* This post may be boring for most people. But you may find it amusing if you like a tragicomedy. Anyway, I've warned you. ;-)
There is one thing that has been following me "faithfully" since I left Israel at the end of September 2023 - Israeli bureaucracy, or to be more precise, the "ghost" of one of its manifestations.
I seem to have underestimated its "faithfulness". I was naive enough to imagine that it would also leave me with my physical departure from Israel. But I've turned out to be completely wrong.
I first realized how formidable this specific manifestation of Israeli bureaucracy was since I became self-employed. Then I also realized that someone else had been struggling with it for me for many years, sparing me a lot of time and energy.
Two months before I left Israel, I received some incomprehensible letter (by snail mail) from one of the "bastions" of Israeli bureaucracy. Fearing that I wouldn't be able to deal with the issue from afar, I ended up visiting it six times in my last month in Jerusalem.
The letter was about something I had (not) done a few years earlier, so I barely remembered what I had (not) done. Every time I visited this "bastion" physically, I was told something else by someone else. It was only in my sixth visit that someone who accepted me helped me decipher this enigmanic letter and confirmed that the problem mentioned there didn't exist in the first place.
After I left Israel, I discovered that even this sixth "gatekeeper" failed to identify and help solve the problem. Having looked for ways to contact this "bastion" from afar for a long time and tried all of them, I was forced to realize that there is no way to contact it except by visiting it physically. In short, I remain stuck in this swamp.
As of now, I don't know yet when I'll be able to visit Israel for the first time after leaving it a little more than a year ago. And there is no guarantee that I'd be able to identify the issue and solve it even if I should visit this "bastion".
In the meanwhile I've made a hypothesis that these "gatekeepers" of Israeli bureaucracy create unnecessary difficulties to invent redundant jobs and justify their salaries. This may also apply to bureaucracy in other countries.
The only consolation I find in this swamp is that I don't have to work as part of such bureaucracy.