 Hey guys, very warm welcome back to my YouTube channel. Daniel Rosal here bringing you this video blog today from Jerusalem from my home here in Jerusalem city center on we have another rain day going on outside. It's raining cats and dogs and Israeli society is a bit less resilient to rain than Irish society where I grew up because I just called I'm waiting on a delivery. So I called a courier service and they said, well, you know, we might get your package to you today because it's raining. And I was like, aren't you guys in the business of delivery? So life here grinds, I wouldn't say grinds to a halt, but society is a bit less resilient to rain. We used to get power cuts. When I lived in nach leot in Jerusalem, which a lot of people who moved to Jerusalem started their aliyah journey there. And whatever was wrong with the wiring, whenever it rained, we literally lose power in the apartment. So these are the funny sort of adventures you pick up as you go through your aliyah journey. I wanted to talk today. I had a thought the other day while I was out and I thought I'd do another video blog about it. And that's this idea of instant israeliness. And I want to call this blog the myth of instant israeliness. Now, I don't want to just kind of take a pop shot at nephish benefit. That's very much not the point here. But I do want to offer maybe a different perspective than how they kind of talk about the process of becoming Israeli. So nephish benefit, firstly, the philand context is a great organization. They bring people on aliyah to Israel. Aliyah means Jewish migration to Israel. And nephish benefit, I didn't actually make aliyah through nephish benefit because they didn't really service Ireland where I made aliyah from. But a lot of Jewish immigrants from the US, let's say, will have nephish benefit. And they kind of work a little bit beyond the Jewish agency and giving additional support to potential olim immigrants to Israel. And nephish benefit are great for kind of organizing these photo opportunities at Ben Gurion Airport. They put on these special aliyah flights and they hand out little Israeli flags and they give you Israeli t shirts and baseball caps. And a few of my friends actually have wound up in news articles both in Israeli news websites and international news sites because they were on one of these flights that ended up being photographed. And so they become the kind of whenever they have a story about immigration to Israel, they'll reach for one of these photographs. And they kind of use the hashtag officially Israeli a lot and they've been using this for a number of years. And they're still using it. And look, there's nothing wrong with it. But I just want to kind of throw an alternative perspective out there. So my alternative perspective is that becoming Israeli is a bloody, slow and hard journey. And that's okay. I think it's better to embrace the slowness than to think that you become Israeli. Nobody, nobody becomes Israeli at the airport. Now, I know you're going to say that's that's not literally what nephish benefit mean. They mean that you officially guess a tail. That's a Huton Israeli ID number. And you're officially in the system and you sort of become part of this. But I think there is this kind of idea beyond that, that it's not just about the bureaucratic status of becoming Israeli. That's it. You're an Israeli now that that can become your new identity. I made aliyah to Israel from Cork Ireland in 2015, which means 2015, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. I'm just making sure that I have my numbers right. So I'm in my ninth toward the end of my ninth year of aliyah. So my 10th year, aliyah, verse, which I've just realized I now need to sort of get, get ready to throw a party for is going to be coming up in February next year. So I've been here for almost a decade, which is really, really crazy thing. And I was just having the thought the other day, I'm just beginning to feel like I'm Israeli, that my aliyah journey is just in its initial phases. Like I feel like these are just these, this 10, this first 10 years, this first decade was just kind of the basics, getting familiar with how Batuach Leomis works and how the Kupat Chulim works. And another milestone I've had recently since the start of this Gaza war is I've started consuming news in Hebrew. Now that might sound like pathetic linguistic progress for someone you've been here for 10 years, you're only now watching the news. And in a sense it is. And I would say my, my defenses are that firstly, is a Hebrew is kind of a hard language. And secondly, that the aliyah journey, especially if you make it yourself, which I did, is really, really hard. There is so much to do. The language learning Hebrew is just one part of the picture. You've got to make a new circle of friends, you've got to find a job, you've got to find a figure out how insurance works, you've got to figure out how renting apartment works. There's a million and one tasks. And for a lot of people, this has been my experience. Although when you move to Israel, you get a Olpan, which is a Hebrew language course that's part of the benefits. That's kind of just like almost kind of a formality. Yes, you, your Hebrew will improve a little bit over