 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal here, bringing you this video today from Jerusalem on a sunny Friday here as you get into the summer. And I wanted to record a video today about five things that I disliked slash hate about living in Israel. A few days ago, I uploaded a video to this YouTube channel entitled 10 Things I Love About Living in Israel because I was recording it on Yom Haatzmahut, which was just a couple of days ago that Israel's Independence Day, National Day and Israel just turned 75, which as I remarked in the video is really just it's very hard to wrap your head around. There's lots of people who are older than the state of Israel. But of course, while I attempted to be positive, it wouldn't really be me if I just gave the upside the story. So today I'm going to talk about five things that I think suck about living in Israel. OK, so my number one grievance about living in Israel has to be the cost of living. And you're going to hear so many people talk, moan and complain about that. So I'm really just adding myself to the to the to the pile of moaners disaffected people who were unhappy with the cost of living in Israel. I've done an article before with various statistics about I think it came out two years ago that Tel Aviv was officially the most expensive city in the world and Israel's cost of living was the fifth highest in the world and relative to OECD countries in real income. In other words, what people actually the purchasing power of their income that Israel was actually the most expensive country in the OECD. The thing about these statistics is they change from year to year and they change according to the methodologies used to compile them. So without really quoting any specific numbers to make my case, just trust me, that Israel is extremely expensive and by all accounts, one of the most expensive countries to live in the world. Now, how did Israel get to this point? This is a whole separate issue. And if you're interested in the socioeconomic picture about Israel, I recommend checking out an interview I did with Dan Ben-David, who is president at the Shorosh institution. I uploaded that about last week and he's got some interesting ideas. A lot of it comes down to very protectionist policies and Israel. Israel being incredibly difficult about standard setting and then Israel being kind of a geopolitical island because while Israel isn't technically an island, there are land masses to the three sides of it, but Israel doesn't really have relations with Syria. Tenuous relations with Egypt and Jordan. So any kind of country like that tends to be expensive, where stuff has to come into the airport and through more expensive forms of freight. It's been a very longstanding issue in Israel. And there are attempts going on to introduce more foreign competition and break the monopolies and oligopolies that are basically the bane of many people's existence in Israel, the root cause of the cost of living. Recently, we saw Carrefour opening in Israel, the French supermarket store and having normal prices for basics like olive oil. It does not make any sense to me why olive oil in an Israeli supermarket is more expensive than olive oil in Ireland, where there are precisely zero olive trees in the country. There's probably someone who's growing an olive tree in a greenhouse, but let's just say there's zero olive trees in Ireland. It doesn't make any sense. It's very irritating. And unless you're in sort of the small part of the economy that is high earning and I'll do a video about high tech, what exactly that means. It's one of these words Israelis throw around all the time. It means roughly what I would call software companies, IT companies. The Central Bureau of Statistics, the CBS, has a slightly more technical definition of what high tech is. But what people forget about high tech is that it only actually constitutes about 10 percent of the workforce, which means that 90 percent of Israelis are not employed in high tech. Now, that figure was from about a year ago, I might have updated. But the cost of living and the salaries do not meet, essentially. And that is, I think, the enormous problem about living in Israel and just the day to day financial stress that that creates is very negative. So that is definitely something I dislike about living here. OK, reason number two is the security situation. And if you're not living in Israel, this might be the number one thing thing you think when, you know, someone tells you they live in Israel, you're like, are you living in a war zone? Are you living in a bomb shelter? And the truth is that Israel's security situation has always been problematic. I think it always will be problematic, sadly, because there are countries that just are not wavering in their desire to obliterate Israel, including most famously Iran at the morning at the moment. But there's also a lot of domestic problems here, of course, with the Palestinian issue. Now, I'm not trying to trying not to go too far into the Israeli-Palestinian Israeli-Arab conflict and get mired mired down in this argument. I would say two things about the security situation in Israel. The first is that it's not a war zone. It's definitely a safe country to visit. And that doesn't mean that Israel isn't under attack. It just means that, you know, the statistical probability of a rocket falling on you is still relatively modest. Something else that's really interesting about Israel is the rate of crime in Israeli cities is actually very, very low, a lot lower than you'll see in American cities. So in an odd sense, it's safer than a lot of cities in Europe. And in another sense, there is unlike many, many countries in the world, probably most countries, it's fair to say that looming threat of attacks and terrorism. Now, something that's been happening recently, you know, going on for not really