 Hey guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosal here. I want to record a video today about my feelings on what I like and what I dislike about living as an immigrant in Israel. So the first thing to say, I'm recording this video blog today because it's been almost two years since I wrote an article on medium.com and that article was called the pros and cons of living in Israel. That article actually ended up being one of my most successful, if you will, things I've written in recent years, according to my medium statistics, 43,000 people have read that article, which is like a lot of people. I think it's like a third of the size of the time that I grew up in. So given that, you know, I've got emails about it from people and it's definitely, I'm glad to just have my sort of experience out there. And to be honest, it's been almost two years since I wrote that piece, but nothing really has changed in my perception. I think there are amazing things about living in Israel. There are a couple of things I think are not so good. And I thought that given that I've reached almost a two-year milestone since publishing that piece and almost a seven-year milestone since I moved here from Ireland, I'd record a video blog just to share those thoughts again. The first thing to say about living in Israel is that the reason that I moved here and this is the thing that supersedes everything for me is because it's the only Jewish country in the world. So I grew up in Ireland and I literally made Aliyah. That means immigrated to Israel from a city, Cork, in which I was like one of the only Jewish families. I think there were like two or three other Jewish families. When I grew up in Cork, when I went to high school, as Americans call it, I didn't have a single Jewish friend. I didn't know anybody else there. So I grew up in a really non-Jewish environment. All my friends were non-Jewish. They still remain my really close friends. And for the most part, I actually really enjoyed living in Ireland and it's still a big part of my identity. Nevertheless, from a Jewish standpoint, I always felt kind of like the odd man out, I guess, because I kind of was the odd, odd man out. It didn't really feel like, you know, to live a Jewish life in a place like Cork where you don't have kosher food, where no one really knows your customs or traditions that well. I find it pretty uncomfortable. And that's totally aside from the strong anti-Israel feeling, which is a really different point. But that also made me feel uncomfortable living in Ireland. So when I first moved to Israel or did a trip here at the age of 16, for the first time, I experienced living in a place where I wasn't an oddity, where my cultures, my traditions were the norm. And living a Jewish life, a somewhat observant Jewish life, moving from Cork, a city where I was like virtually the only Jew my age, I knew, to the world Jewish epicenter of Jerusalem, was kind of a zero to 100 transition. But for the most part, it's actually been pretty good. Now, leading up to the Jewish Festival of Passover or Pesach, which we're about to celebrate starting next week here, there's just facilities and there's just a feeling that you wouldn't guess anywhere else in the world of being in the right place. And that's a feeling that I had when I first made a trip to Israel, a really, really strange feeling that I've heard other people describe of you are in a country that once is foreign, it's a language that when you move here, you don't you might not read so well, you might not speak. And yet there's this part of you that feels so at home. And that's kind of what that connection that I get here, it's the Jewish homeland, the only Jewish country in the world. And that for me is reason number one, why I enjoy living in Israel on a practical level. It makes stuff like keeping kosher super easy. It makes stuff like observing a Jewish lifestyle easy. But there's a much more spiritual significance to it that I'm trying to get across. Now I want to say one more thing on this point. And that's that Israel is I'm not oblivious to that to this fact a very, very touchy political subject. I think a lot of people assume that if you are a Jewish person who moves to Israel, you automatically endorse everything that the Israeli government does and you become a sort of a propagandist for the government. Now, I definitely don't feel like that's the case or needs to be part of the deal. I think it would be a bit weird to move to Israel and to really oppose the country. But Israel is definitely a thorny political issue. And I am aware of the fact that in the Jewish people reestablishing their presence in their homeland where they originated from that cause suffering and displacement to another people. My personal politics is I think that it's very hard for the two sides to live together in harmony and there needs to be some kind of a separation and amicable. You guys have your state, we have our state and we agree to sort of take a bit of distance from one another. But I definitely don't endorse everything the Israeli government does just as someone who lives in Sweden or someone who lives in Ireland or Belgium. Just because they live there doesn't mean that you're like a government spokesperson. So that's just wanted to add that as well. So that's my number one reason and it really goes against all the other negatives. And I'm going to mention those here that keeps me in Israel because I get a sense here that I'm participating in a mission, the return of the Jewish people to Israel that's bigger than myself. That gets me a lot of fulfillment. And it's really nice to live in a country where I feel like this is the right place. It accepts my traditions. It accepts me for who I am. And I can be my best authentic self here in Israel. Okay, so moving from that kind of heavy reason to much more kind of surface level stuff that also may be applicable to people who are not Jewish. And