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Out of curiosity, I looked it up -- Israel may even be harder to immigrate to than the United States. Background: I am a US citizen, but my mom's family is Jewi

Out of curiosity, I looked it up -- Israel may even be harder to immigrate to than the United States. Background: I am a US citizen, but my mom's family is Jewish. Most of my mom's family came over from Hungary during WWII, while the ones who stayed behind were killed in the Holocaust. While I am not a practicing Jew (my immediate family is mostly atheist now), this should actually allow me to immigrate to Israel as an Israeli national. Here's the tricky part. First, Israel has an acceptance of dual citizenship, so that is not a problem. However, an immigrated citizen is also subject to conscription in the IDF, just like every other Israeli citizen (and that includes women). It seems moving to Israel and then having to do 3 years of military service would put quite a damper on your startup plans. If you're not Jewish and of Jewish ancestry? You're screwed. There is no easy way to gain a long term visa otherwise. So I would honestly have to put Tel Aviv at the bottom of the list, not the top, for international startup cities.

nir 16y ago
I think most immigrants past a certain age do a shortened military service, measured in months rather than years. And there are perks like certain tax exemption and free graduate studies (though even paying the full amount for grad studies would seem nearly free if you're coming from the US - Ivy League equivalent education costs about $5k/year or so last time I checked) Israeli immigration laws in general are a mess because they are based on basic assumptions that were true when the country was founded: 1. In 1948 there were about a million of Jewish refugees in Europe, soon joined by about a million Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern nations. This made automatically granting citizenship for Jews a necessity at the time. 2. The concept of non-Jews (or basically anyone that had a choice) wanting to live in Israel, which was extremely poor and under real existential threat was almost laughable, and never seriously considered. These aren't true anymore, and I believe will mean the immigration policy will need to change at some point. Unfortunately Israel is saddled with a barely-functioning parliamentary system which means no coalition government survived its full 4 year term in the past 20 years, making this level of changes extremely hard to push.
ido 16y ago
If you're not Jewish and of Jewish ancestry? You're screwed. There is no easy way to gain a long term visa otherwise. I personally know several non-jewish ex-pats living and working in Israel (and a ton of jewish ones), so it must be at least possible (although might not be easy).
- Locke1689 16y ago
  If you know how they got their visa that could be very interesting. From what I read, the other major way to gain work entry is to have a company sponsor you (which your own startup doesn't usually count for that).

nir 16y ago

I think most immigrants past a certain age do a shortened military service, measured in months rather than years. And there are perks like certain tax exemption and free graduate studies (though even paying the full amount for grad studies would seem nearly free if you're coming from the US - Ivy League equivalent education costs about $5k/year or so last time I checked) Israeli immigration laws in general are a mess because they are based on basic assumptions that were true when the country was founded: 1. In 1948 there were about a million of Jewish refugees in Europe, soon joined by about a million Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern nations. This made automatically granting citizenship for Jews a necessity at the time. 2. The concept of non-Jews (or basically anyone that had a choice) wanting to live in Israel, which was extremely poor and under real existential threat was almost laughable, and never seriously considered. These aren't true anymore, and I believe will mean the immigration policy will need to change at some point. Unfortunately Israel is saddled with a barely-functioning parliamentary system which means no coalition government survived its full 4 year term in the past 20 years, making this level of changes extremely hard to push.

ido 16y ago

If you're not Jewish and of Jewish ancestry? You're screwed. There is no easy way to gain a long term visa otherwise. I personally know several non-jewish ex-pats living and working in Israel (and a ton of jewish ones), so it must be at least possible (although might not be easy).

Locke1689 16y ago
If you know how they got their visa that could be very interesting. From what I read, the other major way to gain work entry is to have a company sponsor you (which your own startup doesn't usually count for that).