Retirement in Tel Aviv: A Revolutionary Idea? or Just Common Sense?

An 80th birthday celebration with Israeli retirees and others from around the globe. Israel is a great place to be if you are coming from Argentina, Italy and even New York / © 2010

An Israeli, and American and a Cuban are sitting at an Azrieli coffee shop talking about retirement. They talk about grandchildren, social security payments and health services. The Israeli feels at home, he looks at the Cuban and thinks:

"what a sad man, what is he going to do with his retirement? how is he going to learn and see the world? It must feel terrible to come to Israel and see how the people advance economically every few years, while at Cuba the "revolutionaries" are stuck in an economic and political tar pit."

Then the Israeli turns to the American and asks:

How it is going with the health care reform? We hear all kind of horrible stories on Fox news. Half of America is cheering Obama and his reforms. Half are calling him a communist and want him out of office. This sounds like a terrible situation. What are you going to do when healthcare for the middle class becomes expensive and hard to pay for?

They all sit around trying to understand each other. Foreigners are always surprised about how healthcare works in Israel. Here is a country that is still not exactly on European economic levels. The population is small. A large percentage of the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and support staff is trained outside of the country (Israel simply does not have enough medical and nursing schools and no pharmaceutical school.) The country has been in war, sometimes active, for all of it's existence (62 years.) How is it that healthcare is nationalized, on a high level, there are private "upgrade" alternatives. Israelis can also buy supplemental health insurance for better dental care, less contribution on expensive drugs and anything else such as cosmetic surgery. If you are looking for a "magic bullet" there isn't one. Israel as a state gives high level basic health services to everyone. Retirees from other countries can join the healthcare system by "paying in". This is just one reason why some people come to retire here.

When we retire we all have hopes and dreams. Even if our lives did not turn out how we imagined, we still have a few good years to enjoy life. Here is where Israel surprises most people coming to visit. For the average American or European retirees, cost of living and overall lifestyle if much better then their native cities. This is specially true for civil servants and corporate blue collar workers. I am surprised to see retired American auto workers on hikes here. A couple who spent teaching in New York City school system is just down the hall in a mid-level retirement community from a family friend. They say that all their friends use to think they are crazy, one by one on their visits, they became fans and now even are a bit jealous. An accountant who worked at Enron makes his home in Tel Aviv, still taking a few freelance assignments. His wife teaches English to high school students. Their life is better than anything they had in Ohio more then a decade ago. Besides many English speaking Israelis, the cultural mix in Israel makes for an easy time for more foreigners. In the bigger cities, there are neighborhoods with foreigners which makes it even easier. The strong economy and good infrastructure is important to most people, here you do not have to slog through bad roads and patchy electric or phone service like most less developed countries. Finally there is the vitality of Israel. This is something most people have a hard time with. How do you tell your children in New York that you are busy all the time, that there are American movies downtown a short bus ride away? How do you tell them about that Michigan trained teeth implant specialist that calls you after an operation and makes sure you are OK? Well, you can't. This is Israel's big secret, which is hard to quantify, harder to tell, and even harder to make people believe.