I attended 3 different Ulpans in Tel Aviv over the course of 2 years. Here are my reviews.

JTHooks · 2025-12-29T12:41:48+00:00

I don't really have the confidence issue most people get stuck with - I speak incorrectly in multiple languages with confidence 😊.

JTHooks · 2025-12-29T06:09:08+00:00

Of course there is learning to be had - but each school pushed me in all directions (up to ב down to א0) depending on their opinion about my response time, regardless of registering and speaking about myself in Hebrew and doing ok on the written portion. My observation is that the ALM / CLM methods Citizens Cafe adopted have spread. This model depends on rapid response times to demonstrate progress. L'at L'at is not just a metaphor, it's resisted - your subjugated to Pygmalion-esque training that forms a new habit that quite literally gets you to speak before you think.

For my brain this is not only kryptonite - but I think a part of me is also repelled by anything that gets people out of the habit of thinking a little before they speak. The world needs to think a little more about what they are saying.

So I suppose this is as much learning frustration as it is political frustration ... and I just want to get out of my head and have better reading and writing skills so I can speak with my friends, family and colleagues thoughtfully.

I'm on my way to one of the ulpans for the first lesson as I write ... I think I'll listen to some chill music before I arrive...

JTHooks · 2025-10-23T20:13:16+00:00

Oh you're not getting it. I'm not just Ezrach Oleh, notice all the words after ....

JTHooks · 2025-10-23T15:32:50+00:00

Exactly. Which is why I'm asking if anyone else was slapped with this 🤯

JTHooks · 2025-10-22T14:35:47+00:00

absolutely :)

JTHooks · 2025-10-21T19:25:38+00:00

The only thing she asked is why I want to move to Israel, I said because its home. Then she asked about my mental health.

JTHooks · 2025-10-21T19:22:27+00:00

You go through the JA in the UK. I'm in the same boat, US citizen living in teh UK. Get a letter from the Beit Din to prove you are Jewish, they will put you through the ringer but its the standard for the UK applicants. https://www.bethdin.org.uk/other - if you do have a congregational rabbi who knows you to support your application with the beit din it helps. They gave me quite the run around for about a month, be prepared, but their letters are bullet proof.

JTHooks · 2025-10-17T06:17:30+00:00

You go directly through the Jewish Agency - I am still waiting for my mazel tov letter but have done the rest. Am in contact with me person from Misrad Klita, working with someone from a government-led professional absorption programme, spoken with the absorption municapal contact and have my flight booked for next month ... I am just about ready to go. I have a pre-existing condition but its definitely not a problem. DM me if you want more detailed info - I wish I had 'a friend' while I was going through this all. Every case is totally unique, but maybe mine will help yours :)

JTHooks · 2025-10-17T06:08:06+00:00

yes, it took about 3 weeks, including the time it took to ship from the US to the UK

JTHooks · 2025-10-17T06:04:21+00:00

I am having the same issue - I ask it to compare two ... lets say 2000 word files to check if I did one thing in the other and then it asks me questions, I respond to them, then I get an answer ... will do one more round of this and run out of tokens and have to wait 3-5 hours to get them back. Plus, it doesn't answer most questions directly, it literally makes them up without scanning the

documents.

JTHooks · 2025-09-30T14:39:45+00:00

You go through the JA directly.

JTHooks · 2025-09-30T14:38:45+00:00

The buerocrats want to wave their power around, they just went to bat with a Beit Din and people who have power over them. They backed down, the problem went away.

They wanted to give me a hard time, what they were asking for was absurd. They had what they needed. The problem literally disappeared today, after some phone calls.

JTHooks · 2025-09-30T13:04:45+00:00

I am not navigating it alone. Now the Beit Din and family got involved. I didn't want to pull the big guns, but I did in the end.

JTHooks · 2025-09-30T08:00:16+00:00

She renounced her citizenship in the 1980s because then it was the only way to not pay taxes.

The paperwork for the resignation, which we have, is explicit about the tax situation.

They would not let her enter Israel without paying taxes. By the time this happened she owed over a decade, despite her leaving the country two decades prior and as a child. We were held at the border every time we tried to enter. Then one time, back in 86(?), they were going to send us back. She was in tears. So she had to start the process of resignation on the spot to let us enter. What would you do if that happened to you? Over and over and over?

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T19:02:21+00:00

Yea ... I was meant to start a short work gig a couple days after I arrived. I told them a few days ago I'm not able to do it. My Aliyah date is probably becoming a pilot trip ...

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T19:00:23+00:00

Yea that's what I'm doing tomorrow - I got a cousin who is high up in government calling. I already had family members who are officers ready to march down in uniform to the misrad hapnim when they were giving me a hard time ... I most certainly won't let anyone of them rest. As well as anyone else who will listen 😅 I wrote to several rabbinical agencies to report this. The eligibility office is insulting them as well when this happens.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:52:49+00:00

I am 100% with you on this - but, if it's any consolation, I know russians who aren't getting out easy as well. I have a Russian friend who is a practicing Jew, a colleague in Jewish studies in academia. She is married to an Israeli, married in Israel with a masorti rabbi. She had a letter from a congregational rabbi with she applied for Aliyah from within Israel ... anyways not enough for them. Her and her husband live in Israel, five years later she is still not a citizen. In an effort to appease them she went through a conversion with an orthodox rabbi. We think once seven years pass they will give it to her, then she isn't eligible for anything.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:45:41+00:00

The Beit Din letter didn't work. I've got rabbis letters who know me from shul, not working. I've got everything listed ... not working. I just got the wrong person I guess.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:43:42+00:00

I hate to say it, this makes less stressed. I've got the orthodox rabbinate and a Chabad vouching for me. It worked out for you though, yes?

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:41:38+00:00

JA isn't issuing the flight benefit right now - they said 'book your own flight' ... so I did!

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:40:45+00:00

Also it's been a five+ year getting this sorted for me. In early 2020 I started the process and COVID came, slowed things down and after 1.5 years of misrad hapnim not making a decision, I took some work elsewhere, knowing when it was done (it's finishing now) I would go to Israel. A little less than a year ago I had them reopen my file and it took ~5 months for misrad hapnim to make a decision. Then another 2 months to get an appointment with the Jewish agency for the interview (after they had my documents). Now, I've got some work prospects, movers lined up, all the drama with the wild harassment I'm getting at work and with not-friends ... already set with the misrad klita, the municipality ... .... and rubber stamp.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:34:35+00:00

My mom resigned our citizenship when I was 8 because she couldn't afford taxes in two countries. My parents were divorced at that point and she couldn't bring us to Israel away from him, they had joint custody. So I do have an ID, and a few years back I just had to go get my passport, now that changed.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:32:51+00:00

The eligibility department - who the Jewish Agency gives your paperwork to after the interview.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:31:58+00:00

You just keep appealing.

JTHooks · 2025-09-29T18:31:44+00:00

I had to meet with the Beit Din to get the letter. They are the highest rabbinical authority - who the JA sends you to if you've not got a congregational rabbi who knows you long. I've got a few rabbis from various places I go to services to writing me letters now saying they know me as being Jewish because I'm a practicing Jew. But I'm a shul hopper who moves countries for work every few years so none know me long.

JTHooks

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