The discussion of Israelis overseas just won’t go away. First I wrote about the video campaign “guilting” expats to come home. Then, as David added, the videos were pulled by none other than the prime minister himself. Now there is a “point-counterpoint” set of articles in Ynet that promise to keep the debate fomenting further.
In the first column, Liad Magen writes about why he wants to leave Israel. Like a good Rothschildian, he complains about the high prices, low salaries, a deteriorating medical system, monopolies, bank fees and even crappy public transportation. Then, surprisingly, he calls for his fellow Israelis to not work for a better society…but to emigrate.
Not only that, but he posts a status update to his Facebook profile in which he urges his friends and family to leave with him, to create an “immigration group” that will together settle a new land (North Carolina, Norway, he doesn’t say), supporting each other while looking for work and learning a new language.
Magen’s article is followed by Tal Raphael, who sympathizes with his plight. Yes, Israel is a tough place to live. Yes, the wars we are forced to fight have scarred our small nation with too many dead. Her counter-argument, though, is not for Magen to come home, but to think of his children or grandchildren.
Raphael writes: “Perhaps you will succeed in the new country, and just like your friends, you’ll establish huge companies and do well for yourself. But maybe, in 60 years or so, you’ll have a grandchild. This grandchild will apparently not be called Liad, but rather, James, or Jimmy, or something else…Jimmy will be born in Los Angeles, or in any other city, and live his life with ease and without concerns, until one day, he will want to make aliyah to Israel.”
She continues: “Why would he want to do this, you ask? Maybe because someone will call him ‘Jew-boy’ on the street, or maybe he’ll open the Bible, or learn a little history, or seek meaning. Maybe he’ll hear that the falafel around here is the best. I don’t know when and why, but it will happen, and if not to Jimmy it shall happen to his grandson, or great grandson.”
Jimmy’s story, Raphael concludes, is that of the entire Jewish people, who keep leaving home yet always return. “I have no decisive answer for why this happens,” she concludes, “but I have 2,000 years of experience.”
And that, in many ways, was the exact point of the now pulled ad campaign aimed at Israeli yordim (emigrants): you’ll never be truly comfortable outside of Israel. And if not you, then your children who, while they may be comfortable calling you “Daddy” today (as in one of the videos), will eventually betray your decision to leave and, in turn, will break your heart to return to the land of their grandparents. And so, implies the video, why not nip that eventuality in the bud and stay to fight another day.
Most of the people I’ve spoken with about the video series felt it was right on and effective for its target audience. This timely point-counterpoint only serves to bolster that contention.
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