I promised myself I would write again before I went back to misrad hapnim

but I went yesterday. and in the middle of finishing all the paperwork to become a temporary resident, I asked the woman behind the desk why they don’t give work visas anymore.

“what do you mean we don’t give work visas?”
“well, I came in a month ago looking for a work visa, which I was told wasn’t an option. I could chose between aliyah and residency.”
“hang on one second.”

(she goes into the back room for several minutes.)

“it was just a short period of time that we stopped giving work visas. we give them now. you don’t want to become a resident?”
“no, not really.”
“well why didn’t you tell me??”

and 145 shekels later, I received a multiple-entry work visa good until December 2007.

my 14 or so months in Israel on a series of 5 3-month tourist visas was a pretty good run. and im actually about to leave for a month in morocco on december 12^th, which is over a week before my most recent 3-month would have visa expired. so I would have been good to go. and then good to come back in January when I could have acquired yet another tourist visa upon entry.

and since I don’t yet have a job that wants to pay me legally in shekels (my morocco gig offers under-the-table dollars), there was still no real substantive reason for me to do all this hoop jumping. but I haven’t given up hope.

i’m thinking with all the millions of dollars going into the benny sela (escaped serial rapist and israel’s most famous refugee) search (a massive search effort, which puts the osama bin laden hunt to shame), there could be work available at with the police force.