(Breaking my own rule again:) common knowledge about... you guessed it
Couldn't resist this: minisinoo wrote a pan-Indian version, and here's the original post, and coffeeandink has composed a link list of the various follow-ups.
The spirit of the original post was of hidden knowledge becoming common knowledge; asking questions that are somewhere beyond obvious to your own culture, and letting people decide for themselves if they want to learn more, but in general just encouraging others to know, this is out there. This exists too. Be aware.
As always, I am much less eloquent in my meta than others have been, so I urge you to read some of the other entries just for their pretty words and ideas. Meanwhile, I don't live in a culture where I'm a minority, and for such a small country I think we get more than our share of international headlines (I think?), so I doubt there's anyone out there who hasn't heard of us. No doubt some of you are well-informed, maybe even more than me - and I'm also sure that there are people who just know that there's an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it's about "land or religion or something".
Well, I tried to make these questions interesting, since I actually do hope whoever reads this either knows them or finds them intriguing enough to look up. I also tried to make them questions that, if you know nothing about Israel, at least you should know these (the non-whimsical ones, at least). Also - I'm writing this about Israel, from my viewpoint as an Ashkenazi Secular Jewish citizen (=the local WASP); I couldn't even begin to try and represent all the different subcultures we have here.
You don't have to post your answers or anything, but you can if you want to. Without further ado, the questions:
1. What is the capital of Israel?
2. Who are the neighboring countries? With how many of them has Israel signed peace treaties?
3. Who were the two previous rulers of Israel's territory before it became an independent state?
4. How many people still speak Yiddish?
5. Is gay marriage legal in Israel? What about gays in the military?
6. "Where were you the day that ___ ?" (fill in the most probable Israeli reference)
7. How many years of military service do boys do? And girls?
8. Are the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel more respected or resented?
9. What is making aliya?
10. Which three major groups of Arabs live in Israel, other than Muslims?
11. Who are the USSR olim (immigrants) and the Ethiopian Jews?
12. What does "like lambs to the slaughter" refer to?
13. What's the correct way to eat hummus? And labaneh?
14. Who is one of the most respected Israeli politicians/diplomats, also branded "the Loser"?
15. Are Israeli Jews in general: more Zionist than diaspora Jews? More observant than diaspora Jews?
16. What are the borders of Israel?
ETA, because I forgot to add this: 17. Is it safe to travel to Israel?
Okay, I admit, some of these are a wee bit tricky, and some can easily be answered by "depends who you ask", but the important thing is to know what both sides are saying. I'll be happy to answer questions, as far as I'm capable, even stuff not appearing here - hell, I never even got to the settlements, the Palestinians, etc etc etc...
ETA 2:
1. What is the capital of Israel?
Jerusalem. However, the British had intended for Jerusalem to be international territory, and after Israel got control of West Jerusalem during the Independence War, other nations recognized how touchy the subject was and wouldn’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, deciding to place their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.
East Jerusalem was added to Israel in the ’67 war, and the Palestinians want it as their own capital when they get a state. (Of course, extremists and who-knows-how-many-others of both sides want the entirety of Jerusalem, both East and West, as their capital.)
2. Who are the neighboring countries? With how many of them has Israel signed peace treaties?
Clockwise from the north: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The Sinai desert was conquered in the Six Day War (’67) from Egypt and was exchanged for peace with Egypt in ’79. The peace treaty with Jordan was signed in ’94. Peace means some economic cooperation (not a lot), some tourism (not a lot), and mainly not-war.
3. Who were the two previous rulers of Israel's territory before it became an independent state?
The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire from the 16th century to 1917. The British Empire from 1917 to 1948.
4. How many people still speak Yiddish?
I was going to say none, that Yiddish is deader than Latin, but dafnagreer and npkedit have corrected me in pointing out that haredi and Chassidic Jews the world over, who live in rather closed communities, use Yiddish as a spoken everyday language. In Israel, that means about 200,000 people. In addition, some people from my grandparents’ generation still remember Yiddish from home, but they don’t actually speak it other than slang that’s worked its way into Hebrew just like it has in English.
5. Is gay marriage legal in Israel? What about gays in the military?
Common Law marriage - check. Same sex marriage performed in other countries - recognized. Same sex marriage performed in Israel - not yet. But then, not all heterosexual marriages performed in Israel are recognized either: because Jewish marriage is based on halacha law, it is HEAPED with issues.
Gays in the military: have always served with a blind eye turned, and were allowed to do so openly since 1993. Cases of discrimination are heard of, but rare (I can think of just one, actually). A study on how it affects military performance here, and more on LGBT rights in Israel here.
