It Takes More Than You Think

I've read all the blogs of these fucking foreigners that come here to make Aliyah. Much respect to them because I'm seeing first hand that this isn't easy. But let me tell you something about what it's like to make Aliyah. You get here and you're excited, you feel like you're fulfilling your dream. Fantastic. Good for you. The blogs that you read are by the people who decide to snub the happy and padded life they have set out for them in order to be brave and sacrifice and serve in an army that they're not obligated to serve in. Most of the people I've seen making Aliyah are running from something. They're not here to join the military or get the most out of life, they're here to get an easy way out and try to leave the fuck ups in their home country behind them. The others are trying to escape the poverty and crime of where they're from. There's the occasional person who seems to be making Aliyah out of choice and not because they'd be crazy not to, and occasionally there's someone like me who just wants to go to the army. I assume that most of the people that read this blog feel more or less like that.

You are not special. Thousands upon thousands of people make Aliyah every year. Even though you're the only person in your group of friends who has decided to undertake this crazy mission to join a foreign army, a decision that no one understands, you are not special. Your friends that you make in Israel are going to be mostly other olim (especially if you don't speak Hebrew) and they are going to be more commendable than you because they are coming here as a last ditch resort to escape whatever living conditions they left behind. You will be respected in the army; Israelis will respect what you're doing. But you aren't unique or the first of your kind or one in a million.

I wish I had known before I made Aliyah how slow the drafting process would be. Unless you are doing garin tzabar or Machal, prepare to jump through a lot of hoops and sit on your ass for a long time (1 year on average) before you go to the army. After the first few months the energy and motivation that you had will dissipate. You will be left with nothing but your true and unshakable beliefs about your decision, and they might not be as strong as you think. You might still want to go to the army, but all of a sudden your dreams about Sayeret Matkal vanish and you just want to get your part over with and go to college already.

You think that you'll pick up Hebrew without even trying because you are in Israel but you'll realize after several months that you haven't been giving the learning process its due attention, and if you're the least bit mature you should at least take responsibility for your lack of dedication.

I'm not going to sit here and be one of those blogs that goes on and on about how fulfilling making Aliyah is when you are fucking EIGHTEEN-YEARS-OLD. I had college before me, a future, the approval of both sides of my family, but I decided to take the road the less traveled that is supposedly more rewarding. I do believe that it's more rewarding but I also believe that the pay-off is a long way from here, and these five months on my kibbutz ulpan have been both the slowest and fastest of my entire life.

Don't get me wrong--I made the right decision for myself. I have no doubts about that. Consider this post a warning for what happens when the novelty wears off--when it dawns on you that the next three years of your life are going to be spent without freedom and at the whim of the government of Israel, NOT the people. You join the army here for the people, no doubt, the but the army is ran by the fucking politicians. I've had a soldier tell me personally that illegal weapons were used in Gaza. We're moral out here, and Israel receives a lot of false accusations in the media, but not everything Israel says to defend itself is true. Sometimes Israel does, in my opinion, things that are justified, but they won't be honest about in the NY Times. Are you still prepared to fight? Does getting a job or going to college with the rest of your friends sound better? If it does, I don't blame you.

If you still think that deep in your heart you want to do this, then come over here and I'll buy you a drink. I mean that. But if you don't have what it takes and if you make Aliyah without 100% certainty, it'll really screw things up for you. You might not ever be able to come back to Israel, for starters. Maybe you'll have missed the college application season or that job that you could take has been filled.

This is a dream come true, but unlike dreams, there's a prices to pay and sacrifices to be made. Are you prepared? You better ask yourself before you do something stupid; I've seen how pathetic the people that make Aliyah without thinking about it are. And I have nothing but the utmost contempt for people that decide that making Aliyah was a mistake and then never pay the money back that the government gave them. As far as I'm concerned, they're petty thieves stealing from a country with very limited resources that is being more than generous. Don't be one of those people. There are too few Jews out there for us to just sit back and not defend our one little state that's the size of a postage stamp. It's not just the army here that is hard-- it's the lifestyle. You have to work very hard to make ends meet in Israel, at least harder than what I observed living right outside New York City.