A display of fairly insulting posters along the platforms at 25 Metro-North train stations went up this week, calling for an end to “apartheid” by stopping U.S. aid to Israel, WABC News reported.

If you stayed home for Passover, you were spared these unsightly messages – but they’ll be there tomorrow morning, on your way to work, if you travel from suburban New York and Connecticut,.

A group called American Muslims for Palestine paid for the billboards, which are displayed at 25 Metro-North stations. But the true force behind the latest effort to soil Israel’s name is—you guessed it—all Jewish.

“The campaign against U.S. aid for Israel targets neither Jews nor Passover, but rather Israeli apartheid and injustice. And the best way to honor Passover, which celebrates Jewish liberation from ancient oppression, is to champion Palestinian human rights today,” said Michael Letwin of Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, who spoke at Tuesday’s launch of the billboards at the Metro North Harlem station.

Naturally, they posted them in Harlem, where the big decisions about U.S. aid are made.

The ads call for the end of U.S. aid to Israel and call the treatment of Palestinians in the disputed territories “apartheid.”

A quote from Bishop Desmond Tutu is featured at the top of the billboard, where he says how distressed he has been since his visit to the Holy Land.

You can read the full article (Apartheid in the Holy Land), it truly comes across as the ramblings of a tired old man, regurgitating the cliches he has been fed, combining them with familiar resentments: “And how did it come about that Israel was collaborating with the apartheid government on security measures?” he wonders, betraying the sad fact that the realities of an embattled Israel in the early 1970s are still his measure of today’s realities.

There are no suicide bombers in Tutu’s view of history, no Jewish graves, no massacred families, only suffering Palestinians. He condemns Israel’s action in Judea and Samaria, following the massacre of the Park Hotel in Netanya on the seder night, April, 2002. Tutu writes: “The military action of recent days, I predict with certainty, will not provide the security and peace Israelis want; it will only intensify the hatred.”

Wrong. In 2002 the IDF, once and for all, broke down the terrorist infrastructure and either killed or threw most of the thugs in jail. What followed was a period of growing prosperity for Judea and Samaria Arabs, and a tight hold of the IDF on Arab terrorism.

The good bishop would have had Israel just lie there and turn the other cheek. In that he follows a long tradition of church leaders.

Antisemitism is such an ever shifting thing. They used to call for our heads because we were racially impure, now it turns out we’re the new racists.

The ads feature a disclaimer by the MTA stating the agency does not endorse the views expressed. That’s when the ads are in favor of killing Jews (or leaving them defenseless so someone else would do the killing). In cases when Jews try to fight back with their own, anti-Jihadist ads, as in the case of Pamela Geller, the same MTA fights them tooth and nail.

It is unpleasant when two long-friendly countries behave like enemies. Many have been uneasy seeing Israel and Turkey growing distant, even if only in the political arena. Friendship, love, trust and affinity are most valued universally, so I would like my Israeli friends to know that we, the Turkish nation, cherish our friendship with the Israelis and thus appreciate the prime minister’s apology as a virtuous act, and we are excited to leave this regrettable incident behind and to be able to move forward.

Although as a general principle I am against any preconditions for peace and friendship—since true friendship is unconditional—this apology was still important for the Turkish people, we heard an affirmation that Israel cares about Turkey. And we see this move as a dignifying act, a gesture that will glorify Israel in the eyes of many.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did the right thing in the right manner and with the right words. We take this as a direct message to the Turkish nation rather than to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan alone.

However, there will be people who would take this as an opportunity to create ugly propaganda against Israel. I condemn the comments and news trying to devalue this virtuous act by Israel. Loveless people are free to issue their comments, however they only reflect their inner world by expressing their hostility and by looking at everything in a negative manner rather than thinking with wisdom and compassion. If we look at things through the prism of rage and allow ourselves to hold on to grudges, no one could ever be friendly with anyone else. What happened in the past stays in the past; if one does not evaluate things with this mentality, no country could ever be friends with any other.

So let us look at the future rather than getting hung up on the past, because we are both living in an unstable region and we need unity now more than ever. I believe Israel and Turkey’s alliance will definitely help to bring stability to the region because unity and unconditional friendship are a strong deterrent against terrorism and radicalism, and against all those who promote violence and hatred. Let this be a message to all the countries in the region that we are moving forward and we—as Turkey and Israel—will not let any provocation, propaganda or mischief destroy peace and friendship in the region.

