’s Citation of Excellence to a native of Arizona, 24-year-old lone soldier 2nd Lt. Nira Lee.

She grew up in Tempe, Arizona, in a Zionist household, but she had no intention of making aliyah. Her first trip to Israel was in 2004, when at age 16 she attended a group discovery trip with the B’nei B’rith Youth Organization (BBYO). “At that time, I did not feel a special connection to Israel nor a personal obligation to be here,” 2nd Lt. Lee explained.

On her second trip to Israel, during her first year in university, everything changed. She volunteered on a trip with Hillel to live in Akko and rebuild a school that had been destroyed in the 2006 Second Lebanon War. According to 2nd Lt. Lee, “being in the periphery and not necessarily touring the popular sites of Israel helped show me the different side of Israel. It showed me the people who needed help, and that was the first time I personally felt connected to this country.”

After that experience, 2nd Lt. Lee decided to support Israel from the inside. At the time, she was studying International Relations at AmericanUniversity in WashingtonD.C., and decided to do a test run by studying abroad in Haifa during her third year. “I chose Haifa because I understood it to be a much more authentic environment, one that seems closest to normal life in Israel,” she said.

The test run proved difficult for 2nd Lt. Lee. She knew no Hebrew. She was also overweight and in poor physical health. “I decided that if I wanted to help Israel, I would have to make a few personal changes first,” she said.

In 2008, 2nd Lt. Lee was in Israel when the security situation in Gaza deteriorated and Operation Cast Lead was initiated. The IDF called up reserves, many of whom were friends of 2nd Lt. Lee’s. “Being there during Operation Cast Lead and feeling so futile made me want to enlist in the IDF. Seeing my friends being called up while I remained in the comfort of my dorm room made me want to join them.”

Second Lt. Lee decided there and then that the next time Israel’s citizens would be called to defend the state, she would be among them. Following her year abroad, Nira learned to speak Hebrew fluently and, through personal determination and strength, lost 55 pounds on her path to physical health.

She made aliyah in May 2010 and enlisted as a lone soldier in the IDF five months later. At first, the transition was difficult. “No one knows the difficulties of being a lone soldier,” she said, adding that finding a place to live and setting up her life were great challenges.

Her commanders noticed that she was struggling and made great efforts to help her. “My commanders made it possible for me to have normal soldier concerns, rather than concerns such as where I would sleep that night or if I would have food to put on my plate. Instead of worrying about a place to do my laundry, and ending up washing my clothes in the shower at the base, I was able to focus on the reason I was there: my job in the army,” she said.

She completed the IDF Officers Course in 2011 and became the deputy liaison officer to the international community in the Gaza Strip. She is currently responsible for assisting in foreign access and the transfer of medical supplies into Gaza.

This week, 2nd Lt. Lee will be promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. She has been in the IDF for almost three years and is signed on for another six months. After completing her military service, she plans to earn a master’s degree in security and diplomacy at TelAvivUniversity.

After she received the President’s Citation of Excellence on Israel’s 65th Independence Day, she said, “It’s a huge honor for me to receive this award. Being a new immigrant, there are certainly times you feel you do not fit in, but the army is the epitome of how this country unites people.”

How many times have you heard people say, “I could never make aliya. It’s too difficult financially”?

Well, now there is one less excuse.

There are the standard financial pluses of living in Israel: the Israeli unemployment rate is lower than in America, day school tuitions are cheaper, and you don’t need to use personal vacation days for the chaggim.

While there are many benefits to living in Israel, there are some financial challenges, particularly around tax-filing time. While Americans living in Israel have an obligation to file with the IRS, Israel and America have a tax treaty between them, according to which if you pay taxes in Israel and also owe them in America (since America taxes her citizens on worldwide income), you can take a tax credit on your American taxes for what you paid to Israel.

In addition to filing U.S. taxes, American olim must file FBAR forms and they also may be responsible for filing under new FATCA requirements.

Confused? You’re not alone. But if you used this confusion as an excuse not to make aliya, your excuse no longer holds water. A new book can help you.

The IRS recently implemented FATCA, and Uncle Sam wants you to file your American taxes (in addition to your Israeli taxes) and FBAR form, but before you start to get too worried, there are solutions. For starters, get a copy of my recent book, The Expatriate’s Guide to Handling Money and Taxes? As a financial adviser with more than two decades of experience helping Americans abroad handle their American brokerage accounts and deal with the problems that arise from living in dual currencies, I wrote the book with the help of various leading international tax lawyers and accountants.

Just as you would extensively research communities, ulpans, schools, and jobs before moving to Israel, learn what your tax obligations to the Old Country will be when you are offshore. This should make your transition easier, as you won’t have nightmares about the IRS demanding a share of your new salary.

Choosing Life in Israel, by P. David Hornik (a columnist at Frontpage Magazine, a contributor to Pajamas Media, American Spectator, and elsewhere), is a collection of essays vividly describing the author’s life in Israel with all its attendant regional whiplashes. Its trajectory veers like a roller coaster ride from the wildly delicious to the deeply terrified. From personal ups and downs to heart-stopping high drama, its quick pace leaves one breathless. The author’s compelling voice projects a rich tapestry of experiences living on the front lines of the Middle East.

The book is broken down into two highly readable sections. Part One deals mainly with the ins and outs of daily life in Israel with its multifaceted challenges. Its nine stories are interwoven into concise and entertaining segments,  not without cold doses of reality smacking the reader across the face. One such episode is particularly emblematic of what it means to live not only in Israel, but in Jerusalem; the epicenter of international fixation, bordering on fanatical obsession.

