I know that a significant number of those following my weekly blog hail from the UK and the US and will doubtless be well aware of the volatility of housing markets. ‘Safe as bricks and mortar’ is an old chestnut that seems to have worn pretty thin in recent times.  

The British and American markets, having reached a peak in 2007, have been through turbulent times since as the reality that there is no such thing as a sure-fire money-maker, literally hits home. With both markets looking generally depressed and likely to see house price declines of between 10 and 20% over the next 12 months (depending on who you listen to), many people wanting to sell will have to do so at rather less than they might have expected only two or three years ago.  

Whilst most of the world has suffered from the economic downturn triggered by the banking collapse of 2008 and the sub-prime mortgage scandals, Israel has escaped relatively unscathed, and indeed has been one of the few countries in the world to see consistent positive quarterly growth. Our economy grew by more than 4% in the first half of 2010 alone. Few would argue that Israel’s is generally a well managed economy, due in no small part to the presence of American-born Stanley Fischer as Governor of the Bank of Israel, a man regarded internationally as one of the shrewdest operators in the business.  

When British and US banks were falling over themselves to lend 100% and more of property values to anyone who appeared on their doorstep, Fischer insisted that the traditional 35-40% deposit for those wishing to take out a mortgage must remain in place.  He didn’t buy into the idea of risking exposure on the sub-prime markets, and as a result he and the leaders of Israel’s main banks, Leumi, Hapoalim, Discount, Mizrahi etc, escaped the ravages of the international banking collapse. Whilst house prices dived around the world, Israel’s property market has seen rises of up to 50% in some areas over the last 2 years, a rate of increase that has shocked the average Israeli who now finds himself unable to get a foothold on the property ladder. Tel Aviv is now ranked as one of the 10 most expensive cities in the world to buy property. 

Having closely followed the property market trends over the last five years and still been resident in Britain when the rot showed signs of setting in back in 2007, I have become increasingly convinced that what happened in Britain is coming our way here in Israel, although to a somewhat lesser degree. When you consider the figures behind day-to-day living over here, the reality is pretty frightening. The cost of living is roughly the same as the UK, but the average wage is around half of that received, so how on earth can the average couple who have a gross income of around $4,500 per month, be expected to afford an average three-bedroom apartment that is now priced at nearly $400,000? The figures don’t stack up. 

To be fair, the figures barely stacked up three years ago when the same apartment cost $250,000, and when you reckon that most people end up paying around 40-45% in income tax and national insurance on their gross wages, and that the cost of the average car is more than double that of the UK and three or four times that in the US, the reality is that buying a home is now beyond the pocket of a great number of Israelis, even though it is traditional over here for parents and grandparents to stump up and contribute towards buying a house for young couples. 

The situation could be quickly improved if only the government would cease sitting on its hands and order the Israel Land Authority to release tranches of land for the development of affordable housing projects. I’m not talking about building in occupied territories or anywhere that isn’t completely Israeli, I’m talking about the astounding 93% of designated building land that the Authority refuses to release under any circumstances! There are queues of independent builders desperate to offer new homes at a fair price to all sectors of Israeli society, but the government is steadfastly ignoring all calls for a release of land. In other words, they are keeping prices artificially high for reasons that are open to conjecture and speculation. Add to this the astonishing rise in the last few years from around 150,000 to 500,000 shekels in the completion tax per apartment that the government now levies on builders, and you can quickly see why the market is as it is. 

Stanley Fischer is determined to slow the rate of house price rises and in the last few weeks has raised the base rate of interest – he insists he will continue to raise the rate until the market cools down - and has also ruled that banks cannot give second mortgages to anyone buying a property above 1.3 million shekels (around $375,000). Most people accepted that the first measure was legitimate, but the second has come in for plenty of stick with critics suggesting that it will reduce the buyers of second properties to those who have large reserves of cash and leave the market open for them to pick and choose.   

There is still however a significant body of people who believe that prices here can only keep going up, due to the scarcity of land and the continuing influx of cash buyers as the immigration from countries such as France and the US, in particular, shows little sign of slowing.

Personally, I believe that if those people intending to move here find selling their home abroad increasingly difficult, coupled with a potential rise in the strength of the sheqel against a basket of international currencies, the financial attraction of moving to the Holy Land will soon lose its lustre. The ever-present possibility of conflict in the region is another potential factor in the market here appearing to be ever more precarious. If all hell is let loose at some point in the not too distant future I imagine many people with dual passports will be rushing to sell up and leave, forcing a flood of properties onto the market and resulting in price falls.  

