Jerusalem may be beautiful, and I do enjoy living here, but more and more often, I have the feeling that I need to get out. Everywhere I turn, I hear English. On Saturday night I went to an Idan Raichel concert, had a great time and enjoyed the live music. Between songs, Idan Raichel shared some stories with the crowed, and there was a circle of laughter, twenty seconds later, there was another after the Anglo's in the audience had the tale translated to them.
Yesterday I was in Rishon L'tzion for lunch, there wasn't an English speaker in site, and the fellow travellers on the Jerusalem - Lod buses I travel on certainly speak mother tongue Hebrew. Sure, most of these people are born Sabra's, and it takes time to learn a new language. I have no qualms with people that make the effort to learn Hebrew, but I that the proportion of non-Hebrew speaking olim hints a lack of effort rather than a true inability.
I wrote about this subject back in 2005, and it still annoys me today.
There is another reason to get out of Jerusalem. Municipal taxes are insane. I paid my arnona bill today, it stood at close to 7000NIS, which is higher than the average salary here. Co-workers of mine in Yafo, Tel Aviv and Modiin pay a third of the taxes those of us in the holy city pay, and once the discount for olim runs dry, that's a very large extra expense. Jerusalem was never going to be my home forever. I have no immediate plans to leave either, but when Arnona is due once again, we'll have to think if it's worth paying an extra $1500 a year to live in the midst of an island of English speakers.
Yesterday I was in Rishon L'tzion for lunch, there wasn't an English speaker in site, and the fellow travellers on the Jerusalem - Lod buses I travel on certainly speak mother tongue Hebrew. Sure, most of these people are born Sabra's, and it takes time to learn a new language. I have no qualms with people that make the effort to learn Hebrew, but I that the proportion of non-Hebrew speaking olim hints a lack of effort rather than a true inability.
I wrote about this subject back in 2005, and it still annoys me today.
There is another reason to get out of Jerusalem. Municipal taxes are insane. I paid my arnona bill today, it stood at close to 7000NIS, which is higher than the average salary here. Co-workers of mine in Yafo, Tel Aviv and Modiin pay a third of the taxes those of us in the holy city pay, and once the discount for olim runs dry, that's a very large extra expense. Jerusalem was never going to be my home forever. I have no immediate plans to leave either, but when Arnona is due once again, we'll have to think if it's worth paying an extra $1500 a year to live in the midst of an island of English speakers.
The plus side is the history, the views and the environment. Some of which I was able to capture as I walked through Gan Sacar at 7am the other morning.
Check out the rest on my flickr pages.
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