Year: 2019

Some Overseas Americans May Soon Lose Access to Banking Services

Congress and the IRS Declare War on Overseas Americans

By 

Nestmann.com

October 2, 2019

A fundamental injustice of US tax law is that it discriminates against the approximately nine million Americans who live in other countries.

These citizens must continue filing US tax and information reporting returns, even if they’re paying tax in their resident countries. Any local businesses they’re associated with become ensnared into the spiderweb of US tax laws. (The only other country that imposes similar rules is the totalitarian dictatorship of Eritrea.)

With the enactment of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) in 2010, things got even worse for overseas Americans. The law requires foreign banks and other financial institutions with US customers to act as unpaid informants for the IRS. If they fail to do so, US-source income they have in the form of interest, dividends, rents, and similar payments becomes subject to a 30% withholding tax.

FATCA’s working assumption is that all Americans with investments outside the US are tax evaders, including those who live full-time overseas. But that’s simply nonsense. For instance, the most popular destination for Americans living abroad is Canada. As many as two million US citizens live there. The top combined federal and provincial income tax rate in Canada can approach 50%. In one province – Newfoundland and Labrador – the top combined rate is 51.3%.

Does Canada sound like a tax haven to you?

Despite FATCA’s flawed premise, the IRS has ratcheted up the pressure on foreign financial institutions (FFIs) to enforce it. Unsurprisingly, most FFIs don’t want anything to do with the law. They’ve closed hundreds of thousands of accounts held by US citizens instead.

With their local accounts closed, many overseas Americans increased their reliance on US accounts. But US banks and brokerages have started to close accounts owned by non-resident citizens as well. These include Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, Merrill Lynch and Wells Fargo. In the US financial institutions that still accept business from non-resident citizens, the minimum account values have increased astronomically. Millions of overseas Americans are now effectively locked out of banking relationships anywhere in the world.

What’s more, because the SEC forbids solicitations by US mutual funds to individuals living outside the US, it’s become nearly impossible for non-resident citizens to own them.  In addition, US citizens generally can’t purchase non-US mutual funds without disastrous tax consequences. As a result, Americans living abroad are effectively locked out of all mutual funds, US or non-US.

Another way Congress and the IRS have made life miserable for overseas Americans is to make it practically impossible for them to retire in their adopted countries. For instance, contributions to a foreign pension plan are usually tax-deductible in the country offering it. And growth in the plan is generally tax deferred. But in most cases, the US Tax Code doesn’t offer a deduction for the contribution and taxes the growth in the plan. Overseas Americans often wind up paying two sets of income tax on their pensions: one to the US and a second to their adopted countries. Similarly, US citizens generally can’t own foreign life insurance policies that have a cash value without disastrous tax consequences.

The situation for many Americans living abroad got even worse after Congress enacted President Trump’s tax reform bill in 2017. The law lowers tax rates for both individuals and domestic corporations. But anyone with deferred profits in what the Tax Code refers to as a CFC or controlled foreign corporation (a foreign corporation with more than 50% US ownership), is subject to a mandatory one-time repatriation tax of 15.5%. For less liquid assets like real estate, the tax rate is 8%.

The problem is especially acute for overseas Americans who use foreign corporations as a savings vehicle and have no intention of repatriating the profits to the US. For instance, many Canadians use corporations to operate small businesses and set up pension plans. Net profits in these corporations are taxable in Canada only when they’re distributed. The repatriation tax confiscates a portion of deferred profits of these corporations owned by US citizens, with no provision in Canadian law to offset the tax. Up to 15.5% of the profits are subject to double taxation.

As bad as conditions are now for US citizens living abroad, they’re about to get even worse. In just one country – France – the Banking Federation has warned its members they must close as many as 40,000 additional accounts held by US citizens living there by the end of the year. Many of them are held by “accidental Americans;” individuals born in the US who left the country as children or born to US parents in France. By law, they’re US citizens, although according to the Banking Federation, they “lack any concrete link with the United States, where they no longer reside.”

Indeed, the European Banking Federation, which represents around 3,500 European banks, told the US Treasury that up to 300,000 more US citizens living in Europe could lose access to banking services by the end of the year.

The law forcing their hand is FATCA, which requires FFIs to provide the IRS with the Social Security Numbers of their US citizen customers. Until now the IRS has waived this requirement in certain cases. The waiver ends December 31, 2019. But accidental Americans often don’t have SSNs and often find it difficult to come up with the required documentation to get one.

