I can understand what Mr. Rubin is going through. Israel is a place that you either love or hate, there seems to be no in-between. I made aliyah in 96 but first came here in 92. I have never taken anything from the government nor will I. Rubin is right about the severe lack of organisation and communication.... it is infurating... but hey, thats Israel. You either love it or hate it, and if being here has done you no favours... then the best thing to do is to leave and say "Hey, at least I tried"

its true. why the hell leaving the US for this stupid country? there are so many flaws in ever y level here.... stay there.

The Jewish agency really shouldn't show Israel as more than it is. It brings people who come just for the money. I don't want those people to come, I'd rather that they stay in the countries. Only people who decide to come because of Zionism should come.

Chaya unfortunately your mistaken. I too had the same thing happen to me. A check book from an innactive account was stolen from my residence without my knowledge. I started receiving calls from the black market saying that i owed them 10's of thousands of dollars. I asked where did you get these bogus checks from and they said it doesnt matter who gave them to us, what matters is that its from your account. Needless to say I went to the police and the bank. The police did nothing because legally I was responsible for the bogus checks(since I didnt inform the police or the bank of the theft). Eventually I had no choice but to pay off the bad checks.( I am currently sueing the bank for not informing me that checks from a dormant account were being processed and bounced) The arduous journey has taken 5 years , endless court dates and 15,000 shekels to date. When will it end? Maybe my kids will inherit the case.

This guy sounds like a real loser... writing out bad checks on people knowing he was going to cancel them... how irresponsible!! Who is to say he wouldn't have failed in the US anyway?? It sounds to me like he has some sort of alchohol problem....(??!!) Making Aliyah to Israel is a serious move. You've got to be prepared and ready. IT IS the land of milk and honey; the people are incredible, the weather, the food, the women - amazing! I highly recommend it. I made Aliyah five months ago and I am better off here than in London. Financially, I earn my money from business deals related to my existing intl business so I earn ££ and spend nis! Thats the smart way to manage your Aliyah ;-)

Black market checks are rampant in this country. Here checks are considered legal tender. If you don't cross the top of the check it can be passed around like cash.

So in essence even if the check is voided by the bank and returned you still owe the the money regardless if the check was stolen and the signature forged (Believe me I'm an expert on the issue)

Mr. Rubin's inexperience with checks is not unique to Israel. In the U.S., a check that isn't "crossed" is also a negotiable instrument that can be tendered to a third-party. When the third-party obtains the instrument for value, and legitimately doesn't know that the check was cancelled, he also has a claim against the payor (person who wrote the check). As other readers have noted, the legal remedy is to sue the landlord who passed the check even though he knew it was cancelled. It's sad that some people succeed fantastically in Israel, and other olim never manage to learn the language, integrate into the job market, or find their way, There are some olim living paycheck to paycheck, but there are also olim lawyers, doctors, and business people who live in mansions and made millions.

My parents heard this joke about Ben Gurion over 30 years ago in Jerusalem: Ben Gurion had a dream that he visited heaven and hell. In heaven, he saw the righteous learning Torah, praising Hashem, and he thought, "this is so lame." Then he visited hell, and he saw guys and girls partying, drinking, dancing, having fun, and he thought, "this is more like it!" Not long afterward, Ben Gurion passed away and found himself before the Heavenly Court. The angelic judges told him, "because you were the first Prime Minister of the Israeli state, you can choose whether you want to go to heaven or to hell." Ben Gurion remembered his dream, and he said, "I choose hell!" They said, "you are absolutely sure about this?" And he said, "Yeah, heaven is so boring." So he was escorted down below, where he was chained to a wall, butt deep in excrement, and laughing devils turned the thermostat up to GRILL. Ben Gurion started to scream and yell. "This is not what I was shown in my dream!" "Yeah, well, then you were a tourist. Now you're an OLEH CHADASH!"

I arrived jsut a few years ago from Canada and I can completely empathise with the subject of the article. I make a good living here (unlike most people) and have wonderful friends but for some reason, the brutality and injustice of this country is still shocking. I used to love Israel blindly before I arrived, but now like a spouse I see all the warts and scars and its really ugly sometimes. Some people are more fragile than others and relocating them to this country from a truly western country (even Russia) can be very damaging. There are many people who come and fail and go home scarred. If you invite people to relocate into such a radically different environment you need to truly support those that need it or weed them out before they come or we are just doing damage to them and ourselves. We can't just expect everyone to come and succeed and if not, too bad. In response to one of the talkbacks above, here's a thought: maybe Israel is like this because it is 80% Jewish, not because it is Israeli? And maybe Jewish life in the diaspora is more genteel because of our christian neighbors?

