A sacrifice will be made – but when and what is it?

One of the often unregarded voices in the present teacher’s strike is that of the parents.  Parents of children taking the Bagrut this year are complaining “what about our kids?”

There are a couple of points to consider here:

a) a strike can only be implemented usefully if there’s a public that’s being deprived of a service as a result of the strike and

b) of what are these kids actually being deprived and when were they deprived?

To the first point, whenever the strike was carried out it was going to hurt those kids in the bagrut year at the time.  As with any major upheaval (whether it’s a war or a reform in a system those who are in the wrong place at the wrong time will suffer.  History will conclusively tell us that had certain wars not been fought it would have been devastating to the fate of the country that failed to fight it – this brings no consolation to the parents of military age soldiers at the time. Similarly most parents agree (in fact so did the parents of the bagrut takers a few years ago before it affected their own children and they would agree with it as well had the strike been delayed so as to take place in a couple of years when it no longer affects their own children. I know it’s not much consolation to these parents that if the strike actually achieves its aims (and that’s a huge IF since everything seems to have been mishandled all around) their child’s loss this year could be a boon to the education system for years to come.   

But let’s look at the second point, the claim that the kids are being deprived.  Of what are these bagrut takers being deprived?  It’s certainly not an education.  The education of which they’re being deprived is one that has taken place not over the short term of these past 2-3 months, but for the past 12 years, as the result of a degenerated system with jaded teachers unsubjected to periodic reevaluation – the kind of teachers who are so desperate for jobs that they’re willing to work for starvation wages.  It’s all very nice that these kids are trying to get ready to take standardized local tests, but what meaning do they have when its been proven that on an international level the level of knowledge that’s being imparted to them has degenerated to the point where Israel is finishing near the bottom practically last in most subjects (just ahead of Saudi Arabia in fact) on tests in which they used to rank number 1.

The problem therefore isn’t the Bagrut.  With all the sympathy in the world for these kids 1) they had 11-12 years to study the material and to obtain the study habbits and values from teachers and parents that would have allowed them to spend the last 2 months studying on their own or in study groups with their friends rather than staying out in the streets at night and sleeping all day.  Furthermore, the Bagrut isn’t something that has to be done now – in fact to have any educational value now is a poor time to do it.  By the time they’ve finished the army and are ready to enter University, most kids could not score a passing grade on the material they studied for the Bagrut just 2-3 years before. The Bagrut is just one cog in a flawed system.  A system which places putting Vs in checkboxes as an accomplishment (a student does the Bagrut in math, gets 100 and after 3 years in a combat unit no longer remembers what a quadratic equation is or cares much for that matter), which regards information as the be all and end all but sets an educational example by paying its teachers a pathetic salary and allowing parents to get away with sending their kids to be babysat. 

So what it comes down to is do we sacrifice the children of one bagrut year (and even then they can always do it at a later time)in order to (ideally) reform the entire system, or should the teachers say “it’s not fair to the 12th graders of any year so we can never strike,” and sacrifice 12 years for every student of every schoolyear as they make their way through 12 years of subpar teaching and results oriented teaching where material is taken in and regurgitated and checkboxes marked off and nothing learned? 

So yes, one may ask “are we really GETTING the complete overhaul of the system necessary at the end of this process.”  The answer, alas, is probably no. The deal being struck is being reached by the same inefficient bodies that have solidified the problem until now – the government who try to get by with minimum payment for education, and the teacher’s union who zealously fights for all of its members as a body and is unwilling to concede that some sort of evaluation process is necessary and that not all teachers are fit to teach.  But what happens doesn’t change the fact that major change IS necessary and that it’s never going to happen without a strike.  And when that strike happens, whenever it is, the bagrut takers will be asked to sacrifice so that the next generations don’t have to suffer the 12 years of pointlessness of which the test they’re being kept from preparing for (in class) is the culmination.  

Maybe the next generation can spend more time concentrating on education and development of the kind of work habits that will actually prepare them for college and that way if they have to miss classes in 12^th grade they won’t consider themselves as “cheated” but will sit at home and study with their friends – thanks to a reformed education system that has its priorities straight.

Justice Revisited or Revised?