there are lots of non Jewish people who live in Israel, some who converted to Judaism, some who are living here temporarily. So that's that in Israel. The weather is really good. So coming from Ireland, you know, it was a very, very gray climate. And in Israel, yeah, it's super sunny. It does get really, really hot during the summers. But it is a beautiful country. And something that's really, that really sort of impresses me about Israel is that where I live, Jerusalem, it's a very sort of cramped urban environment. But you just drive like a few minutes out to the countryside, and you're surrounded by green. So hiking is actually a really popular pursuit in Israel. And after living here for enough time, I actually totally guess why because Israel actually has a really, really high urban density. And it's definitely kind of a heated stressful place. I'm not just talking about the temperature. I'm talking about people's temperament. If you've ever spent time in summer like Italy or Greece, I spent a little bit of time in Italy. I'm told they're very similar culturally, kind of a hotheaded culture. So people like to get out into the nature. And Israelis are actually really big into traveling internationally. And I think that that also makes sense given when you actually look at a map, how tiny Israel is really, really small country gets a bit claustrophobic, especially during COVID lockdown. So people do like to take advantage of the new cheap airfares that companies like Reiner have brought, and they take trips out of Israel. And I'll get to another point about that fact just in a bit. Next pro for Israel is that the food is super good. So there's actually a lot of different cuisines here because Israel is kind of like a melting pot for the Jewish diaspora, right? There is people, there's actually Jewish families that have been living in Israel for a long, long time, pre the foundation of the state. And then you add to that different Jewish communities who moved to Israel and brought with them their cuisine. One of the cuisines I've encountered since moving to Israel, and it's now literally my favorite food is Ethiopian cuisine. It's really, really good. If you've never been to an Ethiopian restaurant, I highly encourage trying out their food. And because there's lots of Ethiopian Jews, there's lots of Ethiopian restaurants in Israel. You wouldn't expect it, but it's true. Besides Ethiopian food, there's a course, shawarma. There's, you know, all the kind of food that's traditional to this part of the world, like falafel. And in general, food in general, Israelis like really fresh ingredients and don't like to use a lot of preservatives. So when you buy bread in Israel, you will notice that it goes off in a frustratingly short amount of time, like a day or two in the summer. And that's again got to do with preservatives. So Israeli cuisine is very heavy on veg. It's very heavy on fresh ingredients. And in general, it's just really, really good. Next positive about living in Israel is technology. The technology sector and the startup sector is really, really vibrant here. Israel is also known as silicone wadi. I believe wadi like means valley in Arabic. And that's because there's such a high density of startups here. In fact, I believe it's the highest per capita rate of startups in the entire world. I have some stats in front of me here. So I'm going to just move my eyes slightly over to my screen. Apparently 2021 was, according to startup nation central, like the biggest year for Israeli tech that's been on record 25 billion dollars worth of equity was raised and there are now 53 Israeli unicorns. So if you are looking, if you are involved in the tech space somehow, you're an algorithm engineer, you're a software developer, you're into data somehow, you're going to be pretty well set in Israel financially, probably, but definitely from an employment standpoint. And that would be my number one advice. My background is in marketing and communications. I have degrees in law, journalism. I sort of ended up actually working in the tech sector just through being kind of geeky and liking stuff like Linux and cameras. So I've been kind of pulled into it, but definitely my earning power, and this is just being totally transparent, is not going to be anywhere near as high as a software or firmware or hardware engineer. And while there are lots of jobs, my advice to anybody thinking but moving in Israel, if you are involved in computer science, if you like computers, just nurture that hobby because it's going to serve you well in Israel, not just now, but for generations to come. I think it's a really future proof career. There is a new trend in Israel of these things called startup boot camps. They're also becoming really, really big. So it's never too late if you do want to reskill or upskill to launch a tech career in Israel. Israelis call it high tech. I personally think it's kind of a stupid word. It just means basically what we call an Ireland information technology, the software industry and related industries that are distinguished by their technical basis. So if you're a startup guy, you love startup culture, you want to start your own startup, I think Israel is a really good place to be. Next great thing about Israel as an asthmatic, allergy sufferer, etc. The healthcare in Israel is really, really good. It's very impressive. Israel relies very heavily, uses very heavily something called electronic medical records or EMRs. So all the systems are interlinked and there is a great amount of systems. The kind of center of the Israeli healthcare system is what's called the Kupat Holim. That translates to English as Health Maintenance Organization or HMO. Every citizen in Israel has to be a subscriber to one of the four HMOs in the country. But there's also urgent care and there's emergency care on top of that. And what always strikes me is that the systems are really well linked. So if