We Moved Halfway Across The World...

hi guys hope you're all doing well long time no see I haven't been on social media much in the past few months and I certainly have not been active on YouTube anytime recently a lot of big changes have happened in my life and I just wanted to share them with you guys you know I've been wanting to make this video for a while but I kind of kept pushing it off and now I feel like I'm ready so let's jump into this many of you already know this but approximately three months ago my wife and I were blessed with a beautiful new baby girl looks like we're gonna have a new baby today it's our showers we're just getting into the hospital my hands are full so I had to kind of you ready oh yeah [Music] and we are so incredibly happy and thankful to have this little bundle of joy in our lives she keeps my wife up a lot by night and she keeps us quite busy by day but we are super glad and happy to have her around it's a new addition to our family what many of you or probably most of you don't know is that we moved halfway across the world and we now live in the state of Texas [Music] foreign [Music] throughout the past few years one of the questions I've been asked most often when I'm out and about meeting people is where do you live me and a lot of people had ideas about where I lived many people thought we lived in Brooklyn many people thought we lived in Pomona which is near Muncie and there are reasons for that the Peter santanello series that I filmed which was wildly successful was primarily filmed in Brooklyn and many people thought that I lived in Brooklyn because that's where the series was filmed we also did a very successful video about Shabbos which was filmed in Pomona and people think that because I was there with my family that Shabbos that for some reason we lived in Pomona but we didn't live in any of these places we actually were living in Israel since my wife and I had gotten married the land of Israel is a wonderful place the Eternal homeland of the Jewish people and we loved living there there were honestly so many people who became close friends and there were some people who were really really valued and were very fortunate to have spent so much time with them having said that as our children Grew Older it became more difficult for us to be so far away from our families who primarily live in the United States and Canada we wanted to visit our families more often and we wanted our families to visit us more often and this distance between us all really started bothering us additionally in the past few years since my career took off I've been offered so many exciting opportunities in the United States and in North America and I honestly had to decline most of them because we were living in Israel and it was just not feasible to travel into the United States every other week for different functions and events that I was invited to speak at or projects that I was asked to be a part of and eventually we realized that living in Israel just didn't make sense for us anymore of course we love the land of Israel and we would love to go back to living there one day but at that time it just wasn't working for us anymore and we needed to find a new place to go it became clear to us a couple of years ago that we weren't going to be able to stay in Israel forever and at some point we'd have to move back to the United States but when we're trying to push it off as long as possible although we did make some trips to the United States to look around and see where we might want to settle once we move back so in late 2018 my wife and I went on vacation to Texas it was justification but we had a really nice time but we didn't really know anything about the Jewish Community however a couple months later Army magazine sent me on an assignment to Texas and I ended up making friends with a couple members of the Jewish Community who were really nice to me and I really enjoyed their company so I stayed in touch with them and then a couple months later I brought my family to Texas for a Shabbos to visit and to get to know the community and we were blown away by the kindness and just how nice people were I remember we were walking around in the grocery store looking for kosher food and people kept coming over to us asking us if we were new in town or if we were just visiting people were offering to help us with anything we need and it was just a really really warm feeling knowing that these people are looking out for you and it made a big impression on us during the height of the coveted pandemic my wife and I got on a plane along with our children we flew from Israel to the United States and we did this massive road trip that took us six or seven weeks I don't remember exactly how long it was but we visited more than 20 states in the United States and we traveled almost 10 000 miles and one of the goals of this trip was to visit as many Jewish communities as possible and to see which place might fit best for our family we ended up in many different states along the way and Texas was definitely one of them we reconnected with old friends and we kind of were almost sure that we wanted to move to Texas but we still weren't 100 sure so a little bit later in the winter of 2021 we actually flew to Texas with the whole family and we got a house in middle of the Jewish community and we lived there for a couple of weeks to see what it would be like to actually live there and be a part of the community and after that we pretty much made up our minds that we were going to move to Texas but we still loved Israel very much and we tried to make that work as long as possible however approximately six months ago we packed up our bags and and we left Israel this house is an absolute wreck but we are moving like we're leaving the country tomorrow so don't judge us what are you doing so much messy in there [Music] and there it goes all right hello we spent a couple weeks in New York and New Jersey visiting friends and family and then we finally made the big move and settled in Texas hello hello from too overtired and unshowered men what time is it it's 3 40 a.m we're leaving New Jersey now we're headed to Texas it's a 24-hour Drive not a great time to leave we're stuffed I don't know if you can see but the back of the car is full of stuff and um God willing we make it fast this is my boy Effie since 2015 2016. since back another day a long time we've done some interesting trips together Thailand China Etc let's go let's go welcome home baby this job will make it okay yes it did it's the only store I'm on Texas to the best of my knowledge I am the only person in the entire state of Texas who wears ashtramel and it's interesting because if you would have asked me as a child or even as a young adult or even five years ago if I ever saw myself living in Texas there was no chance I would have said yes I didn't know anything about Texas and I certainly didn't know anyone in Texas and to me the idea of living in Texas was just as foreign as living in China would be but ultimately God has his plans and honestly we're just here for the ride so why did we choose to move to Texas the Jewish Community here is quite small compared to the much larger Jewish communities in New York and New Jersey and Florida and California but we kind of like it that way when you're living in a massive Community it's very easy to get either lost or distracted or both and for us we wanted to be in a tight-knit community that is very close and warm and we really found that here in Texas I kind of believe this is a group of people here in Texas who built sukkas for free look at this okay and we just got a welcome basket I don't know what's inside but it's very nice [Music] [Applause] so it's right before Shabbos our second shop is here one of the neighbors came and dropped off his pastries thank you and it's another shopping trip and now I'm here to get my driver's license transfer to Texas look at this gorgeous new Texas flag color cover that we ordered from Prestige embroidery I love it [Music] Texas is also the largest state in the contiguous United States there's a booming economy the weather is very nice housing is Affordable and people are really nice too we have great airports which is very important for the work and all the traveling that I do but most importantly there's a wonderful Jewish Community here and honestly we so appreciate everyone here and how nice they've been to us and we hope they appreciate us too the reason I haven't spoken about this at all till now publicly at least is because when we came here we decided that we were going to try it for a couple months and see how it works out and I didn't want to announce anything before we knew that this is where we wanted to settle but now that we've been here for almost six months we're loving it I am ready to go public and tell the world that uh I guess I'm a Texan now and we are really happy to be here we've been having an amazing time we love our neighbors and our friends and our new community it's not exactly what I'm used to it's not for everyone I certainly never thought we'd live here but this is where we find ourselves today and just wanted to share that with you I'm going to be more active on YouTube in the future I'm going to be making lots of content from all over the world and from my new home state of Texas too so thank you all for watching thank you for being here thank you for being in my life and if you're new to this Channel Please Subscribe I will see you all soon have a wonderful wonderful rest of your day God bless you all