Well, it’s that time of year again – Amirfest, or perhaps Rabinfest.  For those of you who are not in Israel let me explain how this is traditionally observed.  Towards the end of October, the local media start writing inflammatory articles designed to whip up a public frenzy against the murderer of Yitzchak Rabin, the goal being to see who can inspire the most radical responses possible.  So far the one that sticks in my mind for this year is one individual who suggested that Yigal Amir’s wife and week old infant be strung up by the neck with him.

Make no mistake.  By no means do I condone assasination, and Amir certainly deserves to serve every day of the punishment handed down to him.  Like those far to the Left of myself, I believe that the legal system must be allowed to operate and that justice must be served.  The difference is that those on the Left seem to believe that that the legal system only applies until it comes to Amir.

Unfortunately the Left still fails to comprehend the true nature of Amir’s greatest political crime.  Yes of course he killed Rabin, but those on the left will be the first to concede that Rabin as Rabin was no different than any other victim but will tell you “it’s what Rabin represented that Amir killed and that’s what makes this different.”

That’s exactly the point.  What Rabin represented was the democratic process of letting the people choose their leaders and deciding by the ballot rather than by the bullet.  But by the same token he has caused the Left to encourage the destruction of the same democracy under the guise of “justice.”

It amazes me to see how eagerly the talkback lefties on news sites and the interviewees on the radio consistently speak of creating new laws with which to punish Amir and apply them retroactively.  Creating and applying a punishment to someone which wasn’t in existence at the time they commited the crime is the antithesis of democracy worthy of the most totalitarian of countries.  If Israel were to create a law that would in any way work retroactively to worsen the situation of a single arab terrorist sitting in an Israeli jail the entire Left would raise a howl and every one of its lawyers would beg to represent the “victim.”  But the moment it’s a Jew under discussion they rush to invent new punishments and pile them on. Amir can barely ask for a roll of tissue paper for his cell without the media reporting it and 600 talkbackers suggesting reasons why Amir shouldn’t be allowed to go to blow his nose for the rest of his life.  Yet this seems normal to them.  With a straight face they will explain to you why “Amir is different.”  But that’s just the point – Amir isn’t different – not under the law that existed on Novermber 4, 1995.  Perhaps it should have been different…but it wasn’t.  Post-mortem, people often rewrite history.  Already the Left has managed to focus Rabin’s legacy on his miltary career and his victimhood in search of “peace.”  His willingness to give away parts of his country for a peace guarantee from Arafat (whose greates legacy was that he never kept a promise in his life), his slaughtering of fellow Jews (including an attack on his later successor Menachem Begin) on the illfated Altalena, and his history of alcoholism while in office are glossed over.  But that’s the difference between law and history.  It is safe to rewrite history only to the extent that it affects the past and safe to rewrite law only to the extent that it applies to the future.  In the case of Rabin and Amir, history is being rewritten in order to encourage people to demand that the law be rewritten to affect the past.   

That, in the end is Amir’s greatest (by his calculations) “success.”  He, by himself has become the catalyst for the Left’s unveiling of its own hypocrisy.  The Leftist who calls for Amir to suffer punishments that were not on the books when he committed his crime, effectively negates ANY possibility of fair justice.

There are many, yes even on the right, who wish that there had been a more stringent law under which to punish Yigal Amir.  But to do so now under a newly created Yigal Amir law does nothing but grant victory to Amir by admitting to him that he’s caused a state of affairs where the left considers the laws of the state to be subject to the individual whims of the moment.  Even the call to allow such a state of affairs is so repugnant as to cause many to sympathize with Amir and place him in the role of the victim of a witch hunt.  The man got his punishment, let him serve it anonymously and without celebrity.  Giving him a stage is a victory for noone but himself and our national tabloids.

Technical Wronging

Recently I’ve noticed a reemergence of people asking about technical writing courses and the advisability of investing in such a career.  The people asking almost inevitably have one thing in common – they’re not cut out for technical writing!  Why do I say this? Simple…because the Israeli market is so glutted both with experienced unemployed hitech people (especially technial writers) from the days of the dot com bubble, and inexperienced holders of the same technical writing certificate these questioners are only now considering investing in, that there’s less than no room out there for new technical writers. 