On the other hand, I humbly ask from my fellow Turks to be kind and unconditionally compassionate, and to act with dignity, and disallow the negativity of those who seem to follow a policy of promoting tension. The friendship of Israel and Turkey is crucial, and we will spread this friendship to the whole region together. Therefore, let us see things positively and use this opportunity in the best way. Israel made a move that is precious to the Turkish people, and we surely hold it dear.

Additionally, preserving peace for a few days is very easy, but to preserve peace over a lifetime is very hard to do. To preserve peace until the very end, patience and persistence are needed. Upholding peace, brotherhood and love unconditionally may seem hard or progress slowly, but it never comes to a deadlock as long as we continue to make efforts persistently and determinedly.

On this occasion I also would like to share my Passover wishes with my Jewish friends around the world. In these day, we, along with our Jewish friends, remember the exodus of the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him) from the oppression of the Pharaoh, and their rescue and their amazing journey with God’s help. We pray for the blessings of God upon all His servants. May God bring the Days of Mashiach (Yemot HaMashiach) soon; the times that we can altogether make Korban (sacrifice) in peace and joy in the Holy Land.

“[God said:] And remember, We delivered you from the people of Pharaoh: They set you hard tasks and punishments, slaughtered your sons and let your women-folk live; therein was a tremendous trial from your Lord. And remember We divided the sea for you and saved you and drowned Pharaoh’s people within your very sight. And remember We appointed forty nights for Moses, and in his absence you took the calf (for worship), and you did grievous wrong. Even then We did forgive you; there was a chance for you to be grateful. And remember We gave Moses the Scripture and the Criterion (Between right and wrong): There was a chance for you to be guided aright.” (Qur’an, 2:49-53)

To the anti-Zionist faction Neturei Karta is attempting to exploit the difficult relationship between U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and to incite the former against the state of Israel. The Jerusalem Haredi neighborhood of Mea Shearim is awaiting Obama with American flags and a united call from the crowds to save hundreds of thousands of Jews from the “Zionists evil.”

Treating the president as if he was, at least, a Rosh Yeshiva, if not a Rebbe, the good people of Meah Shearim prepared special posters adorned with American flags on either side of a lovely shield that reads: The Agenda for the reception of his excellency Mr. Obama in the holy city of Jerusalem, 9 Nissan, 5773.

The poster itself reads, in text adorned by the five-pointed stars of the U.S. flag:

The Haredi Jews of Jerusalem Headed by the Rabbis, may they live long, Congregates On Wednesday, 9 Nissan, 5773 At 1:30 in the afternoon At the Meah Shearim Plaza And from there the congregation will proceed carrying U.S. flags To receive his excellency the President And ask of him To liberate the Haredi Jewish community And the entire Holy Land From the grip of the Zionist bandits!

Signed: The Haredi community in the Holy Land.

The separatist community of Neturei Karta views the entire Zionist experience as an unholy act of defiance against the gentile world, costing many Jewish lives. Their stated submission to the visiting president will be accompanied with a request, printed on another wall poster, that he use his influence “to save hundreds of thousands of Jews from the evil harassments of the Zionists, who wish to force them to abandon their faith and even, God forbid, force them to serve in the Army – an act which defies the religion and any sense of justice and human morality – and to liberate us from the repression of the Zionist infidels.”

The ads further implore Obama, the “Exalted President,” that “his heart be awake and attentive to the suffering of the Jews who hold on to the original Jewish faith of thousands of years.”

They pray for him and bless him that, should he help them, “The God of Israel will do right by the one who does good for His people, and bring him years of tranquility and success, and wherever he turns he shall act wisely, for the sake of the great kingdom of the United States and all of humanity, as the president and his government wish.”

We spent Shabbat in Ashkelon, visiting my wife’s parents. On Motzei Shabbat, my wife stayed in Ashkelon (in the red glare of the rockets fired from Gaza) so that she could take her mother for a medical treatment in the morning. I drove back to Yerushalayim with my children. Along the way, we passed a stretch of fertile farmland. The heavenly rains that had fallen during Shabbat seemed to have awakened the earth, and the pungent aroma of fresh cow manure wafted into the car. My younger boys started gagging and making jokes, the way children do about such things.