Since Congress and the IRS have declared war on overseas Americans, it’s no wonder why the number of US citizens expatriating – giving up their citizenship and passport – has skyrocketed in recent years. Unless Congress ends or substantially modifies citizenship-based taxation, that’s the only alternative overseas Americans have to live normal lives in their adopted countries.

Reprinted with permission from Nestmann.com.

From LRC, here.

מדינת הלכה: התיעוב והאימה

העת לתשובה ציבורית

אפשר לטעון שמה שהניע את המפלגות בקמפיין הבחירות “ממשלה חילונית” היא שנאה ותיעוב לדת. אולם מאיר אטינגר סובר שזוהי פרשנות נוחה לא נכונה. קראו מה שיש לו להגיד

יש עוד הרבה מאד מה לכתוב על הבחירות ועל תוצאות הבחירות, על הצפוי לנו בעתיד הקרוב ובעתיד הרחוק. מילים רבות נכתבו על הצד הפוליטי של הסיפור – החיבורים והאחודים, קמפיינים, שרפת קולות, וכדו’. לדעתי, שכתבתי אותה כבר כאן בפעם קודמת, הניסיון ארוך השנים מלמד שלפוליטיקה הזו מעבר לריח הצחנה העולה ממנה ומעכיר את ניחוחות ימי אלול, יש משמעות פחותה מזו שמייחסים לה.

אוכל לומר בזהירות שהתוצאות שעלו מוכיחות יפה טענה זו. הוויכוחים עליהם נשרפו כאן שעות יקרות שהיו יכולות להיות מנוצלות לעשייה התגלו כחסרות ערך. לשם משל: אילו היו מצרפים את קולות ‘עוצמה-יהודית’ ל’ימינה’ המפה לא היתה משתנה, ולהפך. גם כל קונסטלציה שונה של הציבור הדתי-לאומי לא היתה מספקת את החסר. שוב הוכח שהתהליכים החברתיים גדולים על ההנדסה הפוליטית.

אם נחזור לתהליכים החברתיים שהביאו למצב הנוכחי, אפשר לזהות לדעתי שלושה (מן הסתם ישנם הרבה יותר) נושאים שהיו משמעותיים ביותר בבחירות האחרונות. בשלושתם השקיעו ארגוני שמאל משאבים רבים, אם כי לא כולם היו יוזמה של אותם ארגונים.  השלושה הם: מאבקי דת-ומדינה והקרע בין דתיים וחילונים. הברית שבין ערביי ישראל לשמאל. והאתיופים.

על ערביי ישראל צריך לכתוב טור נפרד. ההבנה של ארגוני השמאל שלא יוכלו יותר להשיג רוב יהודי, הניעה אותם לבנות על השותפות עם הערבים כברית על מנת להשפיע על צביונה של המדינה. אזהרת התורה על ‘לשיכים בעיניכם ולצנינים בצידכם’ מתממשת לעינינו. חוסר נכונותו של הימין להכיר בסכנת הזהות השנקפת מערביי ישראל, שבאה לידי ביטוי באמירות אומללות כמו זו של נפתלי בנט: 99% נאמנים למדינה, מסכנת כיום כפשוטו את עתידו של העם היהודי. לבעיה זו ישנו רק פתרון אחד, שכדי להגיע אליו צריך לפעול בחזיתות רבות ואמצעי הסברה מגוונים – להגיע לחקיקה/הסכמה גורפת שעתידו של העם היהודי יקבע רק על ידי רוב יהודי.

הפעם אני רוצה להתמקד בנושא שלכאורה היה המכריע ביותר בבחירות האחרונות – יחסי ה’דת ומדינה’. כוחו הגדל של ליברמן, ההישג של ‘כחול-לבן’ נזקף לקמפיין שהביא לידי ביטוי את החשש של חילונים רבים מפני השינוי הדמוגרפי לטובת ה’חרדים’ והאימה מפני מדינת הלכה.

הקמפיין של מפלגות ה”ממשלה חילונית” כמו ישראל ביתנו וכחול לבן, הדגיש שוב ושוב שאין להם שום דבר נגד היהדות, אלא אך ורק נגד מדינת הלכה. ליברמן התפאר באשתו וביתו ה’דוסיות’, ב’כחול לבן’ יצאו למסע פרסום בציונות הדתית, ובני גנץ הצטלם בבית כנסת ובכותל.

