I Gotta Job!

Erev Shabbath Qodesh Parshath Wayiqra/Zakhor 5768

Well, after months of unemployment, searching, sending out resumes, a month of moderate to serious depression, being chased down by the bank, doing temporary jobs, a translation or two and helping a shiputzniq (renovator) do a couple of jobs, and sitting through a handful of interviews, I finally got a job,...in a print shop,...in Jerusalem,...and paying minimum wage (NIS 20/hour; about $5.55).

Hey, I'll take it!

Who's gonna do it? Arabs? Foreign workers? I'll cover my intense displeasure with the [mainly] American, messed-up, and utterly galuthi (diasporan) mentality related to what is an acceptable job for a "nice Jewish boy" or girl another time....

The main point I want to make is HOW I got the job.

Pure and simple it was "protexia."

"Protexia" can be roughly translated into English as "connections." In other words, it's what you know, but who you knew.

Ever wonder why there are some pretty bad translations of Hebrew signs into English?

Now you know why.

It did not matter how many job sites I scoured over nor how many resumes I sent out, not this time anyway. I got a phone call from someone who knew I was job-hunting. She asked if I wanted the job. I said yes, and she took care of arranging the interview. The truth is that I had just seen the ad for this job on a jobs site, and had already called and left a message. Still even if I hadn't....

That got my foot in the door. Then they just wanted to see that I could do the job. They did not even want to see my resume.

After a few weeks at it, I was finally told officially that I had the job.

Use of protexia is very common in Israel. As I have said a million times before to new immigrants and to prospective new immigrants from North America, "If we don't help each other, no one will."

It sounds jaded, I know. But that's been my experience, for the most part. Even with teaching, my first few jobs were given to me by immigrant "old-timers." Those jobs then gave me the experience I needed to get hired for my next teaching positions.

So, for now we'll see how it goes. Even though I was told that this could lead to something else within the company. My experience is such that I shouldn't count on it, and keep my eyes and ears open about other opportunities.

In the meantime, I feel like the pressure's off. I am going to give myself some time to adjust to my new schedule, and go from there.

I would like to thank all of those people who were supportive, helped me to look, passed on my resume, or all of the above.

Thank you.

Blogging Milestone

Purim Qatan 5768

After hosting this past Sunday's Haveil Havalim Blog Carnival (Edition #154), and even though hosting gets easier the more I do it, I'm all blogged out.

Inspired by Gila's My Shrapnel Blog, I believe it's high time I finish writing my "Bomb Attack Piece." After all, it's been five and a half years. I think instead of writing a series, I will stick with one,...for now.

But, like I said, I'm rather blogged out at the moment. It'll happen eventually,...hopefully soon. What better way to procrastinate finding a job?

Anyway, I remember when Frum Satire reached his 100,000th hit mark nine months. And now Batya is approaching hers on her Me-Ander Blog.

The list goes on.

Well, little old Esser Agaroth passed the 10,000 hit mark the other day, with Haveil Havalim #154 putting me over the top.

Yeah, I know. Ten thousand is just no big whoop. It took me a year and a half to do it, too. I'm not so interested in readership. Well, once in a while I am. But the truth is I do it for myself. (You're all rolling your eyes, and saying, "Yeah, right!") I'm still not sure why the Shabba"k (General Security Service) hasn't "paid me a visit" yet. Well, yeah I do. They know everything they need to know about me, and know that I'm totally unimportant, certainly not worth their time.

Or d'var aher, that cop in the Russian Compound who questioned me about the activities of the internet cafe where I worked, wasn't really a cop. "They" closed that internet cafe, by the way, two years ago, leaving me unemployed. Sound familiar? There's obviously a conspiracy to keep unemployed, and thus causing me to go insane,...or well, more insane than I already am.

We do know from Nati's experience, that if nothing else, the Shabba"k pays attention to English language blogs after all....

Regarding my "between jobs" status, I don't really have any excuse for not pounding the pavement today. The snowfall in Jerusalem was minimal, after all the hype about a major cold front and storm zooming down from Russia. Arutz 7 is calling it The Blizzard That Never Was.

Gee, aren't you getting bored with me complaining about unemployment already? Why don't you shut me up already by sending me some money?

Nah. I've got this feeling that although my readers (Doesn't "my readers" sound a bit like I'm full of myself?) are better off than I am, they probably don't have anything to spare either.