6. "Where were you the day that ___ ?" (fill in the most probable Israeli reference)
…Rabin was shot. Prime Minister Rabin’s assassination on Nov 4th 1995 was a collective trauma for Israeli society; still is, and it’s still not healed. No one knows how things would have, could have turned out if. More than the man himself, who was one of the builders of the country and has since been elevated to a pedestal far higher than how he was considered in life, it was the act itself that came as such a shock: the violence and hatred inside the people, the fact that someone would do this, not a madman but a calculated assassin who to this day hasn’t expressed any regret.
7. How many years of military service do boys do? And girls?
There are a few girls with exceptions to the rule, but the rule is: three years for boys, two for girls. For most boys (and nowadays, some girls), a up to 36 days of reserve duty a year. (If you’re a student they can "only" call you for 21 days during the school year. Reserve duty when you’re a student completely blows, by the way. You work your ass off all through finals and then you don’t get any vacation.)
8. Are the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel more respected or resented?
Whoo boy, are they resented. While one person might view un ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jew as wise, revered, respected, even worshiped, twice as many will call them backwards, deserters, and leeches living off society. The major reasons for this are:
1. They don’t serve in the army. (There are always exceptions, and some of the girls do national service instead, but I’m talking about the large population who don’t.) This originates in an agreement made in 1948 when the draft-able population included 400 haredi students, at a post-Holocaust time in which it was feared that if they aren’t allowed to dedicate their lives to study the Torah, traditional Judaism would disappear completely. Since then, their population has grown to hundreds of thousands, and yet they still don’t serve. (They themselves have various reasons for this, from the notion of them learning Torah as protecting the rest of the country, to the unvoiced fear of assimilation in secular society.)
2. Since men have to dedicate themselves to studying the Torah, most end up unemployed. While many haredi women work, they also have lots - and lots - of children (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 are completely normal). The haredi population get huge welfare and social security budgets, without any visible contribution to society.
3. Like I said, they’ve grown, and today their parties hold a lot of political power. Since their agenda is religious, many times it results in legal limitations for the non-religious.
And thus, in general, there is a feeling of strong resentment amongst many secular citizens towards the haredi Jews - like everywhere, there's a full spectrum of feelings between respect and hatred, but they're all there.
9. What is making aliya?
For a Jewish person to immigrate to Israel. The word itself means "to rise" or "ascension". The opposite, for a Jew who lives here to leave Israel for good, is yerida - "to descend", and as you can imagine from the connotation, the latter aren’t treated with much sympathy.
The term oleh hadash - new Jewish immigrant (olim hadashim in plural) is the legal status of someone within the first year of their aliya, but is usually referred to the population of those a few years after making aliya who have still not been absorbed well in society. The main assistance in making aliya comes from the Jewish Agency and from the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption (who sometimes do their job well, and sometimes… don’t.)
BTW, if you’re wondering what constitutes a Jew for the purposes of making aliya, that’s a whole other issue.
10. Which three major groups of Arabs live in Israel, other than Muslims?
Christian Arabs (of which there are aplenty), Bedouins, and the Druze. BTW, many Bedouin and Druze Arabs serve in the army, while both Christian and Muslim Arabs are prohibited.
Upon further research: Druze Arabs have mandatory service, Bedouin's is voluntary. And apparently, Christian and Muslim Arabs can volunteer as well.
Now, it's weird that I didn't know this, but, well, I don't know every unit in the IDF, and they mostly serve in separate units except for in rare cases. (Apparently.)
And of course, Christian & Muslim Arabs would have to pass security clearance first, which not all of them will, and oh yeah, they'll have to want to enlist. Whether they self-identify as Palestinians or not, there's a conflict of interest there, and three years of your life in the army of the Jewish people... But hey, according to the IDF website, they're allowed. I'll have to dig deeper to find what the actual numbers are.
11. Who are the USSR olim (immigrants) and the Ethiopian Jews?
USSR olim - more commonly locally referred to as Russians, even though they’re not only from Russia but from all formerly USSR states - are the immigrants who made aliya from the opening of the USSR gates in 1987 and onwards, all in all about 1.1 million people to this day. Many of them aren’t Jewish according to halacha, but have one Jewish grandparent, which qualifies them to return, but causes some trouble for them later on. Their integration in Israeli society was sometimes successful, and sometimes not.