אפשר לטעון שמדובר בתרמית, ודמגוגיה, ובאמת מה שהניע אותם זו שנאה ותיעוב לדת. לטעמי זוהי פרשנות נוחה אבל לא נכונה.

מעטים מאד היהודים שיש להם אנטי ליהדות היום. בשונה מלפני חמישים שנה, הפעילות הענפה של תנועות התשובה, מפעל השליחות האדיר של הרבי מליובאוויטש, קריסתה של תפיסת העולם החומרנית-קומוניסטית ועוד, הפכו את הרוב המוחלט של הציבור היהודי למסורתי, אוהב יהדות, מתרגש לשמוע קול שופר ונמס להניח תפילין. ברמת התשובה הפרטית – גם מצביעי ליברמן ייענו ברצון להצעה להניח תפילין, או ליטול לולב.

הפחד מהדתיים או מהחרדים מתחיל כאשר עוברים להיבט הציבורי, בעוד העולם הדתי הפרטי, מגיע עמוס ברוחניות, נוגע בפנימיות. במישור הציבורי, היהדות משווקת כחוקים, פוליטיקה, גדרות וחומות. המחשבה של יהודי חילוני-מסורתי על מה יהיה כאן כאשר תהיה מדינה יהודית היא מבעיתה, הוא מדמיין משהו בין סעודיה לאיראן. הוא שואל את עצמו על מה תתבסס הכלכלה אם יהיה רוב לחברת אברכי כולל, ומי ישמור על המדינה, אם כל הבחורים יהיו בישיבה.

לפחד הזה יש אשם מרכזי – והוא הציבור הדתי עצמו, שבעצמו לא יודע להגיד כיצד תראה מדינה יהודית, על אחת עמה וכמה להסביר מדוע זה טוב. המפלגות החרדיות-דתיות נאבקות על הסטטוס-קוו, כדי לומר: לא באנו לשנות, אנחנו רק שומרים על עצמנו. אבל לא רק שזה לא משכנע, זה מרתיע עוד יותר – כי אם הרוב יהיה עסוק בהגנה על עצמו, אז מי יגן על המדינה? אם הם עצמם לא יודעים להגיד מה הם רוצים שיהיה, סביר להניח שמבלי משים תרחישי הבלהות שלנו יתממשו.

הפחד הזה מתרגם לעשרות נושאים הנמצאים בליבת יחסי הדת ומדינה: מה יהיה כאן בקשר למעמד האישה, לייצוג נשים בכנסת, מי יתגייס לצבא, איך זה ישפיע על גובה התמ”ג, האם יסגרו התיאטרונים?, הם תהיה תקשורת חופשית? הילדים שלנו יעברו בגרות? וכו’. קל חומר כאשר מכניסים למשוואה את החולאים האמתיים של החברה הדתית שמשודרים לצופה החילוני ללא הרף.

אי אפשר לזלזל בפחד הזה, ולו בגלל העובדה שציבור הדתי והחרדי כציבור עצמו אין מענה. והשתיקה מתפרשת כהודאה – בגרוע מכל מבחינם של החילונים.

בצומת דרכים זו ישנם שתי אפשרויות.

אפשרות אחת שמוצעת זה זמן רב היא לחזור ולהצניע את היהדות בתוך בית הכנסת, להציג ‘יהדות מקרבת ומכילה’, כזו שתחום עיסוקה היחיד הוא רוחניות, ויש לה להציע לאדם רק מענה לבעיותיו האישיות. לחדול מדיבורים על בית המקדש, או על משפט עברי, ממאבקים או כל ניסיון להנהיג.

אפשרות כזו אינה באמת רלוונטית, פירושו של דבר הוא השלמה עם הגלות, שהרי מהי הגלות? אם לא התכנסותה של התורה לד’ אמותיה. אבל לא רק ויתור על חזון אדיר, על חלום דורות יש כאן. אלא גם סכנה כפולה: ראשית, בדורנו זניחת המרחב הציבורי למהרסייך ומחריבייך תחריב את היהדות, ללא הגנה על הקיים, הכוחות הפועלים כבר היום שרק ילכו ויגדלו יקעקעו את עולם היהדות. ושנית, המציאות מוכיחה ששיטה זו לא עובדת, המפלגות החרדיות שנזהרות כמעט ולא לתבוע דבר, מואשמות יותר מכל בכפיה דתית.

האפשרות השנייה והמתבקשת היא לעבור מתשובה פרטית לתשובה ציבורית.