Job Hunting

3 of the Eleventh Month 5768 After living in Israel for 10 years plus, I have to admit, I have been going through I pretty rough time lately. It happens. I have been unemployed for quite some time, and it is really beginning to get to me. After making a lot of money at my previous job, I decided to take some time off, and relax a while. I hope to learn from this mistake, and not fall into the same trap again. Others can get away with this. However, I have found that I am just one of those people who needs to be working. It has been really frustrating because even though I have been doing the necessary groundwork [or so I thought]. Actually, I found my first job in Jerusalem by pounding the pavement, looking in store windows. I happened along a private English-language school, now closed, in the middle of Downtown. I found my first teaching job by sending resumes to schools I found listed in the Israeli Yellow Pages. Here is an additional on-line resource currently available, the Bezeq Directory, with its English companion, the Gateway to the Bezeq Directory. Don't forget Israel's on-line Reverse Look-Up. You never know when that will come in handy. And while I am on the topic of on-line, telephone resources, I was recently introduced to Free Fax Israel. Fax your resumes and other doc and pdf documents anywhere in Israel for free, even without a fax machine. Here are links to some job sites:

When you arrive in Israel, you will soon learn the meaning of the word "potexia" (connections). Here are some job opportunities advertised on your own personal, English-speaker protexia sites:
JANGLO Job Opps (Jerusalem Area)	TANGLO Job Opps (Tel-Aviv Area)
...and here are some more job sites in English:
AACI's Jobnet	Israemploy
Job Central Israel	Jobs In Israel
The popular Craig's List has even reached Israel:
Craig's List Jerusalem	Craig's List Tel-Aviv
And here is the main site in Hebrew I have been monitoring:
Drushim