the course of that period that you're an Olpan, but it's really just the start of the very long journey. And I'm still continuously looking upwards in Hebrew. I use Google Translate and an app called Morphix or M-O-R-F-I-X. Really recommended because you can save a word list and then just go back and refresh on the vocab you pick up. And every time I watch the Israeli news, you know, like right now, as I mentioned, there's a lot of news going on. I pick up a few words. So basically, I do want to make this a super long video because it's not really a very long thought that I'm trying to get across here. I like Nefish Benefish. They do great work. The officially Israeli hashtag is nice to encourage people that they've started. But I think here's my idea for a separate different hashtags as a marketing guy. The journey of a lifetime begins, that's a bit too long. The start of the Israel journey, welcome to Israel, welcome to Israel. Because I think that's really what it is. It's a very, very first stage when you move here in such a long journey. And I've met people for people really kind of become Israeli in different ways. I've met people who've been here for 20, 30 years, who really barely speak any Hebrew. And I've met people who've been here for a third the time I've been here for three years, whose Hebrew is far, far better than mine. So I think there's a lot of variables. One of the variables in Hebrew attainment that I didn't do because I came too late was doing the army in Israel. And the army in Israel is famous not just as an army, but also as a sort of integration fast track. So I think there probably people who do the army integrate much quicker into Israeli society in terms of making friends, picking up their Hebrew. But everybody does it at their own pace. And there's no such thing as, you know, stepping off a plane. And that's it, you're Israeli now, even the people on the fast track, it's going to take them at least a few years to just get the lay of the land. And, you know, so that's just basically what I want to say, I want to give people permission really more than anything, not that anyone needs permission for me to accept this as a long term journey. And what I'm trying to do at the moment is just embrace the slowness of the journey. I'm currently 34. And I might be becoming Israeli until the day I die potentially. Bit of a morbid thought, but that's how I feel like it is. One other thought is I would say is that sort of there's this weird in between period that so many immigrants go through talking about national identity. Because, you know, some people say, how do you feel now? Do you feel, for example, in my case, do I feel Irish? And my particular identity with Ireland is very very much complicated by the extremely difficult political relationship between Israel and Ireland and the anti-Semitism we're seeing in Ireland, and the hostility we're seeing towards Israel coming from Ireland. So I would say in my case, it's kind of a lot, it's actually easier for me to move away from my Irish identity than, let's say, Americans who don't have that sort of feeling of a conflicting duality. So I feel kind of like, well, I feel really like I'm in between two worlds at the moment. I definitely don't feel, I mean, I am in Israeli, I have an Israeli passport, I have an Israeli citizenship, but I feel like I almost don't deserve to call myself an Israeli until my Hebrew is at a certain level, until my integrations at a certain level. And, you know, that's that's my perspective. People would say that's ridiculous. You are in Israeli, you've, you know, you've paid your Jews, you've paid your taxes, I literally do pay my taxes, of course. But I feel kind of between those two worlds, my Irish background definitely informs my approach to life. And that's a lot of, there's a lot of difference between immigrants to Israel, whether they're from the UK and Ireland, and native Israelis. And I think those differences are always going to be there to some extent. You know, the things I find difficult about Israeli culture would be stuff like maybe sometimes the kind of people can be a little bit argumentative. And the, I feel like a very kind of core part of the Irish identity is peacemaking or being conciliatory. And that has a negative as well. And that sometimes people tend to push aside differences and just pretend everyone's very polite and everybody's very happy. Whereas Israelis kind of clash a lot. But at least you kind of know where you stand with people. Anyway, this is really a separate topic about sort of the cultural differences that maybe I'll do a video on at some point. But that's just a thought I wanted to get across. I hope that was at least somewhat coherent. If you've also made the aliyah journey, would love to hear how you feel about this topic of becoming Israeli. How Israeli do you feel? Do you agree with snafish benefit that you jump off a plane and are Israeli? Or do you think like more like me that it's a lifelong process of evolution, slow character and cultural evolution and acclimatization. Thanks for watching for today's video from Jerusalem. Hope everyone is keeping well out there wherever you are watching this in the world. And more videos as ever will be coming to this channel very soon.