I, God forbid, have an asthma flare up and I need to be put on a nebulizer, I present my magnetic card and they'll have all my medical data, what prescriptions I'm taking, my pre-existing diagnoses, my weight, my heist, everything. So that's something that's really, really good. Again, I'm looking at my screen for a second because I wrote down if you know to this video, medication is also really affordable. So how much does health insurance cost? So I personally pay 52 shackles per month to subscribe to a plan from the insurance company called Maccabi and I'm not even on the top plan. That gets me basically everything that I personally need. It gets me access to specialists. It gets me access to family doctors visits. I book everything online and it's really, really straightforward. The second thing to say here is that medication prices are cheap. Again, looking at my screen, I'm paying 28 shackles for my asthma inhaler and I'm paying 18 shackles for 30 tablets of ameprazole, which is Nexium, a PPI for stomach acid stuff. So obviously the exchange rate between shackles and whatever your currency is, euro or dollar is going to be different depending upon when you watch this video. But basically we're talking like five, ten dollars. So it's really, really cheap. Now, I know some countries like the UK do have these unlimited prescription plans, so they're also cheap. But still, it's a really, really good value and it definitely takes a huge weight off my shoulders that you know, if I again, God forbid, have an asthma attack or feel otherwise unwell, I don't need to think about can I afford it before I go to the doctor. One thing I want to say while I praise the health care system overall is that when it comes to mental health, it's not quite as good. I've been open on this YouTube channel about the fact that a few months ago, started taking an SSRI medication, which is for anxiety and depression. Now, so I've experienced the mental health care system as well as the physical health care system. And what he would say is that mental health care is not as good as physical health care here. If you need to see a doctor for a broken bone, you're going to see see some on the next day. If you're suffering from panic attacks, your family doctor can get you started. But if you need to see a psychiatrist, the waiting time can be months. Also therapy stuff like CBT isn't included in the in the service package. It is included, but it just doesn't work well. As I was saying, the systems are generally very well interconnected. Unfortunately, the mental health care system is not as well linked up. So there's definitely room for improvement in mental health care. Also, Israel's suicide rate amongst immigrants, Olim is tragically much higher than the general population. And the National Crisis Center for Suicide is really understaffed. So this is something as someone affected by mental health, I personally really care about and advocate for. And I hope that the systems are better connected and that mental health care is better resourced in coming years. Okay, I hope I've given you guys a sense for what's good about living in Israel. This all comes very much from the heart as a Jewish person, I feel at home here. And that to me is basically what's kept me in Israel, despite the negatives, which I'm going to go on and cover now. But there are there now some people are really, really opposed to discussing things that are not so great in Israel. And they do that because they think that, you know, enough people in the world bash Israel and we have to attract the next generation of immigrants. I am personally a major supporter of Aliyah Jews moving to Israel. Nevertheless, I don't think that Aliyah is actually served by suppressing information. Some people object to this on religious grounds. I'm just being trying to outline the contours of this argument in the Jewish world. I don't take that view or interpretation, but just to put that out there. So I think that the pros are still better than the cons, but the cons definitely exist. Okay, the major con about living in Israel, from my perspective, as a 33 year old immigrant making a middle class salary, working in marketing communications, is that this country is way, way too expensive. The cost of living here is an enormous struggle. I've personally known multiple friends who moved to Israel when I did in 2015 and have since left the country because they basically couldn't afford to live here. They couldn't make ends meet. Now, when you say this, there's a constant discussion back and forth in Facebook groups about this and people will say, well, you should live out in the country or try not living in a city. So there are people who have retorts for this. Personally, I think that it's unreasonable that getting a cheese sandwich should cost like 12 dollars. I recently went out to a neighborhood cafe and you eventually stop like converting prices into your home currency. But every time I do it, I'm astounded by how expensive everything in Israel is. And unfortunately, this is the one thing during the course of my seven years here, I'm not seeing getting better. I'm not seeing it taking a central place on the political agenda. It's now more than 10 years, I think, since the cottage cheese protests. And there's really been no major social push. There's been a lot of people complaining into cameras like I'm doing right now. But there hasn't been an organized campaign now. The Bennett government did seem to be sort of prioritizing this to a greater extent than their predecessors. Unfortunately, today, very, very disappointing news that the coalition whip has pulled out of the government. And now we're looking at electoral stalemate in Israel again. So yeah, Israel, according to multiple surveys, has one of the highest cost of living in the world. I read in one article that the real income, in other words, when you adjust what you earn versus the cost of living and