Anyone interested in teaching English in Israel definitely needs to see the English Teachers Network in Israel [ETNI] site. You should also make a to your local Mefaqe'ah/at (Inspector). There are two for Jerusalem, one for the city and one for the surrounding area, which includes Bet-Shemesh, Mevaseret Tzion, Ma'aleh Adumim, Efrat, and Bet-El. There offices are located in the Ministry of Education Offices at Kanfei Nesharim Street 22, in the Givat Sha'ul shopping area, not far from the Nefesh b'Nefesh office. I suggest you call first to find out their office hours, 02-5602712. The Tel-Aviv Inspector is Beverly Topaz. Her e-mail address is beverlyto (at) education (dot) gov (dot) il, and her phone number is 03-6896382. Any professional requiring validation of college degrees needs to do so at the Ministry of Education, Diploma Bureau. The Jerusalem office is located in the same building as the English Inspectors. You will need to bring the original diplomas and transcripts, and submit copies of them. They receive the public on Mondays and Wednesdays. Call ahead, though, as the schedule is subject to change. Appointments are not necessary. Physicians, nurses, psychologists, pharmacists, and I believe physical therapists need to apply for certificate through the Ministry of Health. The Jerusalem office of professional certification is located at Yaffo Street 157. Please help me to keep this information updated by e-mailing me or posting a comment. I hope this information has been at least a little helpful. My experience is that new immigrants tend to get the most help from fellow new immigrants. I was very pleased recently to have received a call from Nefesh b'Nefesh. I had sent them a resume. They did not have anything available. However, the representative gave me some tips, which I found to be very helpful. She did not have to call me, but she took the time to do so anyway. This was my first experience with Nefesh b'Nefesh. It was not around when I moved to Israel. I must say I was impressed by its caring attitude. Meanwhile I am still looking for a job, and am getting a bit nervous. Although I have been getting interviews. I had a job helping to tile a bathroom, which was good for me in more ways than one. The bank is on my case big time. My phone will be turned off soon, hopefully just the outgoing calls, so I will still be able to receive calls from prospective employers. I tremp (hitchhike) into Jerusalem, so transportation costs are down. HaShem help me when it rains and snows! Food wise I am getting by, Barukh HaShem. My least favorite stereotype of Americans in Israel is that we are wealthy. There may be a little truth to that. I don't know. What I do know is that I am not one them. In fact, I don't believe I know any of these supposedly wealthy Americans. I assume they exist, because sometimes it's a American who propagates this stereotype. More than once when I have said that "I didn't have any money," it was an American who told me to go an automatic teller machine. Looking back at him in disbelief, I would say, "No. Really. I don't have ANY money." In equal disbelief, he would laugh, thinking that I was only joking. Then seeing my face, he would eventually realize that I wasn't. He could not possibly fathom how it could be that an American Jew didn't have money, but he would accept it as truth. I have long since learned to accept such reactions from my fellow American Jews. I sometimes get free coffee out of the deal, as anyone who has had this conversation with me refuses to let me pay for coffee when we go, even when I have money. Go figure. What Americans lack due to their occasional cluelessness in the "Hello! Jerusalem is not a neighborhoods in New York!" department, they make up for in the "love and caring" department. But, I digress.... As I mentioned above, I am frustrated. Everyone tells me how "employable" I am. Yet, no one seems willing to "employ" me. After teaching for eight years, obtaining jobs with ease through my professional connections, I found myself in a similar situation in which I find myself today, unemployed and broke. My last school of employment "ran out" of money. That was after a year and a half of not receiving regular paychecks. At the end, we were not getting paid at all, but stuck around because we did not want to let our students down their national matriculation exams (bragruyot). Fortunately, I had neighbors who gave me a job at their Internet cafe in Jerusalem. It was the frumest Internet cafe in Israel, if you believe there is such a thing. For six months, I worked the "graveyard shift," six nights a week. It was a lot of fun and hard work combined, but also with all the nuttiness of working at night in big city. I will spare you the details for now. Unfortunately, this place was closed down as well. After a period of employment, I got a job working at a company called IDT Global, which employs a countless number of new immigrants. It's a great company, owned by Howard Jonas. He has personally given countless Jews their first jobs in Israel. I cannot tell you how powerful it is to be able to work and get paid in Israel. It can be a big boost to ones attitude and self-esteem in the face of dealing with a new country and culture. It was kind of weird be back around mostly Americans, many of whom had only been in Israel for a short time. I found myself being "accused" of acting Israeli once or twice, which, I took as a compliment. My project at IDT eventually closed. There did not seem to be anything else available for me. Although the people IDT made every effort to find positions for those of us completing a project. I worked there for a year. I made a lot of money, especially by Israeli standards. Living out in the middle of the Shomron (Samaria), which, albeit not for everyone, certainly made it easy to survive off of savings due to the relatively inexpensive rent. The Ramba"m states that it is a higher level to assist someone to support himself than simply to give him money. When I was in my last year of graduate school, I attended a group consultation with a psychiatrist. I thought of how fascinating it would be to get consultation from a well-known, local psychiatrist who has,...well, seen it all. It was fascinating, but only in that he was so practical. Anytime a colleague mentioned a depressed client, this psychiatrist's first question was, "Is he employed?" If the answer was "no," his response would always be the same, "Help him get a job." Not much has changed since the Ramba"m first espoused this wisdom. The intention of this blog is to encourage aliyah, not discourage it. However, I am also not interested in covering up the, sometimes grave, realities of living here. motivations (religious, spiritual, nationalist, etc.) for coming to live in Israel aside, I believe that my life is better now that I do live here. The challenges of life do not disappear, though. They are just,...well, different. It is hard to put it into words. I will simply say that with every challenge there is a solution, even though it may be difficult to see at first. Even I have pondered jumping on the next plane to the U. S., assuming I had the money, which I do not. For me, that is not the practical solution. Money and dealing with a "new culture" tend to be the reasons why half of all North American immigrants return to North America within five years. That's what the statistics were 10 years ago. I believe that they are changing. THe funny thing is that when you have been in Israel as long I have, you too, will probably joke about what a culture shock it would be going back to the U. S. (or Canada, or the U. K., or wherever), even for a visit. My goal here is to lay out the truth, share some of my experiences with you, and perhaps help you to get through some of the same difficulties, which invariably occur. 

When you arrive in Israel, feel free to leave a comment here to be in touch. Let me know what I can do to help you. What may seem overwhelming to you, I may think is old hat. If I do not know the answer, I will probably know how to ask. But, there is a catch. Well, it is not really a catch, at least not one you will mind. When you have been here, even for just a short while, please try to be available to help the next immigrants who arrive. This is the key: Immigrants identifying with one another, understanding what it is like, learning, sometimes stumbling, getting up again, and then passing it on to the next immigrant.

Five Things I Should Be Doing Instead Of Blogging

Mossa'ei Shabbath Qodesh Parshath Hayyei Sarah 5768

Once again I was left out, and had to "steal" a meme.
I stole it from TNSPR569 who tagged by Batya.


Five Things I Should Be Doing Instead Of Blogging

*Of course, since I stole this, I don't have to follow the rules. For better or worse, I have more than five things I should be doing instead of blogging.

8. Cleaning my bedroom

7. Washing dishes

6. Doing laundry (without I washing machine, I might add!)

5. Looking for a free, TV show streaming site now that TV-Links seems to be out of commission.

4. Looking for a wife

3. Learning

2. Getting a life

and the number one thing I should be doing instead of blogging is:

1. Getting a Friggin' Job!

*That's fracking for you BSG fans.

Well, I don't thin I'll tag anyone. But, If you decide to answer this one, then please leave me a shameless plug about in a comment below!