 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosel here bringing you this video today from Jerusalem. I've just been out in Jerusalem city center for a few hours with a friend of mine, Marcus James subscriber to this YouTube channel. Also a rookie or aspiring videographer a bit like myself. Marcus said, he said, you know, Daniel Sonny said, you have a great head of hair and you need to have three point, three point lighting. And I said, you're right, Marcus. I need to work on my lighting. So I just spent the last hour. It's now about two in the morning here in Israel, trying without success to get my lighting right because as you can see, there's still the shadow over here. So I want to say firstly to Marcus, thank you. Kidding aside, I appreciate your technical help. I appreciate all the feedback I get from people that helps me to improve this YouTube channel because that's what I really love about YouTube. And what I'm really loving about video is there's such a learning curve. There's always more to do and more to improve. So I don't think I just for reference, I do, I am using three lights in this video, but yeah, it's maybe a little bit better than it was before. Anyway, what I wanted to talk about for this video blog today was Facebook groups that might be useful to you if you are new to Israel. If you have made aliyah now Facebook these days, I'm 33 years old, but it already has a bit of an old person's connotation. A lot of the young kids in the block. I've heard are using TikTok and Instagram and therefore Facebook is thought of as a bit of a sort of platform for people my age and older. It still remains if you're an English speaker moving to Israel, Facebook definitely remains a great conduit of information. And you can also find community. You can make friends through some of these groups moving to Israel. Of course, the number one objective is always to learn Hebrew. And one point I'm not going to do. I'm not going to include Hebrew groups on this particular video, but just to say that for every English group, there is a corresponding Hebrew group, more or less, and not that I have any disrespect for my fellow English speaking immigrants to Israel. To the contrary, I have enormous respect for anyone who picks themselves up from wherever they are in the world to make this exciting journey. But just to say that in general, it's a long standing belief of mine. In fact, I think it's probably pretty on on controversial that you're going to get better, better information if you're searching for stuff in Hebrew. Just got more people and is it is the language here. That was all that was all that out of the way. Let's go check out some of the Facebook groups that are on the better known site for newcomers to Israel. And let's jump over to my computer. Okay, so starting out my my virtual tour with one of the well-known groups here. It's called secret Jerusalem. Now I'm going to post the URLs for these different Facebook groups at the bottom. There's a couple of groups because they're sort of supposed to be anonymous. I'm not going to scroll down into last anyone any participants, you know become visible. So just to protect people's privacy secret Jerusalem is a very useful group. If you are a English speaker specifically living in Jerusalem, there's also a group called secret Tel Aviv and in fact, there's a whole network of groups called secret and start the name of the city. They're secret. Ranana secret elat secret Haifa etc. So if you're if you've moved to a community in Israel with the number of English speakers, you're probably going to find a secret group. Now it's it's called secret. There's nothing really secret about it. I think it started as a kind of underground page for people and now it's just become it's a kind of watering cooler. If you will for English speakers secret Jerusalem clearly intended for Jerusalemites. So therefore it tends to be a bit more right wing and religious than let's say some of these other groups and that's just a reflection of the demographics that are here in Israel. But if you are in Jerusalem, you're new to the city, you're looking for you know common that you just want help from people. You can post in one of these groups and they've just enabled the anonymous posting feature which I think is very useful. So if you have a question and you for whatever reason you don't want it to be visible to your friends on Facebook that you're posting. It does allow you to post anonymously and people requiring help of various kinds whether mental or financial uses functionality. So I think it's great that that's their second group broadening broadening out a little bit from the context of cities is this group called Anglos in Israel and people have mixed feelings about the whole term Anglo. It actually comes from Anglo. It's supposed to be Anglo foe Anglo phone. I think right someone who speaks English is technically called an Anglo phone just as there is Franco phones etc. So it's become an abbreviation. I was very confused when I moved to Israel and people were calling me an Anglo and my brain went straight to Anglo Saxon which was like an ancient people marauding across Europe on these freaky boats. So he's like an Anglo. So that's what an Anglo means. Some people don't like the term. I can't say I love it but it's just used to refer to English speakers in Israel. So that particular group Anglos in Israel is open for English speakers no matter what part of the country they're in and again these groups are just kind of watering coolers exchange of information. What older folks sometimes refer to as list serves right you used to have these things nowadays group of groups is probably the closest approximation and it was an email list and of course nowadays most of this dialogue has moved over to Facebook but Anglos in Israel is a good group and as you can see from the membership number twenty six point nine there are a lot of groups like this they're and they're quite big. There's just a lot of English speakers in Israel. So these are useful just to point out I'm gonna I said I wouldn't show Hebrew groups and I've ended up including one of them in my sort of wrap up here. This one's called Yaro Shalimim that Yaro Shalimi which means Jerusalemites in the male plural and Jerusalemites in the female plural and just to show you guys what a Facebook groups looks like looks like in Hebrew the writings in Hebrew the conversations are in Hebrew and it's this is actually in my opinion a good way to improve your Hebrew especially if you're looking for picking up more kind of slangy Hebrew you might find words used in this group that are more colloquial let's say so this