that recently, actually a few years now is these lone wolf attacks by Palestinian militants. I live in Jerusalem, which is kind of like the ground zero for, you know, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the al-Aqsa mosque, the Temple Mount is like the most sensitive part of the most sensitive city in the whole country. So it's really where stuff tends to happen. A few days ago, there was a very disturbing heinous attack in Jerusalem in which a driver just outside the Shuk Mahinei Huda, the commonly called just the Shuk in Jerusalem, a guy, a car ramming attack rammed into pedestrians. Last time I checked, there were seven people affected. One person seriously wounded. One person moderately wounded and five people with light wounds. But there are fatal attacks pretty much on a regular basis here. It might not be one a day or might be two a day, but these kind of stabbing attacks, car ramming attacks, really, whatever, shooting attacks, whatever people can pull off do happen pretty regularly. And it's a negative. It's definitely a stress about living here in Jerusalem, specifically and in Israel, generally, that we, unfortunately, have to deal with and just try to make the best of. OK, getting into more practical matters, let's talk about working in Israel. I already talked about the cost of living being super high and salaries not necessarily stacking up. Another petty grievance I have, or this might seem like a petty grievance, is the amount of time off the mandatory vacation in Israel is really small. It's only 12 days per year. There's also no no such thing. I mean, I grew up in Ireland. So you had this wonderful thing called bank holidays, which is like the weekend. And most countries, of course, is not the same as in Israel. It's Saturday and Sunday. And then like six times a year, however many times there is Monday off. And that's called bank holiday in Israel. There's only actually really one day per year. That is a day in which not everything is closed because on the days that are religious holidays like the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, et cetera, everything shuts down. The bus network shuts down, the country shuts down, which is good if you're Jewish and religiously observant, but you can't really do a whole lot on those days, especially if you don't have a car, besides like hang out at home. So the one exception really to that rule is Yom Atma, Yom Ha Atma'ut. And poor my guess as well, the national day that I just mentioned at the start of this video. So the mandatory amount of time off. Now, there are companies in Israel in the high tech scene. It's getting more competitive as people offering better benefits to their employees. So 12 is just the minimum, you know, bare minimum that you'll start out with. But coupled with the fact that the standard work day is often nine to six, which is a long work week, 12 days off, no bank holidays. And you work on Sunday. The work week in Israel is Sunday through Thursday. So those are the working days are Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday is a weekend day. Thursday night is a weekend night. And then on Saturday, you always kind of feel cheated out of a weekend because it's the Jewish Shabbat, which happens every single week. And again, the country kind of shuts down, the transport shuts down. You can't really the shops are most shops are closed. So I think there needs to be bank holidays in Israel. They talked about doing it a while back. And unfortunately, the main trade union, how he stood root opposed it. Very negative. I think his railies are overworked. One thing I did see recently is companies in Tel Aviv exploring the four day work week. And I think that's amazing. Can the Israel's National Broadcaster just did a piece about it? Our profiling a few companies in Tel Aviv, trying it and reporting their employees were less stressed, just as productive or even more productive. And I think that we all need we all could use here a better work life balance. And that is a negative to grievance for about living in Israel, the noise in this place, the constant yelling, it's chaos. Whenever I go back to to Ireland, which admittedly I haven't gone very much in the last few years, but the way I described it, I mean, it sounds like an insult, but it like it's actually a compliment as it feels like someone turned down the volume on life. It's just quieter and more peaceful. Israel's a Mediterranean country, so people drive here like crazy. If you haven't driven in Israel, prepare for the experience by going to your nearest amusement park and, you know, taking one of those dodge them things, because that's generally what it what it feels like here. Frequently driving standards are a little bit crap, but it's just a noisy like country. There is a lot of shouting is Israelis are very passionate, hot blooded people, people certainly like to they love a good argument. They love a heated argument. So sometimes you'll see people screaming at one another and then hugging a few minutes later. So it's a very, very temperamental country sometimes. And this isn't really something I have to say that I hate. I'm just offering a five part listicle because, you know, I thought I had to come up with five negatives. If I did 10 positives, I wanted I wanted there to be more positives. So if you're sick, am I complaining already? Go watch the 10 things I love about living in Israel to get cleansed of my toxicity, my negativity, but the intensity of Israel. I don't I think that's something most people, most Israelis would actually say, like, that is genuinely a thing here. The solution low cost airfares to Europe. I mentioned in my previous video that it's become a lot easier to get out of Israel and travel. And it's actually a good base for traveling into Europe. So you have no Ryanair whiz, easy jet. There's even cheap flights to Dubai because