Now forget about having missed the boat (which sailed in the late 90s). At this point the questioner’s essentially considering whether to invest thousands in learning how to sail for the privilege of someday being able to stand on the dock already filled with unemployed sailors hoping that if an ocassional sailboat wanders by that he’ll be the one of hundreds that they’ll hire!  The only exception might be people with a strong technical background and exceptional writing skills.  But for the most part those people already know technical writers personally and understand what they do (having worked with them from the technical side in their places of employment) and go to them directly for advice or search on technical or professional lists for such rather than grope around on general information lists looking for information.

Now don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not blaming or making fun of these people.  I sympathize with them.  After all, these schools, which sprang up like mushrooms during the dot com bubble era, have been trying to sell people for years on the idea that “if you know English you can be a technical writer and earn a nice fat salary check.”  As a result, the market is glutted with technical writing students, both with and without talent, whose main qualification was that their check to pay for the course didn’t bounce.  Once you’ve reached the end of these courses, however, you discover there really aren’t that many jobs available.  I recently saw an ad in which they offered people internships for which you’re expected to pay to work for them!  

I studied at one of these schools, and as a top student (i.e. one of the ones who actually DID get sent to job interviews afterwards which, as I found out, they only do with those students who they feel will best reflect on the school for use in furthering the school’s reputation in the hi-tech world) was even invited to teach at the school afterwards, which I did for a number of months, so I’ve seen the inside of such a school and how it works from the point of view of both student and teacher  

The fact is, most of the people taken by these schools should never have been accepted into the courses in the first place.  The schools take them because it’s big money (and no extra expense to them) for each student they add to a class.  The hi-tech companies (who are glutted as it is and already were when I did the course back during the dot com bubble when there were jobs everywhere relatively) know that’s the case and as a result don’t really want to waste their time on what 9 out of 10 times are people who are barely technically savvy. They’d rather pay more money and get someone with proven experience which is why you’ll see all the ads out there looking for a minimum of 2-3 years experience as a technical writer while no one is offering to give said experience.  Meanwhile there are a few companies who take advantage of this fact and knowing that new techwriters are at the mercy of anyone who’ll give them a chance they take newbies at bottom of the barrel wages and cram them with work knowing the newbies don’t have much choice.  True those people will leave them after 2 years, but as PT Barnum said “there’s a sucker born every minute” and they know they can get more humanities majors who fancy themselves working at hi-tech salaries.  These schools are more than happy to sell the dream to people who don’t know what else to do to make money with their English.

Now I’m sure there are many perfectly nice people out there in the qualify quickly computer school world and I’ve no doubt that most of the schools will at least give you basic technical writing skills and tools.

But if they don’t demand you take a rigid entrance exam to get into the course – beware!

If they tell you that there are lots of jobs out there and we have good connections – beware! 

If they tell you “there’s potentially good money in this field down the road but it will be hell at first and if you’re not tech savvy then don’t think you can make it in the field on your skills in English 101 alone – the country’s full of unemployed experienced techwriters let alone English Majors with techwriting certificates,” that may be a school to consider.

If you already have a technical background you may be able to find yourself a niche, but if not then it’s a caveat emptor period in this field!  If you’re truly convinced this is the field for you, then go for it after first checking out the schools references very carefully.  But if you’re in it because you’re looking at it as a quick easy way to big money don’t bother.  In either case tread carefully, and best of luck to you!

For Gilad Shalit’s sake don’t trade for him

Once again our government is debating over whether to trade an insane number of prisoners in exchange for a captured soldier.  As always the arguments for either side are strong ones and as always there’s a lot of personal emotion involved.  And that’s just the problem – that it happens again and again.

If Israel had any reason to believe this time would be different it might be worth making the trade.  For example if they planned to make the trade and then afterwards systematically seal up Gaza hermetically, hunt down every person there known to be involved with terrorism and execute them, decimating the ranks of the terrorist organizations all at once to the extent that people would be afraid to have any link to them all would be well and good.  If Israel had reason to believe that the people they were releasing wouldn’t add to the 177 people who have been killed already this decade by terrorists released from Israeli jails in similar prisoner exchanges fine.  But there’s no reason to believe either of these scenarios will happen.  All that will happen is that the terrorists will be rewarded for their behavior with positive reinforcement and even a lab rat knows how to respond to that kind of lesson.  If Israel is not going to change its behavior drastically to the extent of all out war following Shalit’s safe release then just don’t bother.

