Yaacov Ben Yehuda, if you happen to read this, as someone who visited Israel back in June, I can't stress enough to follow Chaim's advice about having a concrete plan to learn Hebrew before moving to Israel. When in Israel, by far the biggest challenge for me during the 8 days of the trip was the vast difficulty with Modern Hebrew. ( Reading signs in a parking garage for example that didn't have any English signs was something I couldn't do. ) This was as a tourist. I can't even imagine what it must be like to attempt to conduct business in Israel or hold down a job, w/o knowing the language in great depth. When Chaim stresses, " Hebrew, Hebrew, Hebrew", when someone is planning on moving to Israel, it's for the best of reasons.