Ulpan and Work
Last week we met with the misrad haklita again to get more details on a medical salary subsidy for my observation period, (Histaklut). First of all, it turns out that yes, such a thing does in fact exist. (The cardiology department chair asked me about it when I met with him a couple weeks ago. He obviously knows the system and knows that he won’t have to shell out any shekels for my salary from his department budget if he can get the government to pay for it.) It lasts for the duration of the required observation period – in my case three months. She didn’t know the exact amount of the subsidy but said she would give me the name of the person in Jerusalem who would officially handle the request. She said that normally they don’t give two kinds of aid to the same person at the same time – in other words you wouldn’t be able to receive Sal Klita payments (money the government gives you each month for the first 5 months to help with expenses while you get settled and look for a job, etc) and also get the salary subsidy. But because there is a shortage of doctors, you can submit a special request to the committee, and in every case she’s heard of, they have approved the request. Then you can get the salary subsidy while at the same time receiving the Sal Klita. Good to know.
I decided however, to delay starting work for a few months in order to do full time ulpan, language classes. The full time classes meet every morning from 8AM to 12:30PM. There is an evening session also that meets 5-8 or something like that three evenings a week, but they said you’ll learn it much faster in the full time morning session. The session runs for five months, from Sept thru Jan. I plan to start, and hopefully I may not need the entire 5 months? Maybe I can start working after 3 months? We’ll see. And when I’m ready to start, they need a month and a half lead time to submit the request for the salary subsidy, etc. So once I’m a month or so into it I’ll have to decide about that.
Yesterday, after looking for the Ulpan vouchers we received after our first meeting with the Misrad Haklita (absorption ministry) which would allow us to register for the full time Ulpan, and not finding them anywhere, we went back to the Misrad Haklita (without an appointment – sort of reminded me of Queen Esther going up to the King without being called – you never quite know how its going to work out!) And lo and behold, rather than being told to schedule an appointment for next week sometime, the secretary held out the golden sceptre, and was able to re-print the vouchers for us!
😇😇
Then we went to the Mercaz Haklita (absorption center) here in Ra’anana to officially register for ulpan. Val decided to just register for level one (she said there are only four levels anyway). I decided to take the four page placement quiz. It was a bunch of sentences with the verb missing and then a multiple choice answer where you had to choose the correct conjugation. And there were a couple of short stories to read then several true/false questions to answer about the story. I didn’t understand everything but i think i did pretty well and got most of it right. I think the test said that it was for level 1 and 2 on the cover. She said we should both show up at 8am on tues sept 3 (the kids start school on sept 1, sunday) and then i’ll find out what group i’m in.
