A few days ago I received an email from Israel’s ministry of Aliyah (literally: “Ascension,” in context: “Immigration”) and Integration inviting me to come to their office, with a bank account ready.
I had three goals this morning:
Register an Israeli phone number and get an Israeli SIM card working in my phone. Anything involving a form has been difficult or impossible to fill out with my American phone number (I can’t always use a relative’s cell phone).
Open an Israeli Bank Account.
Make my appointment at the Ministry of Immigration and Integration at 1:00, with my phone number and bank details ready.
From Masa (or maybe Destination Israel) I had received a SIM card from 019 Mobile which they said would be easy to register and use. I signed up for a basic plan with them Saturday night, and then got to a webpage (all in Hebrew) that asked me if I wanted to order a SIM by mail or pick one up in person. There wasn’t any option for using a SIM that you already had, so I backed out and tried again, but I got the same page. Then checking my email I saw I had signed up for two phone numbers (neither of which I could register to the SIM). I went to bed.
This morning (Sunday) I called their customer service line (from my American SIM) and it couldn’t connect. Accompanied by my cousin Michael, I went to a mobile store and we asked for some help.
The first thing the man at the phone shop said was that Michael should uncross his arms, because it was bad luck to start a business day with arms crossed, it would discourage success. He offered Michael a hug in case he was cold, which Michael refused, and then he listened again to what we needed. Then he said we would have to call their customer service line, which we tried from Michael’s phone as we started walking toward a Bank Leumi.
A recorded message on Michael’s phone told us that we would get a call back, so we tried to reach 019 technical support through their WhatsApp chat. We took too long to answer once and had to start over and send over the details again. Then we got transferred to customer service, who cancelled one of the two service plans, then sent us back to technical support, who tried for two hours to register their SIM and connect me to cell service.
While we were doing this we were in the waiting area of the bank to open a checking account. After a woman came over to help us I realized I was missing my passport, so we walked back to the house (only a few blocks, thankfully) to get it - we didn’t even lose our place in line. But then I was told that without an ID card I would not be able to open a bank account. (I have an Israeli ID number, not the card, but the same number is on my valid Israeli passport).
I explained to woman at the desk that the Ministry of Aliyah clearly expected me to be able to open a bank account, so was there any way she could use my ID number and passport instead? There wasn’t, she was sorry. I jokingly asked if she wanted to come with us to the Ministry office so we can sort everything out there. (The government office that is in charge of integrating new immigrants sounds like a government office that should know not to send those new immigrants to open bank accounts without first making sure they have ID cards, but apparently not.) We walked down the street to Discount Bank to ask if they had the same rule, which they did.
Still going back and forth with 019 Mobile over Michael’s WhatsApp, we came a few hours early to the immigration and integration office to see if they could offer any help. The woman we spoke to did not speak much English but was quite understanding, and my Hebrew sufficed with Michael’s help. She recommended we go to the Ministry of the Interior to get a temporary ID certificate, and prepared for me a document that looks like a passport but is actually a sort of ID/certificate for returning citizens, used by the Ministry of Aliyah and a few others.
Still exchanging messages with tech support, we walked back to the house and drove to the Ministry of the Interior’s office. When we got there the guard asked if we had passport-size photos ready, which we did not (what kind of government office in charge of producing ID cards cannot take photos? The Israeli kind!) so he told us to come back tomorrow morning (without an appointment). Hopefully the same guard is there and hopefully he recognizes us. I reached out to a family friend whose mother works in the ministry of interior just in case.
While exiting a photo shop with the passport photos (which came out a little crooked somehow - I think their floor was uneven) I told Michael that he should tell 019 to cancel everything and pay my money back, I prefer to pay slightly more for a phone plan that actually works. The Pelephone kiosk in the mall on the way home had me connected with an Israeli number in about 15 minutes.
Back at the house, I tried to open an account with an online bank (which might have been illegal for me to use as US citizen, but it didn’t matter because as it turns out), it didn’t work; I still needed an Israeli ID card to use that bank. Eventually I got two emails from 019, one cancelling each phone number that I had tried to register the night before. Nice work Michael.
I tried to sign into the online portal for new immigrants. (If I can get an account on there, I might be able to upload my bank details and access other benefits, services and information without having to be at an office in person. Once I have the bank details, that is.) To make an account I needed to provide 2 of 6 methods of identification. The only ones I could provide at the moment were my (1) Israeli passport number and (2) answering 2 security questions (to be checked against the government database). The only security questions I could possibly answer (some of them ask things like when my marital status changed, and “never” is not a date) are the date of my Aliyah and the number of foreign passport. I put those in and then get an error message that my foreign passport number is invalid.
I called tech support for help. The first time I was on hold for longer than my patience could handle, so I hung up and called again, this time pressing the number for emotional support instead (I was thinking there might be a shorter wait there). The emotional support hotline was malfunctioning, a recorded message told me to hang up. I called back on the general assistance line, this time I was answered but couldn’t find someone to talk to me in English. I called again, this time understood that they would call me back when they had someone, which I never really believed would happen. So I got Michael again and we spent another hour with a very patient and thorough woman on the other end of the tech support line, who had us go through her script and then told us someone would call us back within ten business days.
Of course, I wouldn’t have to answer security questions if I could just use an Israeli credit card account in my name as identify verification instead. But I can’t get one of those without an Israeli bank account, which I can’t open without an ID card, which I can hopefully get a temporary substitute for tomorrow morning… Later that night, just to see if it would work, I tried putting in my birthday for the date of my last marital status change (it’s technically the date I began being single?) which did not work. Government forms do not reward thinking like an engineer.
I got a few WhatsApps from volunteers in Talmei Yosef, asking if I need help finding my way back. When I explained what I was doing they were quite supportive but I still felt a bit of guilt, a bit of fear of missing out, a bit of embarrassment at being a foreigner in this way.
Throughout the day I had taken every obstacle with the mantra of it’s all content for the blog. I began to get frustrated around 4 pm, as I had hoped to be back there already, but I let my new friends know I will have to come back tomorrow. Since I was getting good at filling out forms online, I also filled out one to join a health insurance plan. (They say they are available 24/7 for new customers - still haven’t gotten a call back.)
I changed my mind a few times about what to call this post. I started out with just “Integration.” I considered “welcome to Israel, motherfucker,” it seemed appropriate, but that's not really the tone I'm hoping to produce. I settled on a phrase my great uncle Haran taught me in the middle of the quest: מעגל שוטה, literally a “foolish circle” but in context closer to “catch-22” or “vicious cycle.”
I want to advance my progress with the Ministry of Aliyah. To access their online portal I need an Israeli credit card (since the other options aren't working), which means I need an Israeli bank account (which I also need for normal reasons), which I can't open without an ID card, which I need to get tomorrow morning from the Ministry of the Interior, but I can't rely on the Ministry of Aliyah to really be much help with the Ministry of Interior (or with anything) because I can't use the online portal. So tomorrow morning Michael and I will attempt to break the cycle, telling a sympathetic story about a brave and naive volunteer if necessary.
Tomorrow afternoon, I want to be back picking passionfruit, a few kilometers from the Gaza strip, bank account or no. My cousin Michael is the hero in this story, none of it could have been possible without him.
Language barriers are crazy. Bureaucracy even more so. I wonder how the USA does it?
It’s almost like the Israeli gov is providing you comic material! Let us know the end of the story:)