This is Ted.

This is Ted at a Nefesh b’Nefesh Employment Planning evening here in Toronto tonight.

Ted watched every slide, took a whole page of notes – including the email address of Nefesh b’Nefesh’s employment department and the website of an organization that helps French-speaking olim… when he barely speaks thirty words of French.

The three main strategies of Israeli job-finding, according to Nefesh b’Nefesh, include:

• Networking (check – I’m all set up on LinkedIn now!)
• Hebrew (um, no checkmark here for either of us)
• Be flexible / creative (check, check and check!)

 

So why does Ted look so, well, pained in this picture?  Could it be because he sat through the exact same workshop just a couple of months ago on a day when I couldn’t make it???  Despite theoretically knowing we were going to an employment workshop, he didn’t mention this fact or speak up at all until we were approaching our car to go home.

And this is why I like Ted so very much.  I am a person who complains, sometimes noisily and liberally, at just about any opportunity.  Ted goes along with things.  He will live to 120 because he doesn’t let anything bother him or, in my words too often, make him crazy. 

My “crazy threshold,” on the other hand, is very low.  So I sort of feel like we complement each other – he’s there for me when I need someone calm and steady, and I’m there for him when he needs someone to fly off the handle about something.

As they say, it takes all kinds.  Though, secretly, I suspect my kind is less likely to be squashed like a doormat when we are dealing with actual Israeli clerks and bureaucrats and not just friendly smiling NbN reps.  He may prove me wrong,  however.

Anyway, Here’s more about getting a job in Israel, from friendly smiling NbN rep Kim Ephrat, Associate Director of Employment at Nefesh b’Nefesh, who flew in to speak most enthusiastically at tonight’s event. 

She mentioned in passing that she’s flying back on a charter flight next week, which made me totally envious that she gets to do this for a living. 

NbN charter flights, in case you don’t know already, are awesome because the whole plane is making aliyah – like the fulfillment of some amazing prophecy (oh, yeah, which it is!)  Plus, they have reps on the plane who help you fill out your paperwork and they give you your documents the minute you land.  There are also (often? always?) special delegations meeting the flights at Ben-Gurion.

Last year, there were a few charters from Toronto, but none are scheduled for this summer.  Friends of ours are going (to Mitzpeh Netofa) at the very end of the summer, the week before Rosh Hashanah, on a regular El Al flight… but I’m holding out for a charter.  As long as they have a couple of them next summer, I’ll find a day that works for us.

In case you’re wondering, this week, I’m leaning towards Karmiel as a landing zone. 

Of course, that could change in an instant as we get closer to planning our pilot trip, aka Honeymoon #2.  Honeymoon #1 was Shabbos away from the kids in a run-down Niagara Falls motel room.  Classy!  (highlights included tumbling down a snowy hillside in the dark on Friday night and wandering the strip unable to spend money on Shabbos day)

It will be lovely to travel with Ted alone, I hope.  Given that (almost) literally the first moment we were alone in the house together following our marriage was the moment I told Ted we were expecting Naomi Rivka.  We have had very few moments of peace, silence or privacy since then… ;-)

So forget about Ted.  What aliyah employment strategy worked for you???