Ethiopian Jews, just like they sound, are Jews from, surprisingly, Ethiopia, who have a pretty amazing story. Their origins can only be guessed (one of the lost tribes of Israel? Descendants of Queen Sheba and Solomon? Descendants of converted Jews, or the Jews exiled from Israel in ~500BC?), and they lived in isolation for so long that at times they thought they were the only Jews left in the world, the "last guardians of Jewish tradition".
Living conditions in Ethiopia were as bad as you can imagine, and the political climate did not harbor well for the Jews. Their aliya started in the ‘70s, and peaked in two national/military operations, "Operation Moses" in 1985 and "Operation Solomon" in 1990; these operations included large scale secret airlifts from Sudan to Israel. To get to Sudan, the Ethiopian refugees had to walk through the desert, and if there’s any historical event that brings to mind the original Exodus, it’s this. Their stories are truly amazing; it’s a wonder there hasn’t been a movie yet.
Integration into society - again, sometimes successful, sometimes not. IMO, one of the best things to happen in recent year to re-expose Israelis to Ethiopian culture has been the Idan Raichel Project, an Israeli Ethiopian-style musical group that is incredibly popular and also FANTASTIC, which you should know by now since I’ve uploaded some of their stuff here before.
(Oh, and by the way, just in case it wasn’t already clear - Ethiopian Jews are black.)
12. What does "like lambs to the slaughter" refer to?
One of the dark stains on Israeli history. The Israeli mentality during its founding years was of the creation of "the new Jew" - the strong worker, the pioneer, the tough guy, the fighter - not the pale, subdued Torah pupil of Eastern Europe, not the helpless, fleeing victims who let themselves be led "like lambs to the slaughter". Holocaust survivors his behind the shame of their tragedy, and didn’t speak of it at all for fear of how they would be treated. It was only after the Eichmann trial that the attitude changed. Adolf Eichmann was an SS officer who was captured by Mossad and tried in Israel. His trial was televised live. For 14 weeks, survivor after survivor served as witnesses and gave their testimonies on the atrocities of the Holocaust, shocking Israeli society with what actually went on, a much needed slap in the face. Eichmann ended up the only person ever sentenced to a death penalty in Israel.
13. What's the correct way to eat hummus? And labaneh?
Hummus should be served in a bowl with olive oil, chickpeas, some paprika or parsley or spices of your choice, and wiped with pita. Fresh pita, not those weird toasted chips things.
Labaneh can either be served in a similar way, with zatar instead of paprika and chickpeas, and wiped with a regular pita - OR, better, spread and rolled up in a lafa with olive oil and zatar. A lafa, also called a Druze pita, is a large thin pita the shape and size of a large pizza, made on a tabun, which is a large metal surface the shape of an upturned bowl that’s set over a fire.
14. Who is one of the most respected Israeli politicians/diplomats, also branded "the Loser"?
Shimon Peres, current President of Israel at the age of 84 and one of the most respected statesmen we have, at least internationally. I won’t go into his biography here because there’s too much to say, but for years he got stuck with the "loser" label because he’d run for something, do great in the polls, and end up losing the vote (because, if I may add, people can be idiots. See: the election of Moshe Katzav as the previous President over Peres.)
15. Are Israeli Jews in general: more Zionist than diaspora Jews? More observant than diaspora Jews?
Well, this one’s obvious; of course not. Just had to say it aloud. There are Israelis who aren’t Zionists, and there are Israeli citizens who are actually against Zionism (for example Neturei Karta). And as for being observant, please. I am Seccy McSecular; from what I gather, even the atheist Jews on my flist are more observant than I am :-)
16. What are the borders of Israel?
"Depends who you ask". Damn, why did I save this question for last? It’s one of the basics of The Conflict.
I’ll make it short:
1947: The UN Has A Plan: both the Jews and the Arabs will have states (map). Jews say yea, because it’s better than what they’ve got (which is nothing), Arabs say nay because they want more, UN votes yay, Arabs attack, Independence War commences.
1949: Ceasefire agreements after the war (map). The Jewish state is now bigger than the original plan. (Here’s a fairly complicated map that compares between them.) These borders are recognized by the UN.
1967: Six Day War. Israel attacked first/Israel launched a preemptive strike; however you look at it, within six days the Israeli borders grew times a million. (map).
The added territories were: the Golan mountain range (from Syria), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (including the Kotel) from Jordan, and the Sinai desert and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Since hostile neighbors still refused to recognize Israel, the new territories had great strategic values for the very tiny land. The more religious fraction of the population also thought that we had finally gotten back land that was rightfully, Biblically, ours. A few years later, they began building small Jewish settlements in these territories - mainly the Gaza strip and the West bank. They believed they were harvesting lands rightfully theirs; the government encouraged them because when you have hostile land, you want to keep it settled for security purposes. Settlements in hostile territories also require military presence.