No doubt many will accuse me of being callous: “how can you leave Gilad with those people?” they’ll ask.  Well what makes them think he’ll be any better off in Israel after such an exchange?  He’ll have to live here with the feeling that every person killed by any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of released murderers is on his head (even if it’s not his responsibility he’ll still feel it much as any of us would be haunted by hitting someone with our car when they jumped in front of it suddenly to commit suicide – we may not be culpable but we still feel guilt).  He has to live knowing that other Israelis, including himself (again) and his family are fair game for any terrorist wanting to secure the release of murderers.  That is assuming his psyche hasn’t been irrevocably damaged already beyond the point of living a normal life after being held for this long by the Palestinians

Of course this is all an assumption – I assume he’s alive.  Considering the last set of prisoners we released in return for soldiers this could well be an unwarranted assumption.  In exchange for hundreds of killers (who have to this point been responsible for the deaths of 35 other Israelis since the swap) the Hizbullah gave us 3 soldiers bodies and a drug dealing ex-army officer alive (and he was probably left alive only to make Israel feel foolish for trading for him).  Do we know Shalit is alive?  No international body has been allowed access to him nor is there even any videoed evidence of him.  We’re assured by the Palestinian Authority that he’s being treated with Muslim hospitality but they have no authority over the thugs holding Shalit. and no reason to believe he’s alive.

Releasing Shalit would be a fatal error on Israel’s part.  Our image as a regional power already suffered enough damage as a result of the recent war in Lebanon.  Our only choice now is to tough it out.  The recent Passover holiday is a good example of how to handle things.  Like Moshe and Aharon we need to deliver an ultimatum and stick to it.  The Palestinians have 24 hours to deliver Shalit or the plagues begin.  Perhaps we can’t turn their water to blood but we can stop their utilities.  We can stop food from going in through the checkpoints.  We can seal off the borders and cut off their money and job supply and let them wallow in their own filth.  If they feel a need to blow up we can leave them to blow up inside Gaza.  If they want to attack us we leave them to have to do it face on against our army in a conventional battle where we’re the ones at an advantage.  In short we negotiate from a position of strength and make them suffer for having done the kidnapping rather than from a position of weakness where we’re begging them to give us our soldier and handing them live weapons back on a silver platter.

The world?  They’ll yell and they’ll criticize but as long as our soldier’s being held in violation of a UN resolution and the Palestinians refuse to release him they’re going to have a hard time working up any major resolutions against us.  The US will veto any attempts and try and talk us into an “evenhanded approach,” but as with everything else in this region a whole lot of talk will happen and that’s all – but at least the Palestinians will know we mean business and not assume they can just walk over us – which is what a prisoner exchange would signify.

If Li kud only believe…

The Friday edition of the Jerusalem Post this week (April 6 2007) contained a large ad to urge Anglos to join the Likud.  The opening line of the ad had to take me aback: “are you tired of waking every morning to a new corruption scandal?” it asked.

Now let’s put aside for a moment the fallacy that Anglos should vote for a party based solely on their being English speakers.  Let’s just consider this portrayal of the Likud as some sort of alternative to what’s wrong in politics today.

There’s no question that the present government is one of the most roundly investigated ever.  Still, the idea of the Likud trumpting themselves as the antithesis of that is ironic at best, hypocritical at worst.  Have we so quickly forgotten the party who just a few years ago got 40 seats in the Knesset which were divided up on the basis of cronyism.  The party was totally controlled by a central committee run by Uzi Cohen the deputy mayor of Raanana who, regardless of whether the things he himself has been investigated for and despite the lovely job he’s done with Raanana’s flower beds, is hardly qualified to be deciding the fate of the nation by delegating Knesset seats in backroom deals.

Knesset seats went to a law student (Inbal Gavrieli) whose work experience resume consisted of waitressing and having a daddy who donated to the Likud; to a candidate (Ruhama Avraham) who tried to garner votes by opening a hot dog stand for the central committee delegates).  Later there was even a space freed up for a former beauty queen (Penina Rosenblum).  And of course Naomi Blumenthal was actually convicted on election corruption charges.