למה הכוונה תשובה ציבורית? בדיוק כמו בתנועת התשובה, ללמד כיצד נראית מדינת התורה, (לשם כך כמובן צריך ללמוד), להפיץ, לדבר, להעמיק, להוציא סרטונים, מודעות, קמפיינים, שיסבירו למה זה טוב, ולמה זה נכון, וכמה זה אור.

במקום לברוח מהעיסוק בסוגיות ה’נפיצות’ לכאורה, לחתור למגע, ללמוד וללמד. הרי אם אנחנו באמת מאמינים שהתורה היא תורת-חיים, זה נכון לא רק בסוגיות הפרט אלא בסוגיות הכלל. גם שם דבריה “נחמדים מזהב ומתוקים מדבש ונופת צופים”.

המפגש של היהודי החילוני המצוי כיום עם היהדות בנשואי הציבור הוא נטול עומק, נטול פנימיות, הסוגיות הציבוריות הצפות בכלי התקשורת נתפסות כחקיקה שרירותית, וכמאבקים פוליטיים, אפילו המאבקים על ארץ ישראל עבור מהמישור החזוני-רוחני לביטחון והשרדות.

האם עיסוק בנושאים כאלו לא עלול להעיר את הדובים, האם הוא לא עלול לגרוף התנגדות? בוודאי. אבל כמו בכל מאבק ללא חתירה למגע מפסידים ללא קרב.

הגענו לימים בהם עיסוק בתשובה פרטית אינה מרגיעה את החשש מהמדינה היהודית העלומה והמאיימת. ימים שבהם בעתיד הקרוב שומרי התורה והמצוות ייעשו לרוב מסוים ואז ללא שנדבר גם חלוקת סופגניות הופכת למאיימת, ותורה מקרבת לחשש ממדינת הלכה. זו העת לתשובה ציבורית.

מאתר הקול היהדי, כאן.

The Torah Is ‘A Staff of Pleasantness’ ONLY in Eretz Yisrael!

The Torah as God’s Song (Vayelech 5780)

At the end of his life, having given the Israelites at God’s behest 612 commands, Moses gave them the final mitzvah: “Now therefore write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be My witness against the people of Israel” (Deut. 31:19).

According to the plain sense of the verse, God was speaking to Moses and Joshua and was referring to the song in the following chapter, “Listen, O heavens, and I will speak; hear, O earth, the words of my mouth” (Deut. 32:1). However, Oral Tradition gave it a different and much wider interpretation, understanding it as a command for every Jew to write, or at least take some part in writing, a Sefer Torah:

Said Rabbah: Even though our ancestors have left us a scroll of the Torah, it is our religious duty to write one for ourselves, as it is said: “Now therefore write down for yourselves this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be My witness against the people of Israel.” (Sanhedrin 21b)

The logic of the interpretation seems to be, first, that the phrase “write down for yourselves” could be construed as referring to every Israelite (Ibn Ezra), not just Moses and Joshua. Second, the passage goes on to say (Deut. 31:24): “Moses finished writing in the book the words of this law from beginning to end.” The Talmud offers a third reason. The verse goes on to say: “That this song may be My witness against the people” – implying the Torah as a whole, not just the song in chapter 32 (Nedarim 38a).

Thus understood, Moses’ final message to the Israelites was: “It is not enough that you have received the Torah from me. You must make it new again in every generation.” The covenant was not to grow old. It had to be periodically renewed.

So it is to this day that Torah scrolls are still written as in ancient times, by hand, on parchment, using a quill – as were the Dead Sea Scrolls two thousand years ago. In a religion almost devoid of sacred objects (icons, relics), the Torah scroll is the nearest Judaism comes to endowing a physical entity with sanctity.

My earliest memories are of going to my late grandfather’s little beit midrash in North London and being given the privilege, as a two or three-year-old child, of putting the bells on the Torah scroll after it had been lifted, rolled, and rebound in its velvet cover. Even then, I had a sense of the awe in which the scroll was held by the worshippers in that little house of study and prayer. Many of them were refugees. They spoke with heavy accents redolent of worlds they had left, worlds that I later discovered had been destroyed in the Holocaust. There was an air of ineffable sadness about the tunes they sang – always in a minor key. But their love for the parchment scroll was palpable. I later defined it as their equivalent of the rabbinic tradition about the Ark in the wilderness: it carried those who carried it (Rashi to I Chr. 15:26). It was my first intimation that Judaism is the story of a love affair between a people and a book, the Book of books.

