World travel
One thing I've noticed, from my totally unscientific study of the Israelis I know or have spoken to, is that as a people, they value travel more. My foreign policy professor was talking the other day about how the thing for young Israelis right now, after they graduate, or get out of the army, is to go to India. It used to be that they would all go to Europe, and many still do. But India is now extremely popular.
I met a guy on King George Street the other day while waiting for a bus, and he was more than happy to tell me about all the places he traveled after the army, how much he had loved living in New York, and so on. The next questions out of his mouth were about where I'd been, whether I'd seen this part of Tel Aviv, or been to Eilat. Turned out he was in the Nuweiba area when I was in Dahab, during the Taba bombings. When I went to the Golan, one of the guys who works for the university as a guard (the type that goes on the school-sponsored activities with a weapon, not the type that checks our student IDs and bags before we enter the campus or dorms) told some Australian students about a motorcycle accident he had in Australia. When Nari and I took a day-trip to Tel Aviv a couple months ago, we met an Israeli lawyer during the sherut ride who was going to the airport, and she'd been everywhere. All over Europe, to the US lots of times when she was younger, South Africa, on and on. My old roommate Hila had spent two years in Canada.
It seems like it's taken for granted, at least among the younger and more secular Israelis and Israeli families, that you'll travel outside Israel, and it doesn't seem to be as much a function of how well-off you are or your family is as it is at home. Maybe it's a result of living in a very small country, as opposed to how most Americans probably don't visit more than half the states in their lifetime. Maybe it's because of the mandatory army service they all go through. I doubt Israeli military service has quite the same "travel the world" aspect of US service, since theirs is focused on defending the country rather than exerting a more worldwide influence and on nation-building/peacekeeping efforts, but still it probably widens their scope and view of the world a bit.
It seems like in the US, traveling the world is seen more as a cool but slightly unusual thing to do and not something that's kind of expected. We also just don't have the same wealth of opportunities immediately adjacent to us. From Israel, a short plane ride can take you to Europe, Turkey, and much of Africa and Asia. It takes us five hours just to cross from one side of our country to the other by plane, even longer to cross the oceans on either side of us, or the two countries that border us. Not that that's a bad thing, it means we've got an amazing amount of land and resources available, but it does cut down on our ability to get acquainted with the world without some major effort.
I met a guy on King George Street the other day while waiting for a bus, and he was more than happy to tell me about all the places he traveled after the army, how much he had loved living in New York, and so on. The next questions out of his mouth were about where I'd been, whether I'd seen this part of Tel Aviv, or been to Eilat. Turned out he was in the Nuweiba area when I was in Dahab, during the Taba bombings. When I went to the Golan, one of the guys who works for the university as a guard (the type that goes on the school-sponsored activities with a weapon, not the type that checks our student IDs and bags before we enter the campus or dorms) told some Australian students about a motorcycle accident he had in Australia. When Nari and I took a day-trip to Tel Aviv a couple months ago, we met an Israeli lawyer during the sherut ride who was going to the airport, and she'd been everywhere. All over Europe, to the US lots of times when she was younger, South Africa, on and on. My old roommate Hila had spent two years in Canada.
It seems like it's taken for granted, at least among the younger and more secular Israelis and Israeli families, that you'll travel outside Israel, and it doesn't seem to be as much a function of how well-off you are or your family is as it is at home. Maybe it's a result of living in a very small country, as opposed to how most Americans probably don't visit more than half the states in their lifetime. Maybe it's because of the mandatory army service they all go through. I doubt Israeli military service has quite the same "travel the world" aspect of US service, since theirs is focused on defending the country rather than exerting a more worldwide influence and on nation-building/peacekeeping efforts, but still it probably widens their scope and view of the world a bit.
It seems like in the US, traveling the world is seen more as a cool but slightly unusual thing to do and not something that's kind of expected. We also just don't have the same wealth of opportunities immediately adjacent to us. From Israel, a short plane ride can take you to Europe, Turkey, and much of Africa and Asia. It takes us five hours just to cross from one side of our country to the other by plane, even longer to cross the oceans on either side of us, or the two countries that border us. Not that that's a bad thing, it means we've got an amazing amount of land and resources available, but it does cut down on our ability to get acquainted with the world without some major effort.
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