Even after the party list was determined the cronyism continued.  How else can one explain that a man who was voted into the knesset from number 32 in the list was immediately elevated by Sharon to a position where he was the natural replacement for Sharon as prime minister.  Then there was the use of Sharon’s son (26th on the list) as a personal delegate for sensitive situations rather than a higher listed member based on blood relation to the big boss.

Of course there were also criminal invetigations going on in the Likud during their recent tenure in power:  Naomi Blumenthal and Omri Sharon were both convicted on criminal charges, Likud leader Ariel Sharon was being investigated for improprieties and Yehiel Hazan for double voting in the knesset itself. 

And of course all the complaints about Kadima are all very well but let’s remember that Kadima was spawned by the Likud exploiting the voters by creating a party that goes against everything the Likud has ever stood for.  Meanwhile the present Likud list (which features a barely known former auto-parts salesman in 3rd place) was voted in by a Likud electorate that included a large percentage of Likudniks who said straight out that they were waiting to move till Kadima till after the Likud internal vote so they could sabotage Likud’s list by loading the top with subquality candidates (and which at least to some extent they seemed to have succeeded in doing).  The party list Likud wants you to vote into knesset is this same substandard list.

So please…if someone wants to urge Anglos to give the Likud a second chance maybe they should try telling us why it’s any different than it was in the past instead of pompously fingerpointing at other parties and making the Likud out to be some sort of clean-as-snow alternative.

ILL-frustration

I just opened YNET to discover once again that the local online press seems to think its readers so amazingly stupid that we’re incapable of understanding a sensational article unless it’s illustrated with a “victim.”  This is especially true when it’s of a sexual nature and a female is a victim whether it’s a rape or a molestation etc. though it’s done in other situations as well. 

The headline this time was about a rash of pedophilism taking place down south.  Next to it was a picture of a little girl in a playground.  In many cases these pictures have “illustration,” and sometimes even “picture not related to article” underneath it.  This time it was the main story on the main page and the only way to know in this case that the pictured little girl was not (thank goodness!) an abuse victim is if you happen to run your mouse over the picture (and even then it doesn’t have the disclaimer – for all we know maybe this is an abused child being used as an illustration - that’s what we’re supposed to presumably believe).

Why?!  No, my question isn’t why they’re not using a picture of an actual abused child.  My question is why they need to use a picture of a potential victim at all!  Do they think that without it the readers will be sitting around saying “a child, a girl…now what’s that?  I can’t seem to remember what one of those look like.  Oh one of those – like in the picture!”  Anyone incapable of figuring out what a child in a playground looks like to the extent where they need a child’s picture in order to understand the article  probably lacks the intelligence to understand 3 words put together let alone a whole article.

If you must have a picture because today’s online journalism demands accompanying pictures then take a picture of an empty playground, or of police consulting (to make us think of police trying to figure out how to catch these guys).  What is the point of showing a picture of an unconnected child unless they either think their readers moronic.  Unless they’re using her as bait to appeal to the pedophile community to read the article…?

We don’t want misinformation – so don’t forward it to us

One of my pet peeves is when people forward emails received from others without checking its content’s validity for themselves.  This type of spam is known in the techie world as “viral,” because like a virus its survival depends on

• people passing the (mis)information on to others and
• the item being sent by friends the receiver trusts so that they assume that it has been checked personally by the sender.

A tiny fraction of the spam sent virally is well intentioned material (such as a request for prayers or monetary aid for a child’s operation) whose circulation has long exceeded its relevance.However, most scam or hoax letters divide themselves up into a number of standard types making it easy to check if they’re known scams. Examples of common types include heartstring pullers (a girl dying of cancer supposedly cares that an email mentioning the fact is sent to millions of strangers), moneymakers (“Bill Gates is tracking this letter and for every person it reaches through you he’s going to give you a whole lot of money”), or virus warnings (“a file may have already reached your computer – look to see if files named command.com and autoexec.com are there and if so immediately delete them” which cause you to damage your own computer).The purpose of these letters seem to be

1. fooling you into believing you’re doing something nice or useful even though you’re bound to find out eventually and feel foolish
2. embarassing you in front of your friends for urging them to pass the letter on to their friends
3. giving some kind of twisted pleasure to some bored and often crude (a fake letter about a child with leukemia?!) people.

