Bureaucracy is, without question, one of the biggest — if not the most daunting — hurdles faced by new olim when making aliyah. After speaking to friends, colleagues, and family members, I’ve collected countless stories - and I know that I’m only scratching the surface.
Last week, I shared some stories about the dreaded Misrad HaPnim (Interior Ministry). In this week’s piece, I will dive into another bureaucratic adventure, this time addressing another common hurdle that nearly every oleh has encountered: Israel’s postal system.
Personally, I’ve had more than a few unpleasant experiences with the postal service here. What I find most baffling is the fact that you need to make an appointment just to collect a package. Who came up with that idea? In a country known as the start-up nation, celebrated for its high-tech innovation, the Iron Dome, Arrow, David’s Sling, and elite intelligence units, among many other advancements, it's astounding how something as simple as collecting post can feel like a full-scale military operation.
My favorite aspect of ordering online to your “nearest” address is the fascinating places that your post will be sent to. Will it be the local grocery store? Or the local religious book store? Or how about MaxStock? Even more exciting - will my package even arrive?
I can name numerous occasions where I ordered a package from Shein to the “nearest” address, only to find myself schlepping across the city to some random makolet and rummaging under potatoes to look for my bridesmaid dress. Or another time, when I had to hunt for my package under a pile of sifrei torah in the local religious bookstore, while the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) salesman stood awkwardly nearby. Each time, the shop owner - somehow in on the deal - can never locate my package, instead offering me every other package under the sun, repeatedly asking me if my name is anything but my name. One time, the shopkeeper asked me if my name was Moshe! I mean, really!
On one occasion I received an SMS message that my long-awaited degree certificate had finally arrived. So I went to collect it from my local post office - only to be told that I needed an appointment - when I could literally see the package right there on the shelf with my name on it! The next available appointment? Three weeks from now, by which point it would be too late to get my degree translated and notarized by when I needed it.
Postal woes: the mystery delivery
Like many new olim, Ariella, a young olah from London, can relate to the struggles of dealing with the Israeli postal service. She shared how there was a certain period in her aliyah journey in which she experienced dizzy spells. Her British parents, concerned about her health and safety, worried that her dizziness was perhaps caused by a CO leak in her apartment and insisted that she purchase a CO detector immediately. So, dutifully, in order to put her parents' mind at ease, Ariella inquired at a local hardware store - that generously afforded her two and a half seconds of customer service - where she could purchase one.
Yet after trying to explain what she was looking for in broken Hebrew, “accompanied by an Emmy Award-winning performance of labored breathing and dizziness,” she added, she was told that this type of device doesn’t exist in Israel. Dejectedly, Ariella resorted to ordering the detector online, “knowing full well that I'd get a headache from the postal service (to exacerbate my literal headache),” but chose the home delivery option, thinking this would be easier.
A month passed, by which point Ariella had recovered from the dizzy spells and had practically forgotten about her order. “Just as well it clearly wasn't a CO leak because I certainly would have dropped dead in that time,” she told me.
Suddenly, she received a text one day saying that her Ali Express delivery was waiting to be collected from a shop that she’d never even heard of. Assuming it was a mistake, as she’d never ordered anything from Ali Express, Ariella initially ignored the message. But after receiving multiple urgent messages from the post office in capital letters, she finally decided to call them back.
The post office couldn’t explain what the delivery was but told her that she should just go there herself. Despite it being a massive schlep to this “random makolet,” curiosity won the better of her, and Ariella made the trek. It happened to be a hot day (despite it being winter), and Ariella was overdressed. She described how the trip “turned into an hour-long hike because Google Maps had not registered the mass of building works in the area.”
So getting very lost, she eventually reached the tiny hidden makolet, hot, exhausted, and “threatening no one in particular that this mystery parcel had better be worth it.”
To her surprise, the shop assistant fishes out a tiny plastic-wrapped box, supposedly from Ali Express, “certainly not posted to my house (or anywhere near it).” Inside, wrapped neatly, is the formerly urgent CO detector. Disgruntled, Ariella attempted to get home quickly, but there were no buses, leaving her with no choice but to hike another half hour uphill before finally getting home.
In Ariella’s words: “Israel's scientific and technological advances are incredible, but the day-to-day inconveniences make you wonder how this can possibly be... "ארץ ישראל נקנית בייסורים" - I believe this is a direct reference to the postal service.”
On the bus: the Ravkav fiasco
On another occasion, fed up of being lurched across buses, trying to pay by scanning the QR code on her phone, Ariella heard a rumor that if she goes “old school” and gets a ravkav (public transport card), she could get a better monthly deal.
Quickly, she fills in her details online and is pleased to see that she can get the ravkav delivered right to her door. But a week goes by - no ravkav. Two weeks go by - still no ravkav. According to the tracking status online, it should be on its way, but instead another week goes by.
Happening to see an actual ravkav shop at her local mall one day, Ariella enters the shop and explains that she still hasn’t received her ravkav and asks if they could speed up the process. Not only do they inform her that there is nothing that they can do, but they also can’t order her a new one. A week later, Ariella receives an email informing her that the ravkav won’t be coming after all. Frustrated, she returns to the local shop where they take her photo and print her card on the spot.
“Well, that was an additional wasted month of payment,” she exclaimed emphatically.
“The very next day, guess what arrives in the post?” she tells me. “The original ravkav I ordered. I now have 2 personalized ravkavs - well what do you know, better safe than sorry! Now I'll be sure to always have my discount in order!”
So with the ravkav in hand, Ariella tops it up with the relevant discounts and boards the bus excitedly. It doesn't work. She tries again. Still, it doesn’t work. Suddenly she hears the dreaded word of the ticket inspector (or the ravkav police, as I like to call them), "BIKORET! (inspection)"
Panicked, she tries to scan the QR code on her phone as she sways precariously, and Moovit plays the dreaded ad, preventing her from paying. Ariella doesn’t understand - how can it not be working?
Only then does she read the small print of the deal written on the card. It includes everywhere EXCEPT Jerusalem. Bewildered, Ariella assumes that there must be a Jerusalem deal but that she just missed it. But there isn’t. So after all of that, she submits a request for a refund from the ravkav company, slipping the two useless ravkavs into her purse. Back to Moovit, bemoaned Ariella — with “its inability to move it when Bikoret's breathing down my neck,” she sighed.