Some, none, or (heaven forbid), all the above could happen, so I kind of feel that what has happened in the US and Europe in the last few years is now, (to some degree), coming our way in this volatile corner of the Middle East.

The next few months could prove a very interesting time for the Israeli economy and the local property market in particular.

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So many things have been going on over here in Israel in the last few weeks that it has been difficult to decide which subject should concentrate my attention for this week’s blog. Until last night I was still unsure, but then the news broke of the demands of the United Torah Judaism party, (supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition), with regard to the allocation of stipends to Yeshiva students, and the choice was clearly made for me.

This is a fairly complicated subject, but in brief, the background to last night’s negotiations is the Israeli High Court of Justice ruling of earlier this summer that the massive handouts given for years to the rapidly growing number of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students were illegal, as they discriminated against university and secular students, who didn’t receive a penny – or a shekel even!

In other words, (and listen carefully ‘cos I shall say this only once),the perverse situation had arisen whereby those that served in the armed forces for the mandatory period of three years for men and two years for women, before going off to university to train for a career or profession which would then earn them an income and enable them to pay taxes to help support the running of country, were unable to claim any financial support, whilst those who had refused to join the armed forces, and who had no plans to ever work for a living or contribute anything to mainstream society, were given substantial handouts to allow them to sit in a yeshiva all day and ‘study’. If that seems fair to you, then the chances are that you’re probably listening to the wrong blog!

Not surprisingly, the many thousands of ultra-Orthodox men that until now have been living off the state, dodging work and military service, and who invariably marry young and procreate to an alarming degree (it would appear that television is a rare evening option), are somewhat perturbed at the thought of losing their money and having to go out and find a job to feed their households of 10, 12, 14 or more. Doubtless, behind the scenes they have been lobbying their political representatives very hard indeed and have been determined to find a way to circumvent the law and make sure they keep a grip on their most undeserved ‘pocket money’.

In a blog of some months ago I pointed out that in forming a coalition with virtually any party that had sufficient numbers to allow him to govern, Netanyahu was sowing a bitter crop that would have to be reaped sooner or later. Whilst United Torah Judaism don't sit in the government, they do vote with the government, so I’d say that now is harvest time.

In a nutshell, the United Torah Judaism party, (or as they are quite understandably better known, the UTJ), has very strongly hinted that if amendments aren’t made to the stipend situation which favour the Ultra Orthodox sector and circumvent the law in a weasley way, they will withdraw their support for the budget bill, thereby bringing down the government and forcing an early general election. 

UTJ’s suggestion is aimed at staying within the ruling of the High Court, but in defining terms that clearly favour the Haredi and Ultra-Orthodox student population. Rather than the old legislation which positively discriminated in favour of religious students and was therefore illegal, UTJ has suggested that they will support the budget bill if the student stipend legislation is based on the following criteria, (now listen up because you’re going to love this):

1)      You must be a student with a least three children

2)      You must have no other source of income

3)      You must not own a property or a motor vehicle

Your starter for 10: Which section of the Israeli student population has an average number of more children than on the fingers of one hand (and sometimes three hands!), has no working member of the household, and cannot afford a house or a car to house or transport their brood? You got it, the ultra-Orthodox and Haredi community. 

So, whilst the law to provide student stipends will not (in black and white) single out any section of Israeli society for special attention, it will in reality only apply to those who meet the aforementioned criteria, and believe me, you’d struggle to find any secular university student that would fit the bill. In other words, the law in black and white will, in reality, apply only to those who dress in black and white. If the government doesn’t agree to this fudge we’ll be heading to the polls very soon.

And if that isn’t one of the most sickeningly brazen pieces of political blackmail, then I’m the Mad Hatter and you’ll be invited for tea with me, Alice and the Cheshire Cat as soon as I can get the invitations printed!

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For centuries the archetypal image of the Jew was of a studious city dwelling person, often academic, a professional type, ill at ease with manual labour, sport and physical activity. Well, that was one image. The other was of the Jew portrayed by Chaim Topol in the Hollywood musical ‘Fiddler On The Roof’ of the poor peasant farmer, physically labouring tirelessly to give his children the best chance in life, a hands-on, hard working Jew, a man who could turn his hand to any labour if it resulted in him having a little more in his pocket at the end of the week.