Call me unforgiving, but to me anyone who passes along an email that even sounds like it might be a forwarded email without checking its validity first is complicit in the spamming and/or scamming of the original composer.  It takes a couple of minutes at most to check on a site such as

• http://hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBHoaxIndex.html
• www.snopes.com
• http://www.hoax-slayer.com

to see if the English language letter you’ve received is a scam or http://www.info.org.il/irrelevant/ for Hebrew hoaxes.    Please do yourself a favor and bookmark at least one of these sites.Many of you are probably thinking “don’t get carried away – I’m sending a single letter which the receiver can decide in a few seconds to read or delete.” But remember that if you have as few as 10 people to send it on to (and most of us have more on our lists) and they each send it to ten who send it to ten – even if the letter just goes through 7 people each way (quite normal for email in the course of a day – more is likely – especially with forwarded mail) that’s already 10 million people you’ve spammed in a single day!!   Furthermore because its coming from a friend’s personal email address it’s more likely they will take the time to read it lengthening the amount of time waste you’re personally responsible for.  Surely you can take a couple of minutes to make sure the scammers don’t win and that you not only don’t waste your friends time but also don’t make them look bad in front of their friends to whom they pass it on.  Please be responsible and not lazy – the world will thank you for it!

Got those “what page are we on in the prayer book” blues?

As a kid in the US I was a big fan of the (alas short lived) music duo Megama.  Their songs were all about issues in Jewish life and the difficulty of maintaining one’s Judaism in the face of the modern world.  The music was catchy, and the lyrics well crafted and self reflective. 

One of their more memorable songs, quoted in the title here, was about two Jews who come to pray in a synagogue, but because they’d grown up without a formal Jewish education didn’t know what they were supposed to do at any point in the service. Should they sit or stand?  What page was everyone on?  The fellow next to them, presumably an average shul goer, was of no used to them as he was “taking a snooze;” a playful though all too honest jab at many of the FFHes (frum from habbit) out there.

This is a problem faced by many secular Jews when they come to shul whether for a Bar Mitzva or to say Gomel etc.  They find themselves with a siddur which in the best of cases gives directions in acronyms and abbreviations (like kuf vav chet for example, which all religous people know means “kahal v’chazan” but to the secular vistor is gibberish) and in many cases barely that.  They’re often too shy to ask for help and feel uncomfortably that they’re being treated as a “special case” if helped.  The fear of looking ignorant keeps many of them from coming at times and with a frequency they might otherwise.  In Anglo countries, publications such as Artscroll have been aiming at this audience for awhile, but in Hebrew it really hasn’t been properly addressed till now.

Enter the Or Israel.  A new siddur which bills itself as a siddur/guide to shul.  It looks like a regular siddur so the secular visitor doesn’t feel like a tourist with an obvious guidebook.  Inside however it contains instructions and background material on the prayers and situations they’re most likely to encounter.  I should say up front that I have no affiliation to the people putting out this siddur – I discovered it through an article on ynet http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3374041,00.html

The home page (where you can also find out details about purchasing it) is http://www.orisrael.net/.  If you belong to a neighborhood shul which tends to get secular Israeli  guests (the siddur’s in Hebrew), such as people doing Bar Mitzvahs or coming to Yizkor, you might want to take a look at the site and if you think it could be helpful mention it to the Rabbi or Gabai.  Even though they don’t know it’s you they’re thankful to, some secular Jew is sure to be grateful the next time he shows up and someone hands him a copy of that siddur to discover “hey look at all the neat explanations this has…oh they’re about to stand up at this part…” etc. 

