Almost Eden

The Nefesh B'Nefesh e-mail list has been hopping lately with prospective olim asking questions about whether or not it makes sense to ship their appliances, electronics and/or furniture to Israel on their lift or container. And others have written to me… more »

My blog experienced a fatal shutdown last week, so I’m going to give you a quick update on the little things you missed... The closing on our house, closets arrived, shopping with Shoshana in Geula, the First International Jewish Blogger's Convention, Customs Paperwork, Backpack Shopping,and finally Shabbat! more »

Cashing our NBN grant check at Cheerfully Changed, Jerusalem Shopping and Visiting the Kotel (Western Wall) more »

Our washing machine was installed today! And the guy showed up ON TIME (with 15 minutes of the 6 hour window to spare)! In Israel you must have a technician connect the washer in order for the warranty to be valid. I now know the reason; the technician is also a salesperson who brings all sorts of nifty add-ons with him... more »

Monday, July 21st: We waited for the delivery man to bring us the HP M1522nf printer we ordered last Thursday – according to Oren at Logistic Laser it was supposed to be delivered last Thursday, if not then Sunday afternoon. Well we waited around all day Sunday and they didn’t show up. When I called to complain today, they told us it would be here before noon. The guy showed up at 2:10 PM and he knew nothing about picking up my cartridges for the printer I no longer have and exchanging them for the new ones. more »

Thursday, July 17th: I took the bus up to Kikar Yaalom and ordered 6 hand-made closets and book cases. Most apartments and houses in Israel don’t have built in closets – and we had sold our bookcases in the US because they were the pressed board type from Home Depot that don’t knock down and reassemble easily. We were fortunate to find a nice Jewish cabinet maker (I have issues buying from Arabs when they blow up buses and bulldoze people down in the streets of Jerusalem!) who hand makes these items out of solid wood for very reasonable prices. Hopefully we’ll receive 3 closets with rods, drawers and shelves, and 3 bookcases with doors (to keep the dust off of things) in about 3 weeks. He’s even going to try to build a wine rack into one of the bookcases. more »

Wednesday, July 16th: We had a 10 AM appointment at the Misrad HaKlita(the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption - MoIA) and hired Daniella Aaron to watch Yisrael so we wouldn’t have to listen to "this is SO boring", "do we HAVE to go to another place? Can’t we just go home?" etc. She is a great sitter – he loved her and we were very happy! We took the #175 bus to the Central Bus Station and then the #20 (I think) to King George St. and walked to Hillel St. to meet with Ina at Misrad HaKlita. Ina set up MoIA’s direct deposit of our sal klita (monthly financial benefit to help with living expenses until we have jobs) payments into our bank account, and advised us about ulpan and other benefits. It was the quickest, most pleasant appointment we've had with any government office (US or Israel) that I can recall. more »

Michael and Yisrael stayed home waiting for the refrigerator delivery and possibly the "technician" who was to bring and "install" our ADSL modem. I took the bus to the post office to exchange money (less expensive than doing it at the bank – better exchange rate), and attempted to pay the health insurance registration fees (14.7 shekels for each adult = $4.34 – no charge for children). The guy at the counter told me that I needed a Bituach Leumi card (national health insurance), he wouldn’t accept the form the Ministry of Absorption gave me at the airport – this was after I waited on line for about 40 minutes! more »

Between the long line of people waiting and the process opening a bank account took about 1-1/2 hours with the help of a very nice English speaking clerk from Brooklyn named Zahava. All the paperwork in Hebrew was a bit overwhelming, but then I reminded myself that I never read all those U.S. bank disclosures anyway (and I worked for a bank!) I may think differently when our first statement comes - will that be in the mail? Not sure, but we do have online banking and I have managed to log on and find everything I need (in English). One interesting thing about this bank is that they gave us a dollar account separate from the shekel account. I thought it was for our convenience until Zahava declined my offer to deposit a thousand US dollars in the newly opened account. She told me that it would be better for me to change the dollars to shekels at the Post Office and deposit those because of the bank's lower exchange rate and higher fees. more »

Bezeq installed our land line and turned on the ADSL outside, but didn’t deliver the modem because we ordered our service through an olim special with 012 (Internet Service Provider). In Israel you either need Cable or Bezeq ADSL + an Internet Service Provider in order to get online service. After that we left on an adventure to Talpiot around Noon (via bus #175 to Central Bus Station and bus #20 to the Hadar Mall) where our friend Bella Hyman (who drove up from Efrat) showed us where to shop and translated for us. We purchased... more »