A phenomenon that is commonly referred to as “culture shock” is something that I imagine almost every student coming to AMHSI (who has not come to Israel in their lives before) is feeling about right now or at least sometime last week. There is a fine line between what is seen as normal/ respectful in America VS what it’s seen like in Israel. Something that I recently read (to give you a little perspective) that I thought was interesting is how the two separate cultures view each other, Americans tend to describe Israelis with words like “rude”, “out of control”, “arrogant”, “undisciplined” and “intrusive” while Israelis describe Americans as “insincere”, “lacking spontaneity”, “artificial”, “formal” and “shy”.

From living in both of these very different cultures I understand why each culture sees each other in the way that they do, and who’s to say which is better. I can tell you my opinion, I believe (from real experiences that I have had in my life) that Israelis can and almost always will be more “rude” and “out of control” than the average American. I do not, however, believe that is worse than how “insincere” or in my own words “fake”, some Americans can be. For example; even though Israeli people are referred to as the Prickly Pear fruit because they are “rough on the outside and sweet on the inside” they tend to be much more welcoming than any American I have met. In my opinion, having a genuine and honest culture will always be better than having one that would rather focus on being politically correct and polite all of the time. Another example would be walking down the street in America VS walking down the street in Israel, the difference; when walking down the street In America people smile at you and in Israel people do not. Just hearing this, you probably don’t think there really is any meaning to not smiling VS smiling, but there is, it shows that one culture wants to be polite and like I said before, politically correct and the other does not care, because they do not have any personal connection to you. I believe, by just smiling at strangers on the street you are “polite” but some aspect of you is fake, you are showing a positive emotion to someone who you do not know (or have a connection with) and that makes it hard to see if they are really happy to see you or not VS with Israelis you know if they are happy to see you or not immediately.