As a recent oleh (arrived here 3 months ago), Mr Rubin certainly has my sympathy for his predicament. He should have looked at the immigrants in his country before deciding to come. They work all around you, cleanign toilets, offices, etc. You can see them manning checkouts in supermarkets or stacking shelves. You don't need to be a genius to realise that if you opt to be an immigrant, you start at the bottom again, even wth a little help from the government. Israel is no different, who cleans the toilets, the malls, or works in the supermarkets here? Russian and Ethiopian olim. The sochnut in London didn't tell me that Israel was a paradise and even if they had, I already knew what I was letting myself in for. Anyway, who ever heard of someone coming to Israel from the west to make themselvs richer? Its an ideological, or spiritual choice to return here and if you do it you need to have your eyes wide open. Life here is difficult at times (as it is everywhere else). Israelis can seem rude or obnoxious if you don't understand them, but the intention is more often than not coming from the right place, you just need to understand the culture and how people express themselves. Israelis are warm and generous people who will go out of their way to help their friends, or even someone they just met; much more so than in London. The bureaucracy here is a complete mess and if you come here you'll waste lots of time standing in queues, just so you can a get a ticket to join another queue! Be persistant and tell people if you have a problem, if you don't say anything they'll assume everything is okay. As a last resort its useful to know that every office has an exceptions committee, I've been told that if you havea good case you will normally get what you want- it just might take some time! Its frustrating to come a country where can't express yourself fluently in the language- so you have to learn if you want to integrate properly. This is the most important thing. Once you can speak Ivrit, you have a lot more choices in the job market. Unless you are some kind of phenomenon in your respective field don't expect to come here and waltz into a job equivalent to the one you held in the galut. Ask yourself why you are so special that you won't have to do what everyone else does when they come to a country and can barely communicate in the native language? In Engand I earned £25/hour, right now I'll be grateful to earn NIS25/hour, although naturally I hope that will change over time. Like many people have said, you have to accept the reality of Israel as it is and get on with it. Israel is a balagan but its my home now and I will never go back to live in England.

Sorry but... boker tov! It took him 26 years to realize the troubles of aliya? But where else in the world can you move and have ANY kind of help? If an Israeli decided to immigrate to America who would even give him the time of day. I think YNet choose a stupid article here. There are tons of successful aliya stories, I'm one of them. Just think that a few hundred years ago people had to literally go through hell to come to Israel let alone live here. Today things are not perfect but all in all it's a great place to be...the only place for as jew.

I've never had a desire to visit , let alone immigrate to Israel. 7 million Jews surrounded by 300 million Muslim's is not only suicide, but the basis of another Nazi fantasy. I favor bringing Israel's Jews to the USA and Canada. Then we can spot our enemy and know our friends. Ziomism was doomed to fail when the UN approved the State of Israel, but would not provide protection from First, the European Nazi, and then Muslim Nazi. Mr. Rubin's story renews my faith in my judgement. G-d save us all!

How to become a millionaire in Israel Go there as a Billionaire

You live down the hill. Right?

It's not because that their are 80% Jews in Israel, it's the Socialist basis. The State can do not harm, but when it does it's your fault.

Those new olim should get those jobs. Israel does not help fellow Jews. They restrict Ethiopian aliyah and give jobs to people from other countries. They restrict people over 35 who want to work on a kibbutz. I want to work on a kibbutz and Israel says NO because I am 39.

1) He doesn't know "two parallel lines must be placed somewhere on the check in order to denote that the check can only be cashed by its addressee" 2) And STILL doesn't speak Hebrew "Rubin didn’t understand and promptly told the man to please go away" This guy needs a shrink!

I saw the way the russkies were treated over thirty years ago.I see the way they and the ethiopians are treated today.This country needs more immigrants from the west and no place else. As for the problem with the checks, just threatened to throw the guy holding them out his window or something.It helped me with a lawyer once and I never heard from the thief again. It is an old crooked lawyer's trick holding on to checks,then going to court and asking for interest and penalties.They refer to it as a "savings plan".

The US has its insane leftists, far too many of whom are Jewish. But I can't imagine American voters supporting the so-called Disengagment. So, I'm afraid I do think there is a serious moral defect in the AVERAGE Israel, not just in the Israeli Left.

B"H That is a major fear among responsible people. They have a family to support, and quite frankly $50K/year is not so much. Government handouts really do not work tremendously well here, although greatly appreaciated, in terms of building salary up. So someone making plans has a difficult scenario: ->lose income and everything that depends on it because of poor planning. ->or just jump into the waters and hope for the best. I can certainly see if someone goes from an environment where he has cultural ties to an environment where he does not speak the language or understand the law, the transition can be possibly very painful. Someone earning $50K/year cannot expect that unless a job is lined up which pays that amount straight out. And no job is a guarentee of income anymore. In short, I think the concern is legitimate and needs to be addressed. Perhaps this concept of Oleh visa needs more careful consideration, where arrangements are made for internship and setting up the foundations better.