“Sheket!” I told them. “I love the smell of fresh bovine in Eretz Yisrael more than any other smell in the world. To me it’s like perfume.”

“Come off it, Abba,” my 22 year-old Golani commando responded.

I switched on the car blinker and started to pull off the highway to the side of the road.

“What are you doing?” my daughter wanted to know.

“Aahhhhhhh,” my youngest son gagged, as the overpowering smell of manure filled the car. “Are you crazy? Don’t stop here!”

But I wanted to teach them a lesson. After all, they were born in Israel. Sometimes they take it for granted. Having grown up in the Holy Land, they can easily forget that things weren’t always that way, that for nearly 2000 years, we were exiled in impure, foreign lands, and that still today, half of our Nation is wallowing away in gentile countries, not knowing the incredible blessing and joy of living in your own Jewish country, upon your own Holy Land.

“Abba! What are you doing?!” my daughter called out, as I got out of the car and trekked off into the dark field.

The truth is, if my wife had been with us, I probably wouldn’t have done it. She doesn’t like me rolling in cucumber fields. The last time I did it, she stayed angry at me for a week. She said that I ruined my clothes and stank up the car. But like my kids, she grew up in Israel too. Don’t get me wrong. They are all crazy about the country, but what smells to me like Chanel #5, smells to them like just plain and smelly cow doo.

“Abba, come back !”

“Abba!!”

Happily, I prostrated myself on the Holy Land and started to roll over and over. The earth was still damp from the rain. The soil of the fertilized field stuck to my beard. The most beautiful fragrance in the world filled up my nostrils, more exhilarating than any reefer I ever smoked in the past.

“Yeeech!” my daughter screamed.

“I’m calling, Ema!” my youngest yelled out.

The rain clouds had passed, and stars twinkled in the heavens. The Rambam writes how the greatest Sages of old would kiss the soil of the Holy Land upon reaching its borders (Laws of Kings, 5:10). The Talmud describes how Rabbi Chia bar Gamda would lovingly roll in the dust of The Holy Land in order to actualize the verse of Tehillim, “For your servants desired her stones and cherished her very dust.”

Rabba Abba would kiss the stones of Acco (Ketubot 112B). Rabbi Kook explained that he wouldn’t merely kiss the ground, which is the basis of the agricultural mitzvot dependent upon the Land, but he kissed the boulders to show the inherent holiness of the Land itself. Rashi, in his commentary to the Gemara, duplicates the verse, “For your servants desired her stones,” without adding any new information, to emphasize the holiness of the very stones of the Land of Israel – up and beyond the Land’s holiness because of the commandments that are performed in its soil.

At the very end of the classic treatise on Jewish Faith, “The Kuzari,” when the Rabbi sets off on aliyah for the Land of Israel, he quotes this same verse of Tehillim: “For your servants desired her stones and cherished her very dust,” saying, “This means that Jerusalem can only be rebuilt when the Jewish People yearn for it to such an extent that they embrace her stones and her dust” (Kuzari, 5:27).

That’s how you bring Mashiach – not by singing, “Moshiach, Moshiach, Moshiach,” but by rolling in the dust of the Eretz Yisrael and doing whatever you can to rebuild the our Nation in our Land.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry accused France’s consul general in Jerusalem of “denying Jewish connection to the Land of Israel.”

The statement by Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, came in response to remarks made last month by Consul General Frederic Desagneaux in a speech on archaeology. Desagneaux spoke of “the important archaeological projects that French archaeologists had helped to uncover in Palestine,” including the Qumran Caves.

Desagneaux also praised French archaeologists for “helping to discover Palestine.” An approved copy of his speech mentions, in this context, the Qumran Caves, where archaeologists discovered the collection of biblical texts knows as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The text does not contain the word “Jewish” and Israel appears in it once, in a sentence about the “Israel-Palestinian conflict.”

“We have seen how important these heritage sites are to international recognition of Palestine, and France intends to continue to lead the movement to recognize the Palestinians’ management of these sites,” he said, according to the copy of his speech published on the website of the consulate.

Palmor confirmed to JTA that the ministry had expressed “shock that that the French consul general was joining forces with those who would rewrite history to reflect specific agendas and erase the Jewish and Israeli connection to the Land of Israel.”