Jews on first – and every other position

While it hasn’t actually started yet, a new national baseball league is about to start play in Israel towards the end of June.  The league which will start with 6 teams, 3 of them managed by former major leaguers and world series winners Art Shamsky (starting outfielder 69 miracle Mets) Ron Blomberg (first ever designated hitter in MLB) and Ken Holtzman (2 major league no-hitters) is preparing Israel for entry into the next world baseball classic.  While there might be an initial instinct to guffaw (big deal – a country of 7 million people with no baseball history – they’ll be gone faster than South Africa if they make it that far) keep in mind that world classic baseball rules enable a player to play for any country under whose natural rules that person would be eligible for automatic citizenship.  Since under Israel’s “law of return” any Jew (not athlete specific) is automatically eligible for citizenship
Israel could field a team that includes at its core the following Jewish players (probably more but this is what comes to mind) 

Pitching

• Jason Marquis – St. Louis Cardinals
• Jason Hirsh –Houston Astros
• Scott Schoeneweis – Cincinati Reds
• John Grabow – Pittsburgh Pirates
• Craig Breslow – Boston Red Sox
• Scott Feldman – Texas Rangers 

Catching

• Brad Ausmus – Houston Astros
• Mike Lieberthal – Philadelphia Phillies 

Infield

• Kevin Youklis – Boston Red Sox

• Ian Kinsler – Texas Rangers

• David Newhan – NY Mets 

Outfield

• Shawn Green – NY Mets
• Gabe Kapler – Red Sox (just retired) 

These guys are all legitimate MLBers though none except maybe Green, Ausmus or Youklis have even an outside chance of being asked to join the US team.  If they wanted to experience the WBC it would probably make ther moms happy at least if they played under Israel’s flag (even though they’d obviously never play in the Israeli league).  

Add on to that fringe MLB players (such as Mike Koplove and Alan Levine who have pitched in the MLB in the last few seasons though they’re not on rosters now), minor leaguers (such as Toronto’s minor leaguer Adam Stern) and the players in the local Israeli league (both Israelis and imports from minor league teams in the US) being developed by the former MLBers and league chief of development ex Red Sox Manager Dan Duquette, Israel might just surprise some people out there.  Noone’s thinking they’d win it all of course but they might upset some teams along the way.  You never know :- ). 

For more on the Israeli league http://www.israelbaseballleague.com/main/

US Citizenship through a grandparent – a guide from the initiated

I’ve found that many American expats tend to mistakenly assume that as US citizens their children are automatically eligible for citizenship.  As far as they’re concerned all they have to do is go over to the embassy and register their kids and they’re citizens.  In fact to pass on your own US citizenship to your children you need to fulfill at least one of the following requirements:

1) Be married to another US citizen OR

2) prove that you have lived for at least 5 years in the US of which at least 2 years have to have been past the age of 14.

Once they discover this requirement many older expats who moved with their children when young and whose children have married non-Americans are dismayed to realize that while their kids may have lived for 5 years in the US, the 2 years over 14 requirement means that those kids will not be able to pass on US citizenship to their children.   Some of the more savvy ones have heard somewhere about the possibility of a grandparent passing on citizenship to their grandchild but there’s really so little information out there that most either give up or at most pay out a lot of money to immigration lawyers to sort it out for them.

Well no need no more.  I’m going to explain to you here how to get start getting citizenship for your grandchild of a US citizen whose own parent is ineligible to pass on the citizenship due to the requirements stated above.  I first wish to make a disclaimer though.  I am NOT a lwayer or government official and make no guarantees.  All I present here is based on my own experience of naturalizing 3 children using the grandparent law and doing it on my own without any need for professionals – it’s just about understanding which forms you need to use.  Anyone else’s personal success will depend on various things such as the center they apply to and the documentation they are able to supply.

First I should note that the requirements listed above for naturalizing your child are for passing it on automatically at the embassy here in Israel.  If you came (as I did) before age 16 and aren’t married to a US citizen then that’s indeed not an option for you.  However there is an alternate option which is to apply for citizenship for your child under section 322 based on their US citizen GRANDPARENT fulfilling the second option (i.e. proving they’ve lived 5 years in the US at least 2 of which came after the age of 14).  Note that the grandparent needn’t be living in the US now nor will they need to go to the US at any point with the grandchild.  Unlike the automatic transfer from parent to child, however, citizenship through a grandparent will necessitate the citizen parent to take the child to the US for the naturalization interview (though there is no set amount of time you have to stay – if you want you can fly in the day before the interview and fly out a few hours after the interview).

Start the process by going to this page

http://www.uscis.gov/files/form/N-600K.pdf

which is to apply for citizenship

And downloading the forms there. They’re in pdf format so make sure you have a program (such as acrobat) that can read pdfs. If you don’t have one you can download it for free at

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

and fill out the forms (the pdf file includes instructions on what they want of you).