 

Modern day Israel, the Jewish homeland, is a country made up of Jews from all corners of the earth, many of whom came with nothing, laboured in the fields and on the kibbutzes, or eked out a living in the cities in the days before the high-rise blocks and hi-tech industries paved the way for better times ahead. With most of the  able-bodied members of the population serving time in the army (men for three years and women for two), and some continuing to do annual service up to the age of 50, it’s fair to say that the average Israeli appears to be in better shape than the average Brit or American.

 

Some surveys suggest that image is changing with the fast-food lifestyle beginning to catch on here and the population becoming increasingly more obese. That downward trend couldn’t have been further from my mind however when last Saturday morning I dragged myself out of bed before the crack of dawn (a very, very rare occurrence, I promise you), and drove east to the Sea of Galilee, arriving at 0630 to find myself in a queue of traffic, patiently waiting to be assigned a parking space ahead of the 57th annual ‘Crossing of the Kinneret’ - ‘Kinneret’ being the local name for the Sea of Galilee.

 

Now, before you think this was a convention of would-be Jesus impersonators, it is in fact an annual challenge for swimmers of all ages to make their way across from the eastern side of the inland lake to the western shore, a challenge that for me as an awful swimmer would only ever end in a watery grave! So when my 10-year-old daughter Tami informed me that she wanted to join her grandpa (a regular Kinneret crosser), for this year’s challenge, like the native population of North America, I had plenty of reservations.

 

I’ve never doubted for  a moment that Tami is a very good swimmer, and after being assured by her grandpa that she was more than capable, (and that if she got tired there were floating stations to rest before continuing), it seemed only right to let her take her chance. And I’m very glad I did, because what I saw there on Saturday morning on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, a place made famous in the bible and New Testament as the location of incredible happenings, was the very best of modern Israel.

 

I would estimate that at least 3000 people came to take on one of the three challenges – the one mile crossing, the two mile crossing, and the four mile crossing. Tami and her grandpa Dan, together with his brother Efraim and wife Tzippi, (who had flown over from San Francisco to take on the lake), were going for the one mile crossing – 1500 metres in open water. We waved them off from the car park as they boarded a bus which took them across to the far side of the lake, whilst Paz and I, with my younger daughter Maya and mother-in-law Ilana, waited on the hillside overlooking the finishing line on the western shore along with many hundreds, even thousands of relatives and friends of the swimmers.

 

People of all ages and backgrounds were there to take on the challenge. Some were serious swimmers who signed up to compete in the four-mile crossing, which is also a race for the strongest and fittest, whilst others were leisure swimmers, two, sometimes three generations of the same family, along for the day out and the chance to say they had done the ‘Zlichot ha Kinneret’ - the crossing of the Sea of Galilee. It was seven in the morning and there was a gentle atmosphere about the place. Unbelievably there was a live band playing light rock music! I can’t imagine any musician I know being able to do a gig at seven am, but a gig’s a gig, I suppose.

 

Somewhere out in the lake my daughter was front crawling or backstroking her way through the water, and after being satisfied that there were enough launches and resting decks on the way should she get tired, I have to admit that I nodded off in the shade of a very conveniently placed palm tree. Even though aged only 10, a parent sometimes has to be able to place the safety of their child in the hands of others and let the kid do something for themselves. That’s what I believe anyway. It’s a confidence building exercise and a step on the way to independence of mind and spirit.

 

The mother-in-law woke me with a gentle nudge, (or at least I think it was a gentle nudge, it might have been a sharpened stick!), and I trotted down to the shore where swimmers were starting to wade up onto the beach. And there she was, Tami Alster, accompanied by her grandpa, great aunt and great uncle, nonchalantly drying herself off as if she’d just come out of the paddling pool, completely unfazed by the achievement.  She had to be persuaded to pose for a photo or three, and only really started to get excited when her grandpa reminded her that everyone that crossed the finishing line received a goody bag.

 

By this point dozens of people were emerging from the water looking very pleased with themselves. I heard later on the radio that the youngest to do the swim was 7 years old, whilst the oldest was 76. I was sure I saw a man that looked more like 86 coming out of the water, but maybe he just looked 86 after finding it harder than he had expected!

 

This really was a wonderful event, well organised, (taking into account all the necessary safety requirements and logistics of the day), and it made me feel very proud to be Israeli seeing so many good people participating in a great sport in an atmosphere of friendliness and mutual appreciation. The only fault I could find is that no-one had been sponsored to make the crossing – sponsorship just isn’t part of the Israeli way of doing things – and surely a big opportunity to raise money for good causes was clearly missed.