“It is unworthy of an official representative of France to provide assistance to this kind of propaganda, at the expense of fairness and historical truth,” Palmor said.

Biography of the General Consul Frédéric Desagneaux (Source: French consulate website)

Frédéric Desagneaux, was born in 1957, he graduated from the Institute of Political Sciences in Paris.

His first post was in Iraq in 1979. Then he moved to Khartoum (1981-1983) as Deputy Consul and to Muscat as Vice Secretary (1983-1986).

From 1986 to 1988, he went back to France at the Central Administration (Northern Africa and Middle East-Africa Department.)

Between 1988 and 1991 he was Deputy Consul in Tehran.

From 1991 to 1994, he returned to the Central Administration (Information, Press and Communications Department).

May 10, 1994 he was named and given the title of Secretary of Foreign Affairs.

From 1994 to 1998, he was First Secretary at the French Permanent Mission to the UN.

From 1998 to 2003 he held the position of Deputy Spokesperson for the Presidency of the French Republic.

Between 2003 and 2007, he was sent as Consul General to San Francisco.

Between 2007 and 2009, he held the position of Vice Director of Communication and Information Department and Spokesman of the Central Administration.

He came into office as Consul General in Jerusalem in August 2009.

Mr. Desagneaux is a knight in the French National Order of Merit.

Usually, I don’t have time during the week to travel around the net and see what other bloggers are writing. But during Sukkot, I found a few spare moments, and to my great chagrin, I found some essays penned by Diaspora Jews who succumbed to the Sin of the Spies in their negative reports of the Holy Land.

These writers come to Israel with their high-powered microscopes and seek out everything bad they can find – apparently to justify their love affair with the gentile lands they adore, instead of fulfilling the Torah commandment to live in the Land of Israel.

One blogger visited the new neighborhood of Migron and concluded, “Who wants to live in a country that kicks Jews out of their homes?” Another found things in Meah Shearim too fanatic to his liking and asked, “Why would anyone want to live in a country like this?” Another found the government too secular for his tastes and wrote, “This isn’t the Holy Land we dreamed of,” as he headed back to the idyllic Promised Land of Brooklyn.

All in all, by focusing their microscopes on things which need correction, these writers turn people off from the mitzvah of living in Israel. The Spies in the wilderness did exactly the same thing in their negative report of the Land. To these microscopic Jews, the giants were too big, there were funerals wherever they looked, the cities were too mighty – therefore, they concluded, the Jews were better off staying in the wilderness – in clear rebellion against G-d’s commandment to dwell in the Land.

Thank G-d that Avraham wasn’t a microscope Jew. Even though the Land of Israel was rampant with idol worship, he gladly packed up his suitcases to dwell in the Holy Land.

What the lovers of the exile don’t realize is that the Holy land is holy, in and of itself, whether the Jews there are too religious, or not religious enough. If some Ultra Orthodox Jews are crazy, or some seculars Jews are traitors to Jewish tradition and values, is this a reason to reject the Holy Land and discourage Jews from living there?

Today is the yahrtzeit of the Gaon of Vilna. He taught that the Sin of the Spies appears in every generation, and that people don’t realize that they are caught in the kelipah of the very same terrible transgression of speaking evil about the Land (“Kol HaTor,” Ch.6).

The Gaon also taught that there are only two mitzvot that we do with all of our bodies: dwelling in the sukkah, and dwelling in Eretz Yisrael. Just as sukkah must be built, “v’lo min ha’asuee,” meaning it can’t be ready-made, so too must we take an active part in the building and settlement of the Holy Land, and not wait in Brooklyn or Beverly Hills for the Israelis, or Mashiach, to do all the work before we come.

Criticizing things which need correction certainly has a place, but discouraging people from living in the Holy Land because of faults here and there, is certainly the wrong conclusion – no matter how much a Diaspora writer wants to justify his love of gentile lands, and his failure to take an active role in making Israel the place of his dreams.

Hag Samaoch from the wonderful and eternally holy Land of Israel!

Rabbi Kook emphasizes that the true t’shuva of the Jewish People is in our return to Eretz Yisrael. Again and again, in his letters and speeches as Israel’s first Chief Rabbi, he urged the Jewish People to return home to Zion. One public proclamation, sent out all over the Diaspora, years before the Holocaust, was entitled, “The Great Call.”