is a big group and if you compare its size to secret Jerusalem this one has one almost one hundred and seventy eight thousand members so that's like a lot of people so if you're living in Jerusalem and you want to dip your toes however gradually into the world of Hebrew groups this is one that I would personally recommend I'm just popping myself up a small bit here now there's a lot of groups also for folks who are making Aliyah and this is something I wish I knew about before I personally moved to Israel back in 2015 I moved to Israel from Cork in Ireland and I was like the only Jewish person really that I knew outside of my immediate family members so I don't really have anyone to talk to and bounce ideas about Aliyah around about maybe talk about is Jerusalem a good community for me are there other alpans that you might recommend I was completely reliant upon the kind of official information I was getting from the Jewish agency I would just personally recommend if you're for whatever reason in this boat you're making Aliyah you're moving to Israel from a place without a Jewish community or maybe you just don't know anyone in your real Jewish community your real world network who has made Aliyah then I really really recommend putting the search terms into Facebook there are groups for folks who are in the over 50s category you know older people making Aliyah there's ones for a specific profession so if you're an accountant considering making Aliyah and you've questions specifically about licensing in Israel there's a real real strong network of these groups there is a couple of communities on reddit and I've talked a lot on this channel about reddit but not really they don't really have communities like this on reddit there's just one for Israel and it tends to be more political discussions something you will see on these Facebook groups is that it tends to often be a no politics rule and that's just because Israel is such a politically controversial place and these groups are really focused on more pragmatic concerns helping folks to make the Aliyah process easier navigate the bureaucracy etc etc just want to also say one more thing before we jump back to the screen here and that's it this is like a very incomplete selection I've tried to pluck out a few groups from the ones I'm a member of just to give a kind of flavor for the different types of groups that are out there on Facebook okay guys let's continue Israeli foodies I'm looking I'm seeing my friend Shemshon Lashinsky up there very because he's become a very popular food reviewer among the English speaking community here I've done a few videos with Shemshon he's a very very funny person and I like Shemshon a lot so if you're looking for a discussing more foodie concerns like ingredients etc where can I find this then Israeli foodies is a good group there's also one specifically for coffee lovers there's one for spicy pepper lovers there's like a lot of groups you name what your interest is in Israel and you know put that together with Israel like Israel coffee and I'm almost guarantee that you will find a group matching that description restaurant club Jerusalem is a group again I'm focusing a little bit more on Jerusalem here because it's where I live but this is a really good group run by I think it's Debest Israel is how it's a pronounced or written this is someone Debbie I think her name is she has a really good website there and she posts links to new restaurants that have opened and gives reviews about them not just in Israel what I like about restaurant club Jerusalem is it's not exclusively for kosher keepers there is one for people who keep kosher and even for among people who keep kosher there's people on different degree some people keep Mahadrin kosher so that can be something that you know if you if you're not really if you're just happy with regular kosher that all might be unnecessary info for you but restaurant club Jerusalem and rest restaurant club Israel are two good groups if you're looking for new places to try out here's another one of the secret groups I mentioned at the start of this video this is called secret talaviv and it definitely eclipses secret Jerusalem and size is 401.6 thousand members at the time I'm recording this video it has like jobs board it has a website this is like a serious operation I think this got closed down at some point by Facebook and then after restart maybe I'm wrong about that but it is secret talaviv and there is as you can see here a secret talaviv dot com there's a jobs board and we're just going to get into jobs presently so this group nephish benefic jobs in Israel just a couple of comments about it for many many years this was kind of kind of recommended as like the go-to forum if you're a new English speaker in Israel and you're looking for employment opportunities not the only one but one of the main groups in that category my personal feeling and observation is that it's gone down in quality over the years now my recommendation maybe I'll do a separate video about job hunting in Israel I particularly recommend linked in you know I'm I've been working in a job for my current job for the past six months but I'm previous rounds of job searching I actually had a lot of success on LinkedIn you can filter now for hybrid jobs remote jobs or in-office jobs depending on what you're looking for and I think that linked in specifically for jobs has become a more vibrant ecosystem than nephish benefic is group but they mean well nephish benefic has a jobs board on their site and if you're looking perhaps to pick up more casual work like working in a kitchen or a hotel you might find this group to be useful here's a great group again living financially smarter in Israel LFS II it's run by someone called Rivka Lebevowitz I hope I'm getting her name right she has some great videos actually on YouTube she interviews other financial English speaking financial professionals in Israel this group is again kind of a wealth of information people discuss here very openly and that's that's something that it took me a while to appreciate about Israel there was a time when I thought I was the only person with kind of questions about life in Israel or struggles in Israel particularly of the financial variety and it's nice even sometimes to just talk with other people openly beyond your close friend circle in the real world about the concerns we share as immigrants in Israel whether that's how we can afford property amongst the crazy property more market how you can qualify for government first-time buyer schemes and stuff like that talking about the pros and cons of different credit cards so if