What, though – if we take the command to refer to the whole Torah and not just one chapter – is the significance of the word “song” (shira): “Now therefore write down for yourselves this song”? The word shira appears five times in this passage. It is clearly a key word. Why? On this, two nineteenth-century scholars offered striking explanations.

The Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, 1816–1893, one of the great yeshiva heads of the nineteenth century) interprets it to mean that the whole Torah should be read as poetry, not prose; the word shira in Hebrew means both a song and a poem. To be sure, most of the Torah is written in prose, but the Netziv argued that it has two characteristics of poetry. First, it is allusive rather than explicit. It leaves unsaid more than is said. Secondly, like poetry, it hints at deeper reservoirs of meaning, sometimes by the use of an unusual word or sentence construction. Descriptive prose carries its meaning on the surface. The Torah, like poetry, does not.[1]

In this brilliant insight, the Netziv anticipates one of the great twentieth-century essays on biblical prose, Erich Auerbach’s “Odysseus’ Scar.”[2] Auerbach contrasts the narrative style of Genesis with that of Homer. Homer uses dazzlingly detailed descriptions so that each scene is set out pictorially as if bathed in sunlight. By contrast, biblical narrative is spare and understated. In the example Auerbach cites – the story of the binding of Isaac – we do not know what the main characters look like, what they are feeling, what they are wearing, what landscapes they are passing through.

The decisive points of the narrative alone are emphasised, what lies between is non-existent; time and place are undefined and call for interpretation; thoughts and feelings remain unexpressed, only suggested by the silence and the fragmentary speeches; the whole, permeated with the most unrelieved suspense and directed towards a single goal, remains mysterious and “fraught with background.”[3]

A completely different aspect is alluded to by Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein, author of the halachic code Aruch HaShulchan.[4] Epstein points out that the rabbinic literature is full of arguments, about which the Sages said: “These and those are the words of the living God.”[5] This, says Epstein, is one of the reasons the Torah is called “a song” – because a song becomes more beautiful when scored for many voices interwoven in complex harmonies.

I would suggest a third dimension. The 613th command is not simply about the Torah, but about the duty to make the Torah new in each generation. To make the Torah live anew, it is not enough to hand it on cognitively – as mere history and law. It must speak to us affectively, emotionally.

The 613th command, to make the Torah new in every generation, symbolises the fact that though the Torah was given once, it must be received many times, as each of us, through our study and practice, strives to recapture the pristine voice heard at Mount Sinai. That requires emotion, not just intellect. It means treating Torah not just as words read, but also as a melody sung. The Torah is God’s libretto, and we, the Jewish people, are His choir, the performers of His choral symphony. And though when Jews speak they often argue, when they sing, they sing in harmony, as the Israelites did at the Red Sea, because music is the language of the soul, and at the level of the soul Jews enter the unity of the Divine which transcends the oppositions of lower worlds.

The Torah is God’s song, and we collectively are its singers.

Shabbat Shalom

[1] “Kidmat Davar,” preface to Ha’amek Davar, 3.

[2] Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 3–23.

[3] Ibid., 12.

[4] Aruch HaShulchan, Choshen Mishpat, introduction.

[5] Eiruvin 13b; Gittin 6b.

[6] Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour, July 13, 1798” (Favourite Poems [Mineola, NY: Dover, 1992], 23).

From Rabbi Sacks, here.

ISRAEL: Debunking Demography Despair

Israel’s Jewish Demography Refutes Pessimism

Posted on: September 29th, 2019

In defiance of Israel’s “demographers of doom” – who have promoted the myth of an Arab demographic time bomb – the September 2019 data published by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) documents the sustained Westernization of Arab fertility rate (number of births per woman), a persisting increase in the Jewish fertility rate, growing Aliyah (Jewish immigration) and the decline of Jewish emigration.

According to the ICBS, the Jewish fertility rate for 2018 ascended to 3.17 births per woman, while the westernized Arab fertility rate decreased to 3.04. When the Jewish father is Israeli-born, which points at the current trend, the Jewish fertility rate grows to 3.34 births per woman.

In 1969, the gap between Arab and Jewish fertility rates was six more births per Arab woman; in 2015, the gap was closed at 3.13 each.  This evolved into a Jewish edge in 2016 (3.16:3.11) and reached an all-time high Jewish edge in 2018 – 3.17:3.04.