Again, I'm still wondering if there are data on post-aliyah performance, broken down by degree of religious observance, age, country of "origin," and so forth. One talkbacker said one should exect to start at the bottom of a new country. I disagree. If I decided to learn Italian fluently (as opposed to being able to figure it out somewhat), I would not expect to move to Italy and start at the bottom, as if my skills and knowledge now counted for nothing. Why should Israel require this? BTW, I don't think the problem is that Israel is 80% Jewish (as opposed to being mostly Christian). A big part of the problem is that it is about 20% Arab. Part of the problem is also that a government that is not truly democratic (and Israel's is not) is necessarily less accountable to the citizenry. A bad government, unfortunately, makes people bad.

So you guys had to find a loser as a poster boy for aliyah? There are so many stories of successful aliyah, I am one of them. The really successful olim are those you never hear about because we have been absorbed so totally into Israeli society and culture that we are no longer olim, but vatikim. But for the boys from Y-NET I'm sure it was easier to find a whiner rather than a winner to write about. And the Arabs and anti-Semites reading this article love it! But for all of those I can only say that I bore four children to serve in the Israel Defense Forces, my greatest contribution to the Jewish people and the continuation of the existence of the State of Israel.

and I learnt in year 1 that I had to cross a check in order to make sure it wasn't passed on. I was not a financial advisor. This story is a big load of baloney - this guy is down on his luck and I am sorry for him, but the fault is not Israel's, it is his. Trying to blame it on Israel is baloney. When I made aliya, 4 years after him, it was abundantly clear that I was not moving to a first world country. I wasn't offered a room with a view either. I came here, I studied days and worked nights and busted my ass. Today, we are a first world country, I have 4 kids, 1 in a elite unit in the army, lots of comforts and manageable debt. And I didn't come here as a financial professional, just as an open minded student willing to go along with the Zionist dream and see where it would take me.

As stupid as I think the whole story of this guys life is, the one thing that is probably true is the check thing. Even if he had crossed the checks he would be subject to a lawsuit or worse. Cancelling a check is illegal unless you are cancelling a lost check. This guy was just plain stupid. He claims to be a financial advisor - well, the most basic advice of any advisor is don't hand out post-dated checks. Shit happens and you never know when. A check is legal tender and cancelling it is illegal and this guy is not being mistreated by the system in any way. he is just an idiot. On another point, if he was so successful in NY, why is it that he is working as a bellboy in Israel?

he is right the shaliah are selling an israel that doesn' t exist in reality !! the reality is there are deep desorganisation in this country , deep injustice (not for the immigrant) the rights of an immigrant are subject to differencies depanding where you come from !!

I've never heard of that. Do you have to put an "X" on the check somewhere? Or two lines, one above the other? And where on the check do you put it?

I just came to Israel one month ago to do a Kibbutz Ulpan. I was told by kibbutz program center ( run by the Jewish agency) that i would be met and taken to the kibbutz way up north by someone from the kibbutz. 4 hrs later i sit at Ben Gurion airport and decide to take things into my own hands and find my own way to the kibbutz knwoing very little hebrew.When I got to the summmit of the highway the bus dropped me of and i was stuck in the middle of nowhere. the kibbutz was 6 miles away down the road, no taxis around, i had 2 massive bags with me, it was over 100 degrees,( a woman from the kibbutz drove by and say me and took me B"H) first time away from home. i was scared.all this after the jewish agency asked for my flight info promising to have someone there to meet me. once i got to the ulpan, i was told most people were not comming, because the jewish agency told people that this kibbutz had no ulpan. so as of now there are 5 of us in the ulpan. I love israel with all my heart, i hope to make aliyah, i dont expect to have my hand held. However the jewish agency needs to the cut the BS and stop making false promises of helping people finding jobs, helping people get the medical info, findiung a place to live,and such things. Say it like it is, your on your own. Dont like to people to get them to make aliyah and them leave them onthe side of the road for roadkill.

While there is an executive summary in a Word format, we are told to contact the "Information, Planning and Evaluation Section of the Department of Aliyah and Absorption of the Jewish Agency." Me, I prefer also seeing real data as opposed to "executive summaries," especially when the funder of the survey is I presume the Jewish Agency. I think I'll contact Kumah and get more specifics. HOWEVER, those of you who know Hebrew might be able to get the relevant info much faster than I. http://www.kumah.org/blog/archives/2005_12_04_index.php