To I said so:
The government provides new olim with free tutoring?
As olim chadashim, the kids are entitled to a certain number of hours of tutoring, which is supposed to be provided by the school. Of course, getting the hours may depend on how familiar the school is with the requirements. If you live in Beit Shemesh, where new families are constantly coming, I’m sure the schools are quite familiar with the legal requirements. If you move to a place that’s really off the beaten track, they won’t be familiar with the requirements. Either way, it’s up to you to work with the school and make sure it gets done. (That’s actually the way the schools work here – the teacher will not contact you if there’s a problem concerning your kid. You’re expected to call the teacher.) Also, we provided an additional tutor to our kids outside of school at our own expense.
and lenient with the bagriot?
This depends on how old your kids are when you come. If they’re young, they’ll have been in school for a number of years by the time they begin taking the bagruyot, so they probably won’t get any leniencies. My 2 oldest kids were older; they were here only a year or two before the process started, so they ended up with more leniencies.
If parnassah is so hard there, what keeps you there?
Hashem wants his people here; who are we to disregard His will?
If someone is motivated to work hard in order to live in Isreal, do you think that they’ll be able to succeed?
If you come with the attitude that you will do what you have to do to succeed, then you will, with Hashem’s help.
Another question, how much money does NbN really help with? do they help monthly at the beginning, give you a chunk of money to start off with?
I don’t know how it works now. When we came 8 years ago, we had to submit a long financial form to NbN to get a grant. They gave us the grant, and we used it mostly for our lift. If I recall correctly, there were one or two deposits into our bank account. Unless things have changed (and they may well have), there was no monthly check. I don’t know how much the grants are for nowadays.
Again, please remember that our experiences were with dati leiumi schools. I have no experience with the chareidi schools.