To the Land of Israel, gentlemen, to the Land of Israel! Let us utter this appeal in one voice, in a great and never-ending cry. Come to the Land of Israel, dear brothers, come to the Land of Israel. Save your souls, the soul of your generation, the soul of the entire Nation; save her from desolation and destruction, save her from decay and degradation, save her from defilement and all evil — from all of the suffering and oppression that threatens to come upon her in all the lands of the world without exception or distinction….

Escape with your lives and come to Israel. God’s voice beckons us; His hand is outstretched to us; His spirit within our hearts unites us, encourages us, and obliges us all to cry in a great, powerful and awesome voice: Brothers! Children of Israel, beloved and dear brethren, come to the Land of Israel, do not tarry with arrangements and bureaucratic matters; rescue yourselves, gather, come to the Land of Israel…

From the time we were exiled from our Land, the Torah has accompanied Israel into exile, wandering from Babylon to France, Spain,Germany, Eastern and Central Europe, Poland, Russia, and elsewhere. Now, how happy we would be if we were able to say that the Torah has returned to her first place, to the Land of Israel, together with the People of Israel, who continue to multiply in the Holy Land.

Who is so blind that he does not see the Lord’s hand guiding us in this, and does not feel obligated to work along with God in this endeavor? A Heavenly Voice in the future will cry aloud on top of the mountains and say, ‘Whoever has wrought with God, let him come and receive his reward’ (Vayikra Rabbah, 27:2). Who can exempt himself from doing his part in bringing additional blessing and swifter salvation; from awakening many hearts to return to the Holy Land, to the Lord’s legacy, that they may become a part of it, to settle it with enterprises and buildings, to purchase property, to plant and sow, to do everything necessary for the foundation of life of a stable and organized settlement.

Another public proclamation was addressed to Orthodox communities to urge their aliyah to Israel. In establishing a movement called “The Banner of Jerusalem,” Rabbi Kook called upon all religious Jews to come to Israel to rebuild the Nation’s spiritual life, just as the secular Zionists were rebuilding the physical:

Jews! We call you to the sacred task of building our Jewish nation in our Holy Land, in Eretz Yisrael. Come to us, rally together under the “Banner of Jerusalem” which we now raise aloft before the whole Jewish religious public.

We all know the banner of Zion which unites a certain portion of our brethren on the basis of our Jewish secular interests in the Land of Israel. But there are many who have not joined the ranks of those who bear the Zionist flag, and a great many who feel it impossible to do so. We simply record the plain fact that this is so, without questioning its veracity.

Yet it cannot be that the largest, most natural, and earnest portion of Jewry, the majority of the Jewish religious public, should remain indifferent to the wonderful events of the present, and not lend a hand in the holy task of building our Nation on our sacred soil because of so-called objections….

Jews, all the loyal believers in the Jewish faith, there can be no doubt that the Divine power is now manifesting itself amongst us in the great world events of our time. We are certainly called to return to our ancient home in the Land of Israel, there to renew our ancient holy life….

We religious Jews must all profoundly know and believe that the Divine hand is now leading us openly to our highest, ideal destiny. We must make known to the whole world, the true meaning of the present wondrous happenings, whose purpose is so clearly the hastening of our Redemption and salvation, from which will also spring forth the Redemption and salvation of all mankind.

With the flaming, illuminating, Divine faith, with all the luster of our holy Torah, with the vitality of all of the most refined and devout Jews, we shall carry our flag, the ‘Banner of Jerusalem’ by which alone the banner of Zion will also be properly hoisted. For the value of Jewish secular power will be revealed to the world only in the light of our holy Jewish spiritual power, emphasized by the uplifted voices of the whole religious Jewish world community, who set out with holy enthusiasm to the task of our national construction, of our return to the Land of Israel, by the grace of the Divine and illuminating light, ‘O House of Jacob, come, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.’

Jews across America, in the privacy of their own computer screens, are scanning the internet for job opportunities which will enable them to make the leap toward life in Israel.

A recent advertisement for Nefesh b’Nefesh sent to Jewish Press readers garnered a whopping 5 times the average number of clicks in the first hour.  The message was clear: finding employment in Israel is a source of great interest for North American Jews.

Though many are stirred by the passions of either ancient or modern Zionism, often bolstered by deep-seated religious understandings about the centrality of Israel in the practice of a full and lustrous Judaism, the noble quest for a more meaningful life is no longer the only reason to make aliyah.