you look at purchasing power, Israel was the highest country in the OECD. The most expensive, that's not a good thing, except for Japan. So you just see it everywhere. You go buy yourself a beer in Israel and you're paying like 10 bucks for your beer. You buy yourself a cheese sandwich in Israel. You're paying a lot of money. You're paying more for petrol. You're paying more for consumer goods. You're paying more for food. And that would be fine if Israel was a high earning country. The crux of the matter is that for 90% of the population not working in high tech, which is again the IT sector. And it's great that Israel makes a big deal. There's lots of high tech here. Unfortunately, the statistic when I last researched it was that 90% of people in Israel are not working in the high tech center because let's face it, not everybody's born to be a programmer or whatever. So for so many people, it's an enormous struggle. Consequently, Israel has, I think, the highest poverty rate in the OECD. There is an enormous amount of people living under the poverty line here. And there's an awful lot of people being very reckless with their finances and living in debt, what Israelis call living in minus. So it's an enormous problem facing Israeli society. Now there's a second site of this issue that's also really frankly depressing and I use that word advisedly. And that's the staggering price of property in Israel. The Times of Israel, I'm going to put links to my article and their article in the description here. They did an excellent piece on Israel's real estate bubble and they included one figure, among many figures, that I found particularly mind-boggling. And that was that people looking, I'm quoting again from my computer screen, so we don't have a teleprompter yet, hopefully soon. So excuse me while I look over here. People looking to buy an apartment nowadays must come up with roughly 840,000 shackles. And when that article was published that translated to $261,140 in order to buy an apartment. Apartment. And I emphasize that because in Israel the standard dwelling is not a house, it's an apartment. So basically, let me just explain that again. Property in Israel is so expensive the minimum down payment is so high 25% set centrally by the Bank of Israel. So when you multiply a big figure by a high multiplier, you get a you get another big figure. And that figure is that if I want to buy a property in Israel for the down payment, I need to come up with more than a quarter of a million US dollars. I don't have that money. Most people don't have that money and most people millennials, I don't think have a way to get that money. I mean, if you're making, again, this comes back to the cost of living and salaries I was talking about. Even if you're saving literally every penny you earn, you have a hell of a lot of saving to do to amass 840,000 shackles in your bank account just to afford a down payment just to get yourself on the property ladder. So yes, this is a global millennial issue. Unfortunately, the dynamic in Israel is exacerbated. And frankly, that makes me feel feel very, very bleak about my future in Israel that I'm kind of working living month to month. I'm earning an average salary. Thank God I make enough money to be able to afford my tech toys like the camera that I blog about on this YouTube channel. But it's very hard for me to envision a long term future in a country in which I can't see any realistic prospect of getting on the property ladder. And that's at 33 years old having been in the workforce since I was in my early 20s. Okay, the second the second kvetch, which means in Yiddish complaint I'm going to air about living in Israel is that customer service is often really, really shoddy here. And that's something you'll visitors will often remark upon. I think it's becoming less of a thing because Tel Aviv has become this kind of tourist city. But it's always important, I think not to judge life in a country on the basis of a seven day tourist excursion. And Tel Aviv is much more internationalized. I think it's fair to say than the rest of Israel. So what do I mean by lack of customer service? It's really hard to put a finger on it, but it's just something put like this. If I can avoid buying something in Israel, I generally avoid buying it in Israel for two reasons. One, it's cheaper and two, I know I'm probably going to get better customer service outside of Israel than inside of it. Some people might find that a generalization. You might disagree. It's also very a very frustrating dynamic is that Israel has super strict defamation laws. So it's actually very risky to write a negative online review even if you had a terrible borderline abusive or actually abusive experience with a store. There's been cases in which people have been successfully sued just for writing online reviews because Israel doesn't really have American concepts of the First Amendment and freedom of speech. So that's, it's a problematic situation. And one thing I would say about living in Israel again on the negative side is that it often just feels like it's just much, it's needlessly difficult to live here. Sometimes you just run into these bureaucratic hurdles. Like for instance, I got a driving license. I passed my driving test a number of years ago. And now for no reason, I don't have any points on my license. Israel has decided that I need to go through a driving theory three night, three night course after I've got my license. Now that would make sense to me if driving, if Israel had high driving standards, Israel has terrible driving standards. And it's just another frustrating layer of bureaucracy that's going to make my life slightly more difficult. It's going to cost me more money and you sometimes just wonder why. In general, I would say living in Ireland was a more seamless experience from a customer service standpoint, from a bureaucracy standpoint, from a ease of doing business