The systematic Westernization of the Arab fertility rate characterizes the Muslim World, other than the Sub-Sahara societies.  According to the 2019 edition of the CIA World Fact Book, Jordan’s fertility rate is 3.14 births per woman, the West Bank – 3.2, Saudi Arabia – 2.04, Kuwait – 2.35, the UAE – 1.73, Egypt – 3.41, Iran – 1.96, etc. Israel’s Jewish fertility rate is higher than any Arab country other than Yemen, Iraq, Egypt and Sudan.

The Westernization of the fertility of Israeli Arabs (as well as the Arabs of Judea and Samaria) has been, primarily, a derivative of a rapid and substantial urbanization, as well as the enhanced stature of Arab women. Israeli Arab women are rapidly upgrading their integration in the education system (74% of registered Arab students from elementary schools through academic institutions), expanding their role in the job market and career opportunities, delaying wedding age to 23-25 year old (not 15 as it used to be), completing the fertility process at 45 (not 55 as it used to be) and dramatically increasing the use of contraceptives and resorting to abortion. There has also been a rise in the number of single Arab women.

In 2018, there were 141,000 Jewish births, 76.6% of total Israeli births, compared with 1995 when it was 69% of total births.  Contrary to conventional wisdom, the substantial increase in the number of Jewish births has occurred due to the rise in secular Jewish fertility, while the ultra-orthodox fertility rate has decreased mildly.  The growth of the Jewish fertility rate is attributed to a high level of optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, collective responsibility and declining abortion.

Furthermore, in 1990, there were 14,200 additional Israeli emigrants, staying abroad for over a year (overall Israeli emigrants less than returning Israelis). According to the ICBS, in 2017 there were 5,900 additional emigrants – a reduction of 58%, compared to 1990, while Israel’s population doubled itself from 4.5 million to 9 million. A substantial decline in the number of emigrants started in 2007-2008, during the collapse of the global economy, attesting to the positive state of Israel’s economy.

While the world has accepted the official Palestinian population data, without examination/auditing, the Palestinian Authority has consistently inflated the size of its population in the following manner:

*Over 400,000 overseas residents – away for more than a year and mostly from Judea and Samaria – are included in the Palestinian census, contrary to internationally accepted standards, which authorize de-facto count. Such an illegal practice was pronounced by the Head of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the PCBS website, the Palestinian Election Commission, the Palestinian Interior Undersecretary, etc.  The number grows through births.

*330,000 Jerusalem Arabs, possessing Israeli ID cards, are doubly counted: as Israeli Arabs by Israel and as West Bankers by the Palestinian Authority. The number grows through births.

Continue reading…

From The Ettinger Report, here.

Eretz Yisrael Is a Jew’s ‘Natural Habitat’

This Is Our Own

Various Perspectives and Experiences of English speakers Living in Eretz Yisroel

As a Jew, this is my real home. It’s my own culture, my own alphabet all around me. Prophecies come alive. A large portion of our Torah is relevant only here.

It’s only my first day in Eretz Yisroel and I already receive Bircas Kohanim. When I buy any produce, I have to make sure terumos and ma’aseros were separated or do it myself. This is HaShem’s special Land and His Presence is manifested also by His special rules for what grows here. It makes His Presence feel even more real.

For the Chinese, it’s China. That is their natural habitat and that is where they thrive. For the Japanese, it’s Japan. For the Spaniards, it’s Spain. For us Yidden, it’s Eretz Yisroel. This Land is suited to us, and we to the Land. Any place in golus has not held us for more than a few hundred years. We cannot really thrive anywhere else, not even in Williamsburg or Lakewood. This Land has grown the largest concentration of world-recognized gedolim from across the Torah spectrum.

If you were to dig under my former house in Brooklyn, you would probably find nothing, maybe mechanical oil. Anywhere in our Land, the ground is saturated with history—our own history. There are kivrei tzaddikim all around. Even Adam HaRishon is buried here, and that’s world history.

Not so far outside of the Williamsburg bubble I lived in, kosher food is just a small percentage of what’s available. In our own country, the percentages are the other way around.

