Reason to Move #33

School has been and continues to keep me very, very busy.

I do have another reason to move to Israel: all the random festivals.

There's Festigal and Festival haPsanter, which takes place this year from the 12th to the 15th of November.

There's an entire Wikipedia page on all of the festivals:

• פסטיבל אבו גוש
• פסטיבל אקטיביזם
• פסטיבל בשקל
• פסטיבל הג'אז בנמל קיסריה
• פסטיבל הג'אז הבינלאומי אילת
• פסטיבל הזמר המזרחי
• פסטיבל הזמר והפזמון
• חגיגות הזמר העברי בערד
• פסטיבל ישראל
• פסטיבל מחול כרמיאל
• הפסטיבל הבינלאומי למוזיקה קאמרית בירושלים
• פסטיבל סולם יעקב
• סמול במה (small במה)
• פסטיבל הסרטים הבינלאומי חיפה
• פסטיבל עכו
• פסטיבל העוד
• פסטיבל הקולנוע ההומו-לסבי הבינלאומי בתל-אביב
• פסטיבל הקולנוע ירושלים
• פסטיבל קולנוע דרום

And those are just the listed ones!

Now, it's not like we don't have festivals in America. There's the Jewish Film Festival. There are Rhubarb Festivals. There are random Vegetarian Festivals...but with the size of the country, it's hard to hear of them and/or go to them. I've been to very few, if any. If I were to live in Israel, I would get much more involved with these awesome events.

Reason to Move #32

I can't believe I, with my great interest in and love for Israeli music, forgot to mention one more thing that makes me want to move to Israel: Galgalatz, the main radio station. I got hooked up through the Yahoo Widget IL Radio, but there are also ways of doing so online.

Galgalatz is just an awesome radio station. The 'טכנאים, מפיקים, שדרן וכו play American and Israeli music, so I won't get miss American music too much (not that I love it, but anyway). They play oldies and new music. They play absolutely random stuff that is just plain fun to listen to. Some announcers' translations of song titles from English to Hebrew are hilarious ("I just got what it means! [proceeds to translate]." True story. Or "Beloved" (נאהבת) for "She Will be Loved"). I love the news on the hour. I swear I heard a weatherman once with an American accent; I heard another accent another day, too (it sounded like Russian to me). Then there's the driving commercials. What isn't there?

Galgalatz is a reason to go. There's Reshet Gimmel, too, which I like, but it does not reach the hilarity level of Gal-gal-gal-galatz.

Aliyah Resources From the Horse's Mouth

I found this link earlier, but I didn't mention it until I started printed out all the awesome information it has. Where does this link lead? Why, the Ministry of Absorption, of course!

Here is what it has:

Education
Information Booklet for Immigrant Students
Housing
Military Service
The National Insurance Institute
Guide to Services for the Disabled
Transportation Services in Israel
First Steps
Financial Assistance-Absorption Basket
A Guide to Ulpan Study
Employment Guidance Centers
Guarding Your Health
The Life Cycle
Pensioners
Registration in a Health Fund
Where to Turn
Information on Conversion

This is amazing, even if you could ask for more. In fact, you can: at the end of the booklets, there are forms to request more information. The booklets themselves are in at least two languages, sometimes even more (four or five, even. Any polyglots in the area?)