All change!

---I wrote this entry almost two months ago, but never got round to uploading it! So apologies for the details which are now obsolete.....---

Five and a half months into aliyah, things are falling into place. During the course of our ulpan, which finished today, we have achieved a lot; not just in terms of our ability to talk the language (we’re proud to say that we managed to complete our entire apartment-hunting process in Hebrew, from shopping around, to viewing, to negotiating... although we still got an Israeli lawyer to check over a few bits of the contact we were unsure about), but also in terms of direction. The applications for both of our professional licenses are complete – I’m just waiting to receive the damn thing, and Deborah is waiting for the next licence exams. We both have potential jobs, pending the licences, I’ve finally had word from the army and can expect some information on my call up dates soon, and next week, we will finally be able to live in our new – and first – real home since we married 9 months ago!

So, on the one hand, it feels like we’ve made progress. On the other hand, we have absolutely nothing to show for it – we are still waiting to work, still in the absorption centre, still living on savings and benefits, and still have no idea whether I’ll be commuting to a clinic from home in 2 months time, studying in a medical ulpan, or living in a bunker on the Syrian border. Long-term planning is simply not the vogue in Israel, no matter how hard immigrants try.

It has to be said though, we have been suspiciously lucky/blessed with our home hunting. Courtesy of some good friends who are estate agents here, we were able to get a list of properties available in the neighbourhood we wanted, and could then shop around, without having to pay the agents fees. We saw some tiny places, and some beautiful but overpriced places, through a different estate agent – another friend, but a very pushy one who was looking for a sale. Having politely dumped him, we came across what was to become our home. We viewed it while it was still occupied by three Russian immigrants, happily smoking away inside it, but friendly enough. It’s top-floor location means that Deborah and I are happy – we get to avoid noisy upstairs neighbours, get more light, a fabulous view from our shoe-box size balcony, and a cheaper price – since it’s considered desirable here to be on the ground or first floor. As a result, we are now the proud renters of a three-bedroom place, that is one of the best value places we’ve seen or heard of in Jerusalem. The catch? Only when the Russians moved out did we realised how much filth they had left the place in, and how much repair work was needed. Supposedly wooden kitchen window frames were in fact granite, covered in such a thick layer of grime that they had both the appearance and sound of wood. The kitchen sink drain was not connected, resulting in a nice pool in the cupboard below on the rare occasions that the sink was used. The subsequent rot and ants’ nest were hidden by the Russian grimy pots until we moved in. The window shutters were nearly all seized up – I’ve fixed all but one, which is home to a nest of starlings – I’ll wait a few months before they get their eviction notice. The electrics vary between the unusable and the downright dangerous in parts, and we even had a tomato plant ‘weed’ – complete with fruit – growing out of the drain on the balcony. The stove was not only covered in grime, but our soviet comrades did not feel the need to even remove dead flies from it, before they moved out. Finally, they didn't get round to moving out on time, and we found our living room full of their bags and furniture as we opened the door of our new home.

Add to all this the state of the second hand furniture we bought, and you’ll understand why Deborah and I have spent an entire week cleaning.

We decided to work out how much it would cost us to furnish a place from scratch, using only new stuff. For a first home, with no family hand-me-downs or wedding gift furniture to use, our most realistic option was to buy all the cheapest versions of the essentials from Ikea (yes, it’s here too). Suddenly, another option appeared, and one that appears to happen quite often here for those of you planning to follow us – a religious couple who had been studying in Jerusalem for a couple of years had left to go back to the USA, and were trying to make a quick sale of literally their entire lives, all in one go. The inventory they sent us was impressive – 4 beds, new fridge, oven, leather sofas, bookcases, washing machine, dryer, microwave, and so on. The price was reasonable, in fact not a great deal more than the new stuff would cost, but of course, much of this was much better quality than the Ikea stuff we would have ended up with. We travelled across the city to view it, and were happy, if not a little overwhelmed, by the quantity of items.

So, we made a deal to buy EVERYTHING, thinking that we would sell the excess stuff that we didn’t need. We booked a removal company, and I set about disassembling everything to make the move quicker.

Only at this point did we realise the two problems with the stuff – nothing major, but hugely annoying nonetheless.

The first was that Americans apparently don’t know how to assemble furniture. If it wobbles, for example, don’t tighten the screws – simply whack in a few extra nails in random places and ruin the veneer of the furniture! If you spill something in the oven, just pretend it isn’t there and let someone else deal with it when you sell the oven. And most importantly, if you move out of your apartment, make sure you leave the window open so that the pigeons can easily enter and crap on the top of every high place.

After much cleaning, and repairing, we have a beautiful set of furniture which we’re excited to use, with just a few scars of the battle of being carried down 4 storeys, and then up 4 storeys in a different neighbourhood.

The removal company is a story in itself. Three guys – two Jewish Israelis, one Arab from Hebron in the West Bank. I’m sure you don’t need to read a blog to know that intolerance and tension are somewhat prominent between these two groups – Hebron is the second holiest Jewish city in the world (Jerusalem being the first, of course), but is also a point of huge dispute – during the Jordanian rule of the West Bank from 1948 – 1967, all Jews there were massacred, and only after Israel gained control of the territory in 1967, were they allowed back there to live and pray. It is 40 min from Jerusalem, and the bullet-proof armoured buses leave every hour or so, winding their way past resentful eyes and concrete walls. When the intifada began in 2000, thousands of workers came each day to Jerusalem, along with dozens of terrorists, but since then, checkpoints and security allow only those people with a work permit to enter. His special skill? Weight lifting. At 51 years old, but with that wizened, cracked, and emaciated look of a 90-year-old who has smoked most of his life (be warned), he worked harder and faster than the other two men put together. While the other men smoked and looked at the mountain of furniture in the van, he carried up washing machines on his back or entire cabinets in one go. It was so frustrating to watch this man do so much work while his counterparts took their time, and all the more so in the knowledge that he would likely be receiving a lower split of the fee. The years of Jewish labour and independence, the same energy and ideology that built the state, have given way to a population dynamic the same as the UK and every other developed country – the jobs that no one wants to do are the ones that the outsiders do – the street cleaners, bin men, field workers, even the carers, are either Arab or East Asian. The Jewish people, who transformed the sterile wilderness of the land of Israel to a fertile country filled with potential, have been superseded by capitalist entrepreneurs and skilled professionals. I’ve no idea whether that makes me happy or sad.

Anyway, as Deborah and I prepare to move the last of our belongings to our new home, right on the edge of Jerusalem, looking over to Jordan and the Dead Sea, we look forward to accommodating those of you who want to visit.