Meanwhile, the Golan and East Jerusalem are fully considered Israeli, and their residents Israeli citizens.
1979: Sinai desert returned to Egypt in exchange for peace. Israeli settlements there (including kibbutzim and the city of Yamit) evacuated.
2005: One-sided disengagement from Gaza: military evacuation of all the Jewish settlements in Gaza and on-and-off military withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip. (Don’t know how it was portrayed abroad, but evacuating settlements is not something to be taken lightly; it nearly caused a civil war here.) Gaza is no longer considered within Israeli borders by anyone.
Oh, and here’s another interesting map I found about Israel’s size relative to the US and to France, and the distances between Israel’s borders.
To sum up,
Today:
Some consider Israel’s borders to be the post-’67 borers minus Sinai and Gaza (Gaza is included in this map, ignore it).
Some consider Israel’s legitimate borders to be the ’49 borders, but the de facto borders being the post ’67 ones minus Sinai and Gaza.
Some say there should be two states, with Israel returning to the ’49 borders and the Palestinians getting the West Bank and Gaza and free passage in between. Today there are major Jewish cities and settlements in the West Bank that are too big to consider evacuating, so some say the Israel/West Bank border should be redrawn to accommodate the new geography.
Some say East Jerusalem should be part of Israel, some part of the Palestinian state, some international.
Some say Israel shouldn’t exist at all.
What are Israel’s borders today? You get the drift.
Last but not least:
17. Is it safe to travel in Israel?
Yes. Seriously, yes.
*
Okay whew oh my god looong.
The spirit of the original post was of hidden knowledge becoming common knowledge; asking questions that are somewhere beyond obvious to your own culture, and letting people decide for themselves if they want to learn more, but in general just encouraging others to know, this is out there. This exists too. Be aware.
As always, I am much less eloquent in my meta than others have been, so I urge you to read some of the other entries just for their pretty words and ideas. Meanwhile, I don't live in a culture where I'm a minority, and for such a small country I think we get more than our share of international headlines (I think?), so I doubt there's anyone out there who hasn't heard of us. No doubt some of you are well-informed, maybe even more than me - and I'm also sure that there are people who just know that there's an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and it's about "land or religion or something".
Well, I tried to make these questions interesting, since I actually do hope whoever reads this either knows them or finds them intriguing enough to look up. I also tried to make them questions that, if you know nothing about Israel, at least you should know these (the non-whimsical ones, at least). Also - I'm writing this about Israel, from my viewpoint as an Ashkenazi Secular Jewish citizen (=the local WASP); I couldn't even begin to try and represent all the different subcultures we have here.
You don't have to post your answers or anything, but you can if you want to. Without further ado, the questions:
1. What is the capital of Israel?
2. Who are the neighboring countries? With how many of them has Israel signed peace treaties?
3. Who were the two previous rulers of Israel's territory before it became an independent state?
4. How many people still speak Yiddish?
5. Is gay marriage legal in Israel? What about gays in the military?
6. "Where were you the day that ___ ?" (fill in the most probable Israeli reference)
7. How many years of military service do boys do? And girls?
8. Are the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel more respected or resented?
9. What is making aliya?
10. Which three major groups of Arabs live in Israel, other than Muslims?
11. Who are the USSR olim (immigrants) and the Ethiopian Jews?
12. What does "like lambs to the slaughter" refer to?
13. What's the correct way to eat hummus? And labaneh?
14. Who is one of the most respected Israeli politicians/diplomats, also branded "the Loser"?
15. Are Israeli Jews in general: more Zionist than diaspora Jews? More observant than diaspora Jews?
16. What are the borders of Israel?
ETA, because I forgot to add this: 17. Is it safe to travel to Israel?
Okay, I admit, some of these are a wee bit tricky, and some can easily be answered by "depends who you ask", but the important thing is to know what both sides are saying. I'll be happy to answer questions, as far as I'm capable, even stuff not appearing here - hell, I never even got to the settlements, the Palestinians, etc etc etc...
ETA 2:
1. What is the capital of Israel?
Jerusalem. However, the British had intended for Jerusalem to be international territory, and after Israel got control of West Jerusalem during the Independence War, other nations recognized how touchy the subject was and wouldn’t recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, deciding to place their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.
East Jerusalem was added to Israel in the ’67 war, and the Palestinians want it as their own capital when they get a state. (Of course, extremists and who-knows-how-many-others of both sides want the entirety of Jerusalem, both East and West, as their capital.)
