Income disparity

List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita.

       United States $85,373

       Israel $53,372

Big difference. 

But even this doesn't capture it because the GDP for Jews in America is $129,000. 

Even worse, GDP per Capita in Israel averaged $32,492.68 from 1991 until 2023. So there isn't much wealth built up over the years. 

In 1980 in Israel it was $6,357. In the USA it was $12,575. In 1960 it was $1,229 in Israel and $3,014 in the USA. So figure that the standard of living is much more than double in the USA.

And America goes back 300 years. Even colonial era buildings are more grand than nearly anything in Israel. Israel 70 years ago had very little - a bit in Jerusalem, Yaffo. America has hundreds of years of building infrastructure with much more gusto and style. You cannot compare the two. There is nothing in all of Israel like Princeton University or the Upper East Side of Manhattan or Montclair, NJ or 5,000 other lovely places. No place in Israel is lovely. 

In America and Europe, you drive down the street and enjoy the site of other people's nice houses. You pass grand government buildings. Yankee Stadium cost $1 billion. You can go to a game there and take in the wealth of it all. It's uplifting.

Israel is another matter altogether. You see the difference in the crumbling roads, junky and dirty housing, lack of grand architecture, barren parks of Israel. The difference is vast. Israel is kind of a dump really. Nefesh b'nefesh gives you these photos of lovely new housing. Unless you are coming with lots of money, that's not how you are going to live. And it's not what you are going to pass on the roads or encounter in your neighbor's house.

The aliyah sales people misrepresent life in Israel. Here's how NBN depicts the housing:

Here's what you really get:

Here's what the apartment building will look like:

Can you even afford it? An apartment like this will cost you $700,000. Here's what you can buy in Dallas for that price:

Here's your neighborhood in Israel:

Here's Dallas:

You want to live like that? Is it healthy for you family to experience such a decline? In Israel, the kids will be on top of one another with little play space and little privacy. Will they be able to handle it? If they recall the USA or if their cousins live in nice houses, will they look down on the life you have moved them too? Will they look down on you? The answer is probably yes. 

You want to say, who cares it's goshmiyus? What winds up happening is that you are your family start caring more about goshmiyus because you see what you left behind.

It gets depressing looking at the same white buildings all day long. It also affects emunah. G-d made the world with variety so you will think of Him Who brings about the variety. Israel lacks that in architecture, flora, and culture. It's same, same, same. 

And goshimiyus is what most Zionists care about anyway. If they cared about the keddushah of the land, they wouldn't bring non-religious Jews onto it by the million. They wouldn't have gay pride events or one of the world's highest rates of abortion. 

You want to say that's secular Zionists. That's who runs the country and the Dati Leumi are more in league with them than they are the Haredim. The DL hate the Haredim. 

And the DL also mostly care about goshmiyus. The army is goshmiyus and that's their biggest love. I know many DL. They are always telling me first about the army, then about the economy and the construction. They love cranes. But the cranes are slapping together buildings that are nothing special. 

The economy is nothing special. Zionists make sure to tell you about the inventions that come out of Israel, but there aren't many. Youth is wasted on the military. On the innovation index, Israel rates about 30th, far behind countries of the same size like Finland and Switzerland. And that Israel has 6 million Jews makes this statistic even more disturbing because Jews in Western countries are responsible for many inventions and innovations. Jewish productivity is much lower in Israel. 

I estimate that the standard of living for the typical oleh drops to 20% of what it once was. It can be even less for those who can't find work or find only sweat shop jobs. And there are many people like that.

Yet, cost of living is higher. Here's pants from Walmart. $13.98. They will last for years.

In Israel I spend 250 NIS, which is around $65 for polyester pants that fall apart after 5 months. 

The town I live in recently got some Chinese food. Not a full Chinese restaurant, but a hamburger, sushia, Chinese place. 6 dumplings cost 60 NIS, which is 18 dollars. In the US, I'd pay 6 dollars for that. 

And I'm not even getting into the cost of cars, computers, or anything electronic. 

Sfas Emes - doing mitzvos takes primacy over studying them

 

Paid provocateurs framing the religious Jews

  https://rumble.com/vh17i5-paid-provocateurs-framing-the-religious-jews.html

Baba Matzia 85

Yehuda HaNasi was punished with intestinal problems for saying "Go for this you were created," to a terrified calf that was on the way to the slaughter house. He was cured only after he later instructed a maidservant to spare a weasel that she was chasing from the house, saying "His compassion is on all His works." 

Believe it or not this is part of Judaism. I suspect that the Litvish world picked up some of the cruelty of Eastern Europe and, in their way, attempted to convert it to religious philosophy. And so they have made a mantra of pain, that everything is supposed to be painful. When you go to these guys for aitzah, they tell you to take the most painful course of action. Of course, they don't do that to themselves. Hypocrisy they didn't get from Eastern Europe. That's just yetzer hara. 

The Baal Shem Tov came long to return us to the ways of old, a Judaism that is suffused with mercy and love. So of course, some Litvacks went to war against this as they learned from the Russians a tendency toward combativeness and arrogance. 

narcissisim

 word salad, not answering a question directly, not being able to explain the why of any behaviornot taking responsibility for misbehavior, lacking empathy -- showing only a drop of empathy that is dropped whenever the pressure is on

selfishness, grandiosity, attention seeking, manipulativeness,

vengefulness, obsessing about appearance and reputation

showing a nice face to the world that contradicts the one shown at home

shallow emotion, shallow intellect

blaming others for misbehavior

hot temper, easily triggered

disorganization in one's life

domination of others

Machon Shlomo and narcissistic supply

One of the many problematic practices of Machon Shlomo for several decades was to seek out guys from elite schools but not to provide them with a program that is fitting for people of relatively higher academic intelligence or ambition. Quite to the contrary, MS has a program so minimal that you can't even call it a program. It's two classes, but not even that. It's a Gemara shiur that was delivered for years without any introduction or background. If you have the kind of mind that says, hey, who wrote this book? Why is its style so odd? Why is it part Aramaic, part Hebrew? From where does it get its authority? Well, they won't help you with that. They just open to page 2 and start reading. The other so-called class was a recitation of the Chumash, ie the Chumash was read to you. That's it. Nothing else. And no library, no guest speakers, no visits to anywhere or anyone in Israel, and lots of propagandizing about how Machon Shlomo was the only place in the world with truth.

For, people who are somewhat more intelligent this is devastating. An inquisitive mind can implode in such an environment, and people did implode. Of course, when they did, it's because "they had problems."

So why did the two guys who ran the place seek out such students? And the answer is status. They were using them to build a reputation. In the world of narcissism, this is called narcissistic supply. Read up on the topic and learn all about Machon Shlomo.