of the Abraham Accords. So the solution to this small, intense, politically charged country. My opinion is getting out of it periodically. And that's something that today, thankfully, is becoming more and more affordable to do. All right, the last negative in my list of complaints, five things I hate about living in Israel, number five is the cost of property. Now you might say, Daniel, you're cheating me out of one grumpy negative reason that you don't like living in Israel because wasn't was the number one, the cost of living. And I think that the cost of property is such a monumental issue here that it merits its own thing on my list of complaints. So therefore it is number five. It's going to be the concluding entry on the list. How expensive is property in Israel? I've done videos about it before, but here's one statistic that I think is more interesting than any other one or really sort of illustrates the problem. And that was an article by Ricky Bendavid in the Times of Israel. About a year ago, they talked about the relentless rise of property in Israel, which to state the obvious may make Israeli property a great investment option if you're already wealthy enough to buy multiple properties. If you're a young person trying to get on the property ladder, trying to save money from your average, relatively skimpy Israeli salary and high cost of living. It feels like trying to piss against the stream. I was, I was trying to think of some less vulgar alternative. Sorry, that's my vulgarity for the day. So it's really super, super problematic here. And in that article, the statistic mentioned was that on average, a couple needs to put up 250,000 US dollars in equity. A little bit more, actually, but let's just call it 250, a quarter of a million US dollars in equity. That's for the down payment. I'm not talking about the cost of the property. That's to just get the get the mortgage. So Israel has, again, the statistics very year to year. One statistic, as Ed said, Israeli property per square meter is the most expensive in the in the world. Last year, 2022, despite the sort of impending global recession, we saw the property market rise quite significantly year on year. So it seems to be the bubble that just keeps inflating. As we would say in Hebrew, Bayati, which means problematic for folks in my situation, a lot of people got on the property ladder 20, 30 years ago when stuff was a lot cheaper. And Friarim, suckers like me, who only made it to this place in 2015, now feel like we're trying to climb Mount Everest without an oxygen tank. That's how it feels. It just does not feel possible. And that's a bit depressing. Now, I know this is a global trend. I know people in other countries are experiencing the same thing about young people being locked out of the property market. But I would say the dynamic here, it feels like kind of the leading edge of the dynamic for the cost of property in Israel and because the smallest mortgages are mandated by law as a relatively high rate for the down payment, I could like literally buy a property on cash in cities in Ireland. So it's a huge problem. And it's something that Israel definitely needs to tackle. And the final sort of angle to this problem, I would say, is that the rental market here is also kind of sucky. I did a video recently, I'm not intending to just plug all my videos back to back here. But if you're interested in Israel, one called the depressing nature of renting in Israel or something like that. And I showed some photos from a very funny Facebook page called Dirod Shea Meda Kototiba Israel, which means apartments that depress me in Israel. Now, I say it's funny because the photos are just so bad. There's like a sink next to a bed. There's there was one of a bed above a toilet. Just the depressing places that landlords are renting for high rent in Israel. And the rental market pretty badly regulated here. There are really not much tenant protection laws that few they tried to bring in. There was one attempting to make it illegal to charge a view, sorry, not a viewing fee, a finding fee to realtors. And that was basically they got around that because the realtors would say you need to sign a piece of paper waving your right to not have this charge or you won't see the property. So unfortunately, it's a bit of a Balagan. It's a bit of a shanda. It's a bit of a mess. And it just makes it more and more frustrating, dynamic. And I think something that needs to be top of Israel's socioeconomic agenda. If they're going to attract people, Jewish people, other people from around the world to come live here, it can't be a country for rich Jews only, that it's impossible for your average couple to buy a house, which is sadly the reality we've arrived at in 2023. That was my list of grievances. Five things I hate about living in Israel, dislike about living in Israel. Now go watch my 10 things I love about living in Israel, as I said, to cleanse yourself from my negative energy today. But I hope that's been a sort of a least maybe eye opening for people who are want to come here with their eyes wide open and understand what are the what are the good things about living here? What are some of the challenges? Of course, this is not an exhaustive list. If you want to do some of your own complaining about living in Israel, the comment section is free to you, for you to use mentioned things I didn't list, etc. This channel is about Jerusalem and Israel. And if you do want to get more videos from me on those aforementioned subjects to hit the subscribe button, like it and tell your friends about this channel. It all helps to make me sufficiently motivated to continue speaking into a camera on a Friday morning in Jerusalem on a very, very hot day where apparently my air conditioner is not working or something because it's boiling in here. Anyway, thanks for watching. Until next time.