Tough Times in America, Good Going in Israel

The last few years have been hard for the American working man and woman.  Between 2009 and 2010, the US unemployment rate hovered around 10% of the population.  Appeals to Jewish charities and sympathetic money lending groups increased significantly, with rabbis in major American Jewish communities appealing to members to reduce spending on costs such as mishloach manot on Purim, and on weddings.

In late 2011 and early 2012, the unemployment rate in the US dropped to 8.2%.  Despite the signs of economic recovery, many American Jews could not help but notice that job opportunities in Israel were far greater – fluctuating between 5.8% and 7%, where it stands today, down from 10.4% in 2004.

In 2011, Israel was listed with the 57^th lowest unemployment rate by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook – the US was at 103.  A 2011 report by the Federation of the Israeli Economic Organizations showed that as the world economy sank along with world trade and global credit, the Israeli economy grew by 0.8% in 2009, and leapt up to 4.5% growth in 2010.

But American Jews were not the only ones to take notice of the depressed state of US economics and the contrasting growth and progress in Israel.  Immigration statistics published in April by the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, showed that the number of Israelis seeking to gain permanent residency in the US was at a record low in 2011 – just 3,826, down from nearly 6,000 in 2006, already in decline since the recession set in in 2008.  Moreover, Ella Saban, director of the department for returning Israelis at the Absorption Ministry, told the Jewish Daily Forward that since 2006 the number of expatriate Israelis returning to Israel has doubled and now stands at around 9,000 a year.

Over 100 foreign companies are invested in the little country via research and development facilities, including Google, Microsoft,  Applied Materials, Intel, British Telecom, Philips Medical, Sony, Fuji, Honda,  IBM, Cisco Systems, GE Healthcare, 3Com, Hewlett Packard, Motorola, Nestle, L’Oreal, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, and Kodak.  Together, as of 2009, they employ an estimated 35,000 Israelis.

With all that success on the part of foreign companies in Israel, Israelis still forge their own path in business.  As of 2011, the less-than 8 million citizens of Israel had 60 companies trading on the NASDAQ, the highest ranking nation on that listing except for China, population 1.3 billion, including Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics, Cimatron Limited, Elbit Medical Imaging, Comverse Technology, NICE Systems, OrganiTECH USA, Retalix, and Silicom (famed Israeli pharmaceutical company, Teva, transferred this year from the NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange).

The Three-Step Formula

Yet with such a load of opportunities available, the numbers of olim have not yet skyrocketed.   “People really want to come, but there’s this fear that they want to be certain or reasonably certain that they will be able to put food on the table for themselves and for their families,” Kim Ephrat, Associate Director of Employment at Nefesh B’Nefesh told The Jewish Press. “I think the fact that Israel has weathered the storm really well, and it’s sort of a snowball effect, the more people come, the more people are writing back home how well they’re doing,”

Nefesh B’Nefesh, which has spent the last 10 years helping North American and British olim with the technicalities of making aliyah, has developed what Ephrat calls a “three-step formula” for scoring in the Israeli job market.

First is networking.  “It’s what we all do naturally, it’s what we all do intuitively,” Ephrat said.  Ephrat emphasized the importance of using the internet, and especially recommended networking via LinkedIn (Nefesh B’Nefesh also has a LinkedIn aliyah board where it posts about 200 job listings a day gathered from over 2,000 employers).

Ze’ev Stub, founder of the popular Janglo community website for English-speakers in Israel, agreed that networking is key. His site features a powerful jobs “classifieds” section where employers and interested employees post daily about a wide range of positions across the country.  “The first rule in everything I’ve read or written about job searching is to network. Tell your friends what kind of job you are looking for, and keep your ears open,” Stub told the Jewish Press.

According to Ephrat, the second step is learning Hebrew.  She says, however, that while strong Hebrew skills are important for many jobs, conversational Hebrew is often sufficient.

Much of the work done in science and technology jobs is conducted in English, and “you don’t need especially strong Hebrew skills for it.  You need conversational Hebrew, to get the interview or sit in a staff meeting or converse with colleagues.”