My first exposure to the beautiful fabric of this nation we are part of was in Uman on Rosh Hashana. (I always say if you would like to see how we will look like after the redemption, just come to Uman Rosh Hashana. It’s a yearly rehearsal of the geula hosted by Rabbi Nachman.) I identified strongly with a scene from a story of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, where two people lost in a forest take shelter in a tree from where they hear the scary sounds of all the different kinds of wild animals. At first, they were shaken with fear and did not pay attention to the sounds, but as they paid closer attention, they heard there was a very wondrous sound of music and song which was an extremely awesome and powerful pleasure to hear. It was me who was lost in that scary forest of all different kinds of Eretz Yisroel’s people in Uman, originally as foreign and scary to me as the “wild animals” in the story, but as time went on and I became more comfortable with the “sounds,” I picked up on the beauty and wonder of the makeup of Am Yisroel.

Back in Williamsburg, I would daven at “The Shtiebel,” where there is a big map of Eretz Yisroel hanging on the wall and the mizrach was designed to resemble the Kosel. Eretz Yisroel is the primary subject over there. Also, many Israelis would pass through in another shul that I attended, some of them collecting funds for marrying off their children. I would tell them that creating such a necessity for them to fundraise abroad, is HaShem’s way of making sure to bring a lifeline—the atmosphere of Eretz Yisroel—to us Yidden in chutz la’Aretz.

After the second year I was in Uman Rosh Hashana, as a chosson already, I took the opportunity to continue for a short visit to Eretz Yisroel, primarily to get hadracha from R’ Yaakov Meir Shechter, shlit”a. I of course also went around to the mekomos hakedoshim, including Meron, Tzefas, and T’veria. A short while before that, I remember saying from R’ Nosson of Breslov’s Likuttei Tefillos, “vezakeini lavo l’Eretz Yisroel,” and not understanding why it’s such a zechus to come to Eretz Yisroel, but I figured that if he wrote it, I’m not going to skip it. It took some more time for my connection to Eretz Yisroel to develop, and for the first seven years of married life, I was still in Williamsburg.

At one point in time, I decided to quit my full-time job and become self-employed as an IT guy. At that time, one of the Israelis who knew me heard that I was free from my job, so he offered me a job in Eretz Yisroel with a very generous weekly salary, but only if I would give an answer that I am ready to move there within two weeks. It was too short of a notice for me, but it did make me aware that a decent parnossa is possible in Eretz Yisroel.

I always knew that I didn’t want to invest heavily in being connected to chutz la’Aretz, so I was glad that my first car lease in NY was only for twenty-four months. I didn’t want any magnetizing ratzon keeping me from moving on.

A lot of people I know don’t think of Eretz Yisroel as a normal place to live comfortably. They are not aware that there are tens, if not hundreds and thousands, of chutznikim that are living here and enjoying it . With research, you can find people here just like you—Yeshivish, Heimish, or any type of Chareidi.

There is an important teaching of R’ Nachman to keep in mind though—the middah of arichus apayim (patience) is a prerequisite for being zoche to Eretz Yisroel, and Eretz Yisroel is a catalyst for developing arichus apayim. Be excited, but don’t jump into things; you’ve got to have bitachon, but be careful and calculated. Flexibility is also of utmost importance.

After the Holocaust, America was an amazing and beautiful stop, but why stay in golus if HaShem is “screaming” in His way that we should come home?

Vacation Is Over, but We’re Still Here

One year, while we were still living in the US and our oldest child was six years old, we made a calculation that instead of going to the mountains for the summer we could financially pull off a five-week summer vacation in Eretz Yisroel.

Once here, it ended up working out for us to stay for Elul and Tishrei as well, so we enrolled our children in the local mosdos. Once they were accepted to the mosdos, why should we go back?

As an IT freelancer, I still worked with my customers remotely. Eventually, I migrated from working remotely with clients from abroad in NY. I launched my “Computer Expert” services in the local market in the Yerushalayim area, and I now perform as a Chassidic singer with my own music band for kumzitzim and boutique events.

During the first winter, we ended up going back to the US for a month and a-half for the weddings of two siblings. My children attended their original schools, and this way we all had the chance to part from our family and friends before coming back to our new life in Eretz Yisroel, which started almost by chance—or more accurately—by the Hashgacha Pratis that surrounds us here.

– Yosef Zev Braver, Romema, Yerushalayim

 

This article is part of our Eretz Chemdah series featuring Anglo-Chareidim living in, settling, and building up Eretz Yisroel. A joint project of Avira D’Eretz Yisroel, Kedushas Tzion and Naava Kodesh, coordinated by Yoel Berman – info@naavakodesh.org.

Reprinted with permission from Naava Kodesh.