standpoint, even running a small business in Israel, can be a frustratingly bureaucratic experience. And it often feels like the government is just trying to make your life as difficult, as difficult and complicated and expensive as possible. So that's definitely a frustration I feel and I see a lot of people have about living here. Okay, I'm going to come on to driving now and this might seem like a small thing, but I'm actually find it really, really stressful. Driving in Israel is very stressful. There is a kind of disturbing amount of aggressiveness in Israeli culture. I'm not quite sure where it comes from. Israel, Israelis have a reputation for being rude. Sometimes people are just being direct. They're being more, a bit more blunt, but sometimes people are actually being completely rude and it's definitely a feature of society here. My personal theory is that people are under a lot of financial stress. Another common theory is that a lot of people here have PTSD from their time in the army. Whatever the explanation is, there's definitely kind of something a little bit edgy about Israeli society that's not nice. People snap way too easily here and the worst of this is when you're driving. And there's this kind of me first culture. I want to get ahead of you. Driving here is just not like driving where I come from in Ireland, where people are considerate and give other motorists a ride away and generally people are pretty easygoing and there's not like constant honking. I literally find driving in Israel so stressful and I did mention that I'm on the anxious side of the spectrum slash I have anxiety. I find driving in Israel such a stressful and aggravating experience that I literally avoid doing it whenever possible. I will actually take the train to Tel Aviv and not have to deal with road rage and traffic jams and other stuff like that. So that's kind of I haven't mixed feelings actually because I'm interested in sustainability and I think that are you know the level of traffic in Israel is totally unsustainable and public transport is just better. Nevertheless it would be nice if people were just a little bit more chilled out on the roads here. Okay final negative about living in Israel is that relative to Europe just to add to the kind of frustrations about the cost of living and all that the vacation days actually here are very low. They started 12 days per year at mandatory versus 21 for EU member states and that's another sort of fast of Israel that just feels like why is it so difficult here? Working hours are also long 45 hours is a standard work week versus 40 in Europe and bank holidays don't roll over so if public holidays falls on a Jewish day Jewish religious festival during which the public transport is essentially shut off you just kind of have to be home that day so if you're not religiously observant that can be super frustrating you feel like you're kind of cheated out of your vacation days basically and that's it now the final point I would say and I added this to my notes for this blog was kind of trepidation politically this is really going to depend upon your orientation now if you're thinking about moving to Israel I think it's probably fair to say you are you tend towards the more pro-Israel side of things but nevertheless Israel definitely in recent years has been shifting towards a more right-wing conservative nationalistic direction and Haaretz had a really great piece on this about how a lot of sort of the more educated Israelis the more left-leaning Israelis were leaving Israel because they found it very uncomfortable I'm not sure where I fit on the political spectrum I have views that are from the left views that are from the right but I do find it very disturbing that the Hebrew word for a left-wing person which is smallani has become almost a curse word in Israel I find that really disheartening I think that BB's nationalism had an awful lot to do with that and again if you are right-wing this may be your cup of tea if you tend towards the left and you don't want to live in Tel Aviv which is really a sort of bubble of tolerance you might find all this really really frustrating that's pretty much it in terms of my pros and cons of living in Israel video again this is just sort of a reiteration of what I wrote in that blog post two years ago given the fact that I don't really have anything to add to it I think it's pretty much my feelings about Israel I will say this that I think Israel I always get the sense that this country is progressing at a really really quick rate I just mean that in terms of technological advancements I was hoping the cost of living would come down bit of a bummer that the government is now falling apart I think overall Israel is a good country given the fact that it's been developing A. it's so young B. it's been developing versus the setting of almost constant warfare I think that what it has achieved in that amount of time is spectacular so don't get me wrong I'm not underestimating Israel's achievements I'm just saying that as someone on the ground here I don't live in the Jewish diaspora I actually live and spend all my time in Israel when people sort of look aghast when you point out these problems I find it a little bit hypocritical because yeah if you live here come live for yourself you will find that they're I believe you will find there are some difficulties here but that's the case for any country and this is what I think about the pros and cons hope this video was of interest to you if you do want to subscribe to the channel feel free to do so but the caveat is that this channel is a complete mess it's as disorganized as my mind of stuff about Israel technology video there's a whole bunch of topics here so increasingly I don't just talk about Israel but if you do want to get more videos from me feel free to hit that button thank you guys for watching if you have comments please leave them below and until the next video