Where, oh where, was I?

Talk about the "If I knew then" syndrome.
A new Israeli reality TV show is going to be a "Survivor" for new immigrants. In January 2009, eight Americans will touch down in Tel Aviv and duke it out for the chance to win a Tel Aviv beachfront apartment, a good job, a car, a boyfriend, a supportive group of friends and free drinks for life.

Fine, the last three are what I would wish for a new immigrant, but the first three are real. There is actually going to be a reality TV show where the participants have to open an Israeli bank account, file immigration paperwork and take Hebrew lessons.

I would like to recommend to the producers that they mine my experiences dodging the IDF, making many repeat visits to the immigration office, searching for an apartment for a month and waking up at midnight in the suburb of Rishon Letziyon with no way home after falling asleep on a bus.

The show will either be hilarious to watch because of the schadenfreude, or painful in the Larry David way of 'did you really just do that?'

I suppose one could ask why the show focuses on the cushy lives of North American immigrants, rather than on the serious challenges faced by Ethiopians who move from a middle-ages society to one very much in the twenty-first century. But I think that adjustment is much more tragic, where as the travails of American immigrants are frustrating yet ultimately not that bad.