Please note that while the citizen grandparent won’t have to appear at your child’s interview s/he will need to provide the applying parent with Xeroxes of

1) his/her own birth certificate and proof of his/her US citizenship

2) proof that S/HE indeed lived there for 5 years at least 2 after age 14. What is proof? They won’t tell you outright – they just tell you to provide the best you can. My advice is pour on the official documentation: School transcripts, degrees, employment records – anything legal which can establish his presence in the US for those 5 years. You may not need all that much but remember the interest in their becoming citizens is yours not the Immigration service’s and so the tighter the case you can build documentationwise the safer you are (which is good since living abroad its not like you can just come back in three months with more documentation).

The citizen parent must also have their own

1) birth and marriage certificates

2) child(ren)’s birth certificate(s)

3) You can submit Xeroxes of both your and your citizen parent’s documentation (in fact you SHOULD provide Xeroxes rather than the originals) but WILL be expected to bring the originals to the interview and produce them for the interviewer if asked (they never asked for my originals but Murphy’s Law says that if I hadn’t had them they’d have asked)

4) proof that you have custody of your child – ridiculous for a married parent I agree but that’s bureaucracy for you!  What I did was got a printout (15 shekels apiece) from the Interior Ministry’s census registry which showed that we both (me and my kids) have the same address and that im living with their mother and am married.

5) All non-English documents must be accompanied by an English translation with the translator affirming himself competent to do the translation. You can abilitywise probably do it yourself but they don’t approve of that as it could affect your translating.  Also it’s best to have someone with a different last name do it.  Note that the Ministry of the Interior now offers a bilingual (Hebrew/English) birth certificate for the asking so you can save on translating that.

6) since you’re going to have to take the child(ren) to the states for the interview anyhow you might as well apply to a small processing center. Applying in New York LA or Miami could take several years till it all goes through. I applied through Philadelphia which is relatively small and it still took me almost 2 years. Someone else told me they did it through the Hartford Conneticuit office (which they said was an hour’s drive from NYC) and it all got done very quickly and in a friendly manner and I’ve heard similarthings about Rhode Island.  In any case best to pick a place that nobody immigrates to.  Coming from abroad means you have the right to apply to any field office anywhere in the US so check out the list here https://egov.immigration.gov/crisgwi/go?action=offices.type&OfficeLocator.office_type=SC and send your completed forms there along with xeroxes of the documents you intend to present to them as requested on the forms and listed by me above.

After a certain amount of time which can range anywhere from 3-4 months to 3-4 years depending in large part on what field office you apply to you’ll receive a letter from USCIS instructing you to appear before them at the field office with your child on a day they’ll set for you (usually about 3 months or so from when they send the letter).   At that point you make your travel plans and submit a request to the embassy for a visa http://telaviv.usembassy.gov/consular/niv/Apply.aspx#1 and include a copy of your letter from the USCIS with your other documentation to the embassy.  They’ll issue you a limited 60 day visa to take your child to the States for the interview.

The interview itself is a formality essentially.  They’re not likely to invite you to come to the US unless they’re already convinced after reviewing the documentation you sent them that your case is sound.  Of course they may want to check that you didn’t just create the documentation and that’s why it’s so important to have the original documentation with you.  I don’t know what they do for older kids but for my kids who were all under 5 when I took them, they spoke exclusively to me, asked me basic questions about my dad’s documentation and then printed up naturalization certificates for the kids within an hour or so at which point they were US citizens.

One final note: in the interview letter they ask you to bring proof that thevidence of the applicant child’s entry into the US.  What they want you to do is the following.  On the plane they give you this white card to fill out about your plans for being in the country etc.  When you go through border control they’ll take part of that card and leave you with the other part of it and stamp your kids passports (and yours) to show that you came through border control.  The citizen parent should make a photocopy of the page in each applicant child’s passport that has that border control stamp on it and bring to the interview (with the other documentation of course).  The interviewers appreciate that, especially since most people forget and then they’ve got to go photocopy the passport themselves – best to get them in a good mood right off by saving them the hassle.  Naturally they should also bring the kids passports and that white card from the plane with them to the interview as well.