Haaretz Hatovah

Not Just A Spectator Yedidya B., Yerushalayim   B”H, I am happily raising my family in Yerushalayim, making a living running a business I started, and learning Torah as well. Honestly, though, all of this is not something I take for granted. I grew up in a regular American yeshivish home in a frum community in New Jersey. I am fortunate to have ended [...]

Growth In – And Acceptance Of – A Different Culture And System Rachamim Schwab, Tel Tzion   Though I am now acclimated to the Israeli system, it was a gradual process. When I first got here as a bochur, I was basically living in a “little America.” I started out in a very American yeshivah (Derech); shiurim I attended were in English, and [...]

Haaretz Hatovah Real Life Stories and Experiences of Yidden Settling in Eretz Yisroel. Two Sides Of One Land Feivel A., Ramat Eshkol, Yerushalayim I grew up in Los Angeles as an ordinary frum kid, no different than many others on the block. My parents often spoke lovingly and longingly about Eretz Yisroel. We actually visited the Holy Land a few [...]

A Better Focus   Shmuel Diamond, Sanhedriya, Yerushalayim Living in Eretz Yisroel helped me understand that the world I had come from was not the only normal and functioning reality, as the Western world might make people feel. There may be nothing more correct about two yellow lines delineating a no-parking zone, as it is in my hometown of London, [...]

Affordability, Integration And Simplicity Tamar Sobel, Rabin, Karmiel We moved from Lakewood, New Jersey to Karmiel eleven years ago. Of course, we wanted to live in Yerushalayim, but my sister-in-law who was living in Karmiel suggested we would have a “softer landing” in a small community, and an easier time integrating. At the time our oldest daughter and son were [...]

Contributing To Yishuv Eretz Yisroel R’ Avraham Tzvi Schwartz, Har Yona, Nof HaGalil The very-affordable rent was what originally brought us to the newly-constructed neighborhood of Har Yona two years ago. We had previously been renting in Chaifa for a short while, but being the population center that it is, the rent prices were too high for us. B”H, we [...]

Haaretz Hatovah Real Life Stories and Experiences of Yidden Settling in Eretz Yisroel. No Place Like Home R’ Avraham Yitzchok Elbaz, French Hill (HaGiv’ah HaTzarfatit), Yerushalayim About eleven years ago we moved to French Hill, a Yerushalayim neighborhood which, at that time, was predominantly inhabited by non-observant Israelis. (Today there is a large and significant Chareidi presence here, including many [...]

From America To Hashem’s Backyard Yosef Shalom Rabin, Shaarei Chesed, Yerushalayim I was born and raised in the “Goldene Medineh” (lehavdil!), America, and spent most of my years in Passaic, NJ. For seven years I was zocheh to absorb myself in the amazing Torah environment of Yeshivas Talmidei Telz in Riverdale, NY, after which I came to learn in Eretz Yisroel by [...]