Beware

I heard an American rabbi who moved to Israel say that everyone knows that people in Israel are more frum. Let's unpack this nonsense. Of course, he doesn't mean chilonim, the 4.5 million Sabbath violators. He couldn't mean the Dati Leumi who tend to be less frum than American Modern Orthodox. He must mean Yeshivah people and Chassidim. But the Chassidim are not frummer. I have spent lots of time around both. There's a remakable consistency to Chassidim wherever they are. So does he mean the handful of Charedi towns vs. says Lakewood? Well, they are generally more modestly dressed in Israel and they are less materialistic, but their middos aren't as good and their thinking is wacky which is not the same as being yeshivish. It seems to me that less chesed is done in Israel. So who is frummer?

But most of that is irrelevant anyway. Because the people who make aliyah generally don't go to Bene Brak. It's pretty hard to fit into that world. So they come to Jerusalem or Beit Shemesh or Elad and if they can find jobs, which is difficult, they oftentimes are jobs over the internet working American hours. So the kids see the Internet going all day long and they want to watch too. They don't distinguish work from browsing. And eventually they get on the Internet too. And that generally destroys them. I have seen this happen a dozen times.

Additionally, Israel's overreaction to COVID locked the kids out of schools and put them on Zoom classes. Some activists claim that response was crafted to schmad the children. So kids who had never seen Internet became Internet users.

So this rabbi's comment was laced with Zionism. You'll find that with nearly everybody who moves to Israel, some kind of Zionistic propaganda in their heads. The idea that they are frummer in Israel is simply Zionism. It's a myth. And it may lead you to move here where you find that your kids go way down.

So what about Meah She'arim. They are quite frum there. But you are not moving to Meah She'arim either, particularly if you and your kids don't speak yiddish. Practically speaking, you might find that your religious level and that of your family takes quite a hit in Israel. Beware.