you're looking to get to grips with your your personal finances in Israel really really really recommend strongly this Facebook group a lot of knowledgeable people posting there continuing and I've just got three more groups to go guys and again this is just my sort of cherry picking from the group this one's called LFS II your recommendations LFS II stands for living financially smarter in Israel so it's not just one group it's kind of a network of groups and if you're looking for a specific thing for instance if you're looking to buy a puzzle for your kids or a technical product of some nature and you're looking for sources in Israel this group is often useful for that another group of the same kind of and the same kind of page a little bit it's called live in Israel shop online it's a it's a it's a private group there is a frugal group so for whatever reason living frugally is a big part of your the picture for you as you live in Israel and you're looking for ways to cut down on your bills and save money on foods there there are a couple of group big groups for living frugally in Israel there's also women's only groups and clearly as a guy I'm unfamiliar with exactly what those ones are but just to say they are out there my wife I'm sure knows the names but if you are a woman you'll probably find out about those groups from your from your friends here's a really important group it's called get help Israel and of course I've talked about mental health on this channel a few times and been open about my own journey getting therapy accessing psychiatric help for anxiety and depression get help us get help Israel comms a really terrific resource it's a listing of English speaking mental health practitioners and one thing I've said many times I'm actually going to open up one more page just as I'm doing this because I just realized there's one I should have included in this and I've left out so I'll just kind of be looking off to my screen for a few seconds here but certainly that's a very useful group if if you're looking for help now the health care system in Israel works really well when it comes to mental health care sometimes it's not quite as as it's not the same well-oiled machine as the physical health care system and again I'm not just pining here I'm talking from personal experience but if you are looking for help you're struggling with something like ADHD depression anxiety there is an ADHD specific group just to say but get help Israel is a good group and you can post anonymously there if again if you're looking for a psychiatrist or therapist and you don't want that post being seen by all your Facebook friends I think a really really useful and important feature for for folks one of the newer groups here I like this one it's called achieving financial independence in Israel I think it's run by a guy called Aaron or his friend I was on Aaron's YouTube channel a few weeks ago is a really good guy and he's interviewing folks in Israel pension professionals financial professional tax advisor I'll put a link to Aaron's website his project called it's called alia money tips so if you plug that into Google you should get his web operation and his YouTube from that and this is a good group because I like the fact that it focuses on achieving financial independence because for a lot of us at the start of our journeys in Israel we're just looking to kind of get by and what they call and in Hebrew finish the month and then I think sometimes over the course of many years we can set our ambitions a little bit higher and we actually start thinking about long-term financial planning and so I think these more focus groups for investments and this kind of thing are particularly helpful now wrapping up I did say I skipped one that I should have included and that's this group it's called navigating the Israeli health care system the Yad La'olim health care division and this group is run by the Shira Pransky project which is a really really good resource if you are trying to navigate the Israeli health care system including actually mental health care providers this group is kind of run and operated by them again I'll put the links in the video description here or you can just type it into Facebook I don't see most of these groups go in the way anytime soon and that this is a really good group if you have medical questions you're looking for a practitioner you're looking for a question about if you a specific medication exists in Israel but just to underscore one more time before I wrap up the video that for all of these groups you're going to find comparable groups in Hebrew so if your Hebrew is good enough to be able to type in Hebrew and read post in Hebrew I personally would recommend joining both because you're going to find more groups in Hebrew more specific groups and sometimes also just more up-to-date information so as I see the video is almost 18 minutes long I'm going to wrap this up here if you are new to Israel or you're in the process of making aliyah again there's nothing stopping you from joining these communities before you come here so you can start getting smart about how to live in Israel before the wheels of your airplane hit the tarmac in Ben-Gurion Airport and again speaking from my own aliyah experience I regress not looking for information beyond the officialdom of Nefesh Benefesh and the Jewish Agency not that there's anything wrong with either organization both do a great job but there is really really distinct value in my opinion in more peer-to-peer or Olay to Olay information and I just remembered one more old olim helping you young olim if you're a seasoned veteran of the crazy Israel world and that you have you think you can help folks who are younger on in the journey don't forget to check out that group as well hope this roundup of some Facebook groups that might be useful for you as a new immigrant to Israel has been useful I do post these Israel specific videos to a separate playlist on this YouTube channel called living in Israel I'll also put that link in the description and for everyone watching whether you knew here coming here about to come here best of luck in your aliyah journey remember there's help out there not just not just from the official sources but other folks here in Israel and don't hesitate even though sometimes people can get nasty on Facebook that's for sure don't let it get to you look for information network with your fellow olim a native Israelis of course as well and really good communities to join thank you guys for watching more videos coming soon if I get more of course feel free to also subscribe to this YouTube channel thank you for watching