This page is still under construction.
We have seen that many things are different in Israel. Let's look at the sequence in which things are done.
You may have been used to doing certain things first and other things last. The order may be reversed in Israel. Perhaps that's a reflection on the direction of the language. By the time you get to the end of a line in Hebrew, you're at the left side of the page. That's the beginning of the line in most Western countries.
That exercise was presented just to warm things up. Let's take a look at the sequence of other things.
In Israel laws are enacted, but the politicians try to find the requisite funding afterwards.
So, the Knesset may pass a law granting government-funded jobs immediately to citizens in a certain category or status. The law makes everybody happy. People build up their hopes and apply for the jobs. The jobs do indeed exist, but they have no funding.
Free public libraries were mandated by law in the 1970s. However, citizens are required to pay an annual fee for borrowing privileges.
The law is on the books, but we're still waiting for the funding to come through. By now, most people forgot about that law anyhow.
Many people on a room or two to their homes, and then (usually after they are caught) they apply for a building permit.
They have an excuse. Life is short, and they can't wait for the bureaucracy to give them the permit. They want to live in their larger home now.
It is not rare to find a public building or Yeshiva that has built to a certain stage, and now remains uncompleted, desolate, and vacant. The owners are waiting for the rest of the funding to come. They built the first part, with the concept of "I hope it will work out for the rest." Well, either it will or it won't. They search for funding for each stage of the building. Sometimes they find it. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes the building remains empty for years, because they haven't found the funding.
They don't wait until they have the funding. It is important to just get started, to have something there, and then hope for the best. It's the Israeli way.
The government threw people out of their homes in Gush Katif in 2005 without having any idea where the evacuees would live, where they would work, or how they would work.
As a first stage, they put the families in temporary housing or in hotels, with the hope that - somehow - everything would work out. The anticipated miracles were rare.
Crises developed among those families, but the postponed those solutions as well. They hoped that the problems would resolve themselves.
Students are often admitted to schools or colleges without available classrooms. Under the best of circumstances, there is a frenzied attempt to bring over caravans or other temporary facilities after the school year has already begun. And in Israel there is nothing more permanent than a temporary facility. In the meantime, those children may study in the hallway or outside. Please don't ask what happens during inclement weather.
Yet, you do some see occasional flashes of good planning:
Some of the newer neighborhoods are a beautiful sight. Clearly, the layout of the buildings has been planned and arranged in a very esthetic way. Everything is arranged nicely. This seems to prove that a great deal of planning that has been done.
Until you view it from up close.
Then you will discover that the facilities are not arranged all that well. From a distance, you can't tell that the town planners "forgot" to allow a plot of land for a school or a synagogue. The roads may not be wide enough to handle the traffic. Dumpsters have to be placed in carefully allocated parking spaces, since they have no room by the houses
Good planning does require that things be done in a logical sequence.
However, it can't happen if the sequence goes from right to left.
More about the Real World
Read about Israeli forums
Read about Jewish and Hebrew forums
Are you required to read this webpage for a course? Do NOT print out the article. It is copyrighted.
Copyright © David Grossman. World rights reserved. This article may not be printed, forwarded, reproduced, or copied in any way or in any medium without written permission from David Grossman.
Keywords: Education, Library, Planning, Sequence, TimeHome expansion
Construction
Emergency, urgent government housing
School admissions
Planning
Your exercise for this article is as follows:
/GrossmanIsrael/Articles/RealWorld/Sequence