Denver is nearly seven thousand miles away from Hod Hasharon. This leads to a great difference between cultures. Just a three minute walk away from the school there are busy roads with plenty of restaurants and different stores. You see kids as young as elementary school walking around with their friends with no adult presence. When you walk into the pizza store or the schnitzel store the workers are always happy to try and converse with you in English. This is much different from America. If you walk around in America you may see kids the same age but always with their guardians. If someone who spoke a foreign language tried to communicate in an America store there is a very low chance that the worker would be happy to try and speak with them in their language.

After our first chance to visit family everyone returned with stories of their impressions of the real Israel. A common theme that was brought up is that Israelis are much more spontaneous and easy going than Americans. Even in my family when the sukkot dinner ended there were five more people there than what was originally planned. It seems that Israelis are always prepared and happy to have company. As Elhanan once said “ We Israelis’ are like sabra, prickly on the outside but when you open us up we are very sweet”. This quote perfectly summarizes the Israeli culture. Israel is tougher but sweeter at the same time than America.

There is a thing called culture shock that many Americans may experience while in Israel. This is when the difference of culture exceed your expectations and you freak out. Me personally after being here numerous times have gotten my culture shock out of the way. I still feel it a little but because I have never had this kind of freedom in Israel. Being able to go off campus is the most real Israeli experience I’ve had. Overall culture shock is a good thing because it means you are getting out of your comfort zone and getting exposed to new experiences.