Moreover, jobs in science, medicine, and technology are especially acclaimed in Israel, and expected to continue to increase.   “Israel is known as a high-tech capital of the world, high tech, biotech, clean tech, these are all fields that are cutting-edge in Israel and we are known for many, many cutting edge innovations, and there are many jobs for olim in this field, and it’s practical,” Ephrat said.

Indeed, the percentage of Israelis working in science and technology, and the amount spent on research and development in relation to gross domestic product (GDP), is among the highest in the world, with contributions in the fields of agriculture, genetics, electronics, computer science, optics, solar energy, and engineering.

Science and technology magazine Wired has called Tel Aviv the world’s second largest center for technology start-ups outside Silicon Valley, earning the metropolis the moniker “Silicon Wadi”.

Ephrat also said that the need for doctors and other medical professionals is high, and that anyone interested in converting their degrees for recognition in Israel would likely have an easy time finding a job.

She also noted that low-tech jobs, such as PR and marketing, are also in high demand, and that people who have no interest or skills in the high-tech sector should understand that they have a lot to offer – and gain.

Lastly, says Ephrat, it is important for job seekers to maintain flexibility.  “Flexibility as to realistic expectations what your first job is going to be, flexiblily as to how you’re going to adapt to the market, meaning using your skills in a way which is going to be most suitable to the Israeli market.  And possibility using hobbies and making them into money making ventures.  Using your creativity and using your chutzpah,” she said.

She noted with pride that many immigrants who made aliyah through Nefesh B’Nefesh have become entrepreneurs and returned to the organization to fill job openings.

“That’s exciting on so many different levels,” Ephrat said.   “It shows their integration into Israel, it shows their success – they’re looking to hire, and they’re coming back to us with a sense of loyalty with a sense of comradeship that we’re in this together, and they’re doing the sort of pay it forward – they have succeeded, and they want to help others succeed also.”

Successful Entrepreneurial Olim

Meyer Reich, who made aliyah in 2003, is just such a success story.  When he started a business in 2007 based on a platform to help businesses get their content noticed by search engines – RankAbove – he did not know that his aliyah from New York would earn Israel additional recognition in the field in which it is now becoming famous.

Wired magazine’s September issue features a list of 10 European cities that constitute important centers for high-tech activity, with each city on the list featuring 10 “hot” startups.  At the top of Tel Aviv’s list for 2012 – RankAbove.

“With regards to business/work life I was fortunate to come at a time that was not easy economically in Israel and was forced to improvise and make it work,” Reich told The Jewish Press.  “One thing led to another in terms of professional opportunities and I got to where I am today.”

“The advantage for entrepreneurs in Israel is tremendous since it’s a small country with fantastic welcoming people. Local entrepreneurs support each other and my contribution has been mainly through knowledge of the space that RankAbove has in our industry as well as my contacts in the US as an Oleh.”

In the end, the person who will succeed in Israel “is willing to take on challenges and willing to take on change, [a person] that’s driven by something that’s greater than knowing exactly what’s going to happen to them the next day,” Ephrat said.  “Really willing to take a risk to some extent and changing not only their environment but really changing most aspects of their lives.”

Yet, according to Janglo’s Stub, being an Anglo immigrant comes with advantages.  “Anglos come to the table with the attributes that Israelis are thirsty for – a natural sense for customer service, fairness, hard work, and politeness. In general, Israeli society wants itself to embrace those values more and more, even if it doesn’t always know how to,” Stub said.   “Israeli executives are secretly jealous of our politeness and willingness to work for the team, and respect that a lot.”

“The flipside of that is that nice Anglos can come off as vulnerable and naive to aggressive Israeli executives, and signs of weakness can open you up to abuse,” Stub said. “Like everything in life, you need a proper balance to succeed.”

While Stub touted his site as an excellent place to begin looking for the perfect job in Israel, he recommended taking it slow.  “Don’t go too crazy with your job hunt. Spend a few hours working on your job search every day, pray for divine assistance, and then let go,” Stub said.  “Now is your time to enjoy the treasures of Israel, while you aren’t cooped up behind a desk. If you can do that, not only will you enjoy your time more, but you’ll have a more “Israeli” mentality that will help you for the rest of your life in Israel.”

Despite his success, Reich’s praise of Israel extended far beyond his professional accomplishments.  “Truthfully, aliyah is one of the wisest moves my wife and I ever made,” Reich said.  “We feel that our children are being raised with a fantastic education and being given an opportunity for their future.”