I spoke with my language partner today about Israeli culture. Something I did not think about is how the army draft affects the culture. It is a topic for small talk, you will probably be asked about it in an interview, and it changes their high education. Once you finish high school you are drafted into the army for two or three years (2 for women, three for men). Then people typically work at a restaurant or a cashier to save up some money for a couple of years. Then they travel, typically around Southeast Asia because it is less expensive, for a couple of years before heading to a university. So by the time they start their higher education they are around 23-25. Their universities are also focused on a profession; for example if you want to be a doctor you wouldn't have to get an undergraduate degree before going to med school, you would just go straight to med school.
Israelis are know to be straight-forward and aggressive so I wanted to read a bit into it. The first blog post I read had a more negative experience it seems but the next article I found explains it all. Their culture is simply different and things they view as the norm we, as Americans, think are rude. It is important to make sure to understand the people before making any judgements. The second article hits a lot of key differences between Israelis and Americans and made me reflect on a lot of interactions I have had with Israeli people I know and how they may have perceived me as well.
In Hebrew there is script and and print writing, most signage is in print but everyone writes in script so it is important to know both. Something I find interesting is that words like the, to, from, at, etc are not typically their own words but an addition to another word. For example putting a lamed (L sound) in front of a word means "to" and then whatever word you say. It is very different from English in many ways: first of all it is written from right to left, many of their sentences start with the verb and then the subject, and it has sounds that we do not have in English (like the chhhhh sound in your throat). There are many more differences between the languages that are difficult to adjust to.
http://lifeinisrael.blogspot.com/2008/12/two-looks-at-typical-israeli.html
http://israelnewsagency.com/crossculturaltipsdosdontsdoingbusinessisraelus489051207.html
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