From “Mistaken Random Terror in Jerusalem:”

…just down the street from me, George Khoury, a 22 year old student of economics and international relations at Hebrew University who was out jogging, was shot dead by terrorists from Al-Aksa Martyr’s Brigades, part of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement… The “impersonal” nature of most terrorism… is its most chilling aspect… and killing him because (supposedly) he’s a Jew — is that personal or impersonal? Indeed, the Martyr’s Brigades was quick to apologize once it found out its error. Its commander called George Khoury’s father, the well known East Jerusalem lawyer Elias Khoury… and that the group considers George a “Palestinian martyr.”

Adding considerable angst to a father’s normal bereavement, Elias Khoury’s father, Daoud Khoury, was also murdered for being in the wrong place at a most unfortunate time. Visceral flashbacks surely must have resonated through Elias Khoury’s being. But when it comes to Islamic-sustained terror everything is flipped on its head. Even though he lost his father due to a booby-trapped refrigerator placed by the same Fatah terrorist outfit in the heart of a Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, his reaction to his son’s and father’s death evinced “moral” equivalency: “The Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades are individuals who are trying to impose their way on everyone… this act was carried out by a group that undermines the cause of Palestinian justice… I am against all violent attacks against innocent civilians, whether it be against Israeli or Palestinian civilians.”

Well and good, except for the fact that Israeli security forces take great pains to spare the lives of Palestinian civilians, often at unfathomable costs to its own soldiers and citizens alike. Those who invariably become “collateral” damage are accidental victims of legitimate counter-terror operations. Most significantly, many Palestinian casualties are strategically placed (by their leadership) in close proximity to bomb factories etc., in anticipation of an international hue and cry when the dead and maimed are paraded before the world’s cameras. More to the point, the author elicits many such examples of bloody jihad waged all over the streets of Israel, seemingly with no end in sight. Consequentially, P. David Hornik demonstrates, even when bereaved, Israel’s minority population is unwilling to condemn terror for what it is: murderous jihad.

Segueing to Part Two, the reader lands even more squarely in the heart of the hottest conflict in the world, aptly titled “Israel’s Struggle to Survive.”

Part of the richness of Choosing Life in Israel lies within its many paradoxes. In one fell swoop one can be swept up with pride when reading about the efficiency of Israel’s Defense Forces as it engages the enemy, though mostly in “reaction” to sustained terror on its citizens, instead of pursuing an initial offensive doctrine. This is absolutely the result of political “strategies,” as opposed to military readiness. To be sure, for the most part, the IDF is a well-oiled machine, and its special forces are second to none. At the same time, the reader cringes with embarrassment, bordering on acute distress, witnessing many hard-fought battles evaporate into nothingness as Israel’s political leadership reflexively turn battlefield victories into one “concession/peace” gesture after another. An unsustainable vicious cycle is played out, year after year.

Specifically, “How Not to Defeat Hamas” illustrates heartburn-worthy renditions of appeasement, while exemplifying the above dichotomy. “From the beginning, Israel has always fueled the Palestinian Authority’s war against it — quite literally. It provides the Palestinian Authority with key supplies like electricity, water and, through Dor-Alon Energy Company, even with gas and cooking gas…. Last Wednesday, though, Dor-Alon announced it was suspending supplies due to unpaid debts. Yet, by Thursday, the company said it was resuming supplies after P.A. chairman Mahmoud Abbas promised to send payments within 10 days.”

I received the following letter from someone who was interested in making aliyah who wasn’t sure they could:

Dear David,

I’m interested in moving to northern Israel. My wife is in love with the atmosphere there.

We have 2 children, ages 5 and 12, and even though I’m 67, I’ll have to work until they’re grown. I’m a physician in Internal Medicine. I was told that there is a need for physicians in the north. Please write me back.

Thanks,

Wanting to make Aliyah

Here is how I responded:

Dear friend,

If my writings are in any way inspiring you to make the move to Israel, I am glad. Northern Israel is a great place. I grew up there, from age 11 to 21, and I too have very fond feelings for that region. Its green scenery and mountainous terrain are beautiful. I can appreciate your wife’s attraction to that area, and I believe that there is a home waiting for your family there – you just need to find it.

From what I understand, Israel today is actually lacking doctors – and if that is true, you would be welcomed as a professional here. There are hospitals in Tzfat, which is very close to Rosh Pina, but they are also in Haifa, Nahariya and in Puriya near Tiveria. Israel has four major medical providers, Leumit, Kalalit, Meuchedet and Macabee. All four have their own clinics spread out around the country. In Israel’s national health system, every citizen is covered by a basic medical plan and has the choice of becoming a member of one of the major medical providers’ basic plans, then can add on additional services according to his or her needs.

So you will find medical clinics in all of the larger towns in the north as well as elsewhere in Israel. The north – considered to be peripheral because it’s further away from the major Tel Aviv population center – might actually be in greater need of doctors. You could try contacting the medical providers directly and asking each where you might be needed the most.

But I strongly suggest that you consult with Nefesh B’Nefesh. They seem to be doing a very good job of counseling Olim and helping them make good decisions on the path of establishing them in their new lives in Israel. If I am not mistaken, NBN has a program specifically meant to encourage Jewish families to move to the north, and they also provide job counseling. Hopefully, they can help you reach out to the medical providers who really need you and make a perfect match.

I am glad for your children’s sake that you are planning to make this move now. From my own experience, this is a wonderful opportunity for them to make an easy transition into a new language and society. Young kids have a way of quickly adapting to new surroundings and they are quick to pick up the language. I believe that they will look back and thank you for moving them to Israel now.