The Attitude

I wish I could capture Israeli culture on this blog. It would be an accomplishment for 2 reasons:

 1) it's a catharthis for those readers who live here and deal with the constant collision between Israeli culture and our chutznik (immigrant) sensibilities, and
 2) it's entertainment for those of you who haven't experienced it yet.

I wouldn't even call it a culture. There's no specific dress, food, music- most people in Israel are relatively recent immigrants from somewhere else, so the 'culture' is very borrowed and mismatched.

I visited Switzerland this year- now, that's a culture. It's long-established, it's documented, it's basically unchanged in its dominant traits and values over the years. You can easily describe a person or an object as 'very Swiss', and this conjures up an image that is more or less consistent in many peoples' perception of the culture. The cheese, mountains, watches, chocolate, yodeling, knives- it's not a stereotype. These are genuinely prominent elements of the culture.

Israeli culture? Um...falafel? Nope. Not unique to Israel. Israeli music?..let's just say that Israel has not made major notable contributions to the music industry.

The only thing I can think of that is very 'Israeli' is the Attitude.

By the way, I don't criticize Israel for having no real culture- it keeps things interesting, and the Attitude is more than enough to remind you of what country you're in.

I can only tell you anecdotes to illustrate the Attitude, but bear in mind that there is one rule:

 you must hear the dialogue of the Israelis in a thick -ehhhhm...Israeli- accent.