 

Tami’s goody bag contained a beach sun parasol, (to ensure that she wouldn’t get sunburned next time she decides to build a sand castle), a number of plastic bags for collecting rubbish and keeping Israel today, quite bizarrely, a portable plastic ash tray (so you don’t leave your ciggies out in the wild and start a forest fire), and most importantly, a medal celebrating the achievement of successfully taking part in the 57th ‘Crossing of the Galilee’.

 

There are a thousand and one good reasons for visiting Israel, but if you’re a keen swimmer and want to combine a superb holiday with the chance to cross one of the most famous stretches of water in the world in the company of like-minded people, then the 58th crossing will take place same time, same place in 2011.

 

 

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Do you remember the long hot summer of 1976? Phew, what a scorcher! It was the longest period without rainfall in British history. Day after day after day of glorious sunshine during the summer holidays was an English schoolboy’s delight. If I wasn’t out running around with my friends, I was inside cooling off watching the West Indies take on England in the test cricket series, marvelling at Viv Richards and Clive Lloyd swatting the ball to all corners of the ground, whilst our own surly Geoff Boycott played a solid straight forward defensive.  

French-trained Empery and Lester Piggott had the audacity to win the Epsom Derby, Johnny Miller beat Seve Ballesteros in the Open Championship at Royal Birkdale, and then there was the Montreal Olympics. Nadia Comaneci scored the first ever perfect ten (the one before Bo Derek), Lasse Viren came down from his mountain top in Finland to win both the 5000 and 10000 metres, ‘White Lightening’ himself Alberto Juantorena  took the 400 and 800 metre titles, and Sugar Ray Leonard was an outstanding champion in the boxing tournament. Happy days indeed. 

The unscripted sunshine however took its toll on the Brits. Fresh food prices rocketed, we were all a little ‘hot under the collar’, and then the water ran out. Do you remember the water tankers turning up and having to queue up for your rations, or the standpipe being erected on every street corner? There hadn’t been a drop of the wet stuff since early June.  

The day the rains came is one of my most vivid childhood memories. It was towards the end of August and I had walked the two streets from my house to my grandparents’ home, with my younger brother and sister. We were sitting inside when Nana noticed that the skies had darkened. She ran to the lounge window and spotted a few spots of rain and we ran over too to witness the much missed spectacle. Then the heavens opened and it began to pour down, really heavy rain.

My short, chubby Nana rushed into the hall and grabbed a handful of umbrellas, gave us one each and then flung the back door open and ran out onto the grass. We all followed. Then, ‘Dynamic Doris’ (as my Nana was known to some), started belting out ‘Singing In the Rain’, and we three joined in, swishing our umbrellas round in circles and splashing through the water, screaming with delight as she led us up and down the garden path to the cheers of the neighbours on the estate who had all rushed out to watch. It was one of the most delightful moments of my childhood. 

Here in Israel we have endured one of the hottest summers for many a long year, the heatwave going on unusually long until the middle of this week when the temperatures began to fall a few degrees a day. Light rain showers were predicted for yesterday but as usual didn’t materialize, so today’s forecast of rain was taken with more than large pinch of salt.  

With a dry winter forecast, the water situation here in the Middle East remains critical. The Sea of Galilee, Israel’s main source of fresh water, is still four metres below the critical line despite serious efforts by the Israeli public to save water both in the home and on the garden. It’s often mooted that the next major war in these parts will be over water, but I reckon other factors might prompt an outbreak of hostilities before that happens. Nonetheless, the parched land reflects a situation which may only be part-remedied when Israel’s massive desalination project comes on line in 2012, and the situation remains desperate. 

At around noon today my girls Tami and Maya arrived home hot and sticky from school, but within minutes of them coming through the door the skies darkened and sure enough the first rains since April started beating down with some force on our roof. Unprompted, the girls ran out onto the lawn and started dancing for joy, taking an open-air shower in the warm tropical style downpour. In the adjacent houses on the street other kids were whooping and hollering for joy as well, doing exactly the same.  

Standing at the lounge door, staring out onto the garden with the girls soaking wet and delighted at the arrival of the rain, I drifted back to 1976 and could still see Nana’s little legs flying sideways (as they had when she was doing the Charleston in the 1920’s), with me, my sister and brother trying to imitate her every move. 

As Hall of Fame baseball legend Yogi Berra so famously stated in his inimitable fashion, “It’s like déjà vu all over again”.

 

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