2. Who are the neighboring countries? With how many of them has Israel signed peace treaties?
Clockwise from the north: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. The Sinai desert was conquered in the Six Day War (’67) from Egypt and was exchanged for peace with Egypt in ’79. The peace treaty with Jordan was signed in ’94. Peace means some economic cooperation (not a lot), some tourism (not a lot), and mainly not-war.
3. Who were the two previous rulers of Israel's territory before it became an independent state?
The Ottoman (Turkish) Empire from the 16th century to 1917. The British Empire from 1917 to 1948.
4. How many people still speak Yiddish?
I was going to say none, that Yiddish is deader than Latin, but dafnagreer and npkedit have corrected me in pointing out that haredi and Chassidic Jews the world over, who live in rather closed communities, use Yiddish as a spoken everyday language. In Israel, that means about 200,000 people. In addition, some people from my grandparents’ generation still remember Yiddish from home, but they don’t actually speak it other than slang that’s worked its way into Hebrew just like it has in English.
5. Is gay marriage legal in Israel? What about gays in the military?
Common Law marriage - check. Same sex marriage performed in other countries - recognized. Same sex marriage performed in Israel - not yet. But then, not all heterosexual marriages performed in Israel are recognized either: because Jewish marriage is based on halacha law, it is HEAPED with issues.
Gays in the military: have always served with a blind eye turned, and were allowed to do so openly since 1993. Cases of discrimination are heard of, but rare (I can think of just one, actually). A study on how it affects military performance here, and more on LGBT rights in Israel here.
6. "Where were you the day that ___ ?" (fill in the most probable Israeli reference)
…Rabin was shot. Prime Minister Rabin’s assassination on Nov 4th 1995 was a collective trauma for Israeli society; still is, and it’s still not healed. No one knows how things would have, could have turned out if. More than the man himself, who was one of the builders of the country and has since been elevated to a pedestal far higher than how he was considered in life, it was the act itself that came as such a shock: the violence and hatred inside the people, the fact that someone would do this, not a madman but a calculated assassin who to this day hasn’t expressed any regret.
7. How many years of military service do boys do? And girls?
There are a few girls with exceptions to the rule, but the rule is: three years for boys, two for girls. For most boys (and nowadays, some girls), a up to 36 days of reserve duty a year. (If you’re a student they can "only" call you for 21 days during the school year. Reserve duty when you’re a student completely blows, by the way. You work your ass off all through finals and then you don’t get any vacation.)
8. Are the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel more respected or resented?
Whoo boy, are they resented. While one person might view un ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jew as wise, revered, respected, even worshiped, twice as many will call them backwards, deserters, and leeches living off society. The major reasons for this are:
1. They don’t serve in the army. (There are always exceptions, and some of the girls do national service instead, but I’m talking about the large population who don’t.) This originates in an agreement made in 1948 when the draft-able population included 400 haredi students, at a post-Holocaust time in which it was feared that if they aren’t allowed to dedicate their lives to study the Torah, traditional Judaism would disappear completely. Since then, their population has grown to hundreds of thousands, and yet they still don’t serve. (They themselves have various reasons for this, from the notion of them learning Torah as protecting the rest of the country, to the unvoiced fear of assimilation in secular society.)
2. Since men have to dedicate themselves to studying the Torah, most end up unemployed. While many haredi women work, they also have lots - and lots - of children (6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 are completely normal). The haredi population get huge welfare and social security budgets, without any visible contribution to society.
3. Like I said, they’ve grown, and today their parties hold a lot of political power. Since their agenda is religious, many times it results in legal limitations for the non-religious.
And thus, in general, there is a feeling of strong resentment amongst many secular citizens towards the haredi Jews - like everywhere, there's a full spectrum of feelings between respect and hatred, but they're all there.
9. What is making aliya?
For a Jewish person to immigrate to Israel. The word itself means "to rise" or "ascension". The opposite, for a Jew who lives here to leave Israel for good, is yerida - "to descend", and as you can imagine from the connotation, the latter aren’t treated with much sympathy.
The term oleh hadash - new Jewish immigrant (olim hadashim in plural) is the legal status of someone within the first year of their aliya, but is usually referred to the population of those a few years after making aliya who have still not been absorbed well in society. The main assistance in making aliya comes from the Jewish Agency and from the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption (who sometimes do their job well, and sometimes… don’t.)
BTW, if you’re wondering what constitutes a Jew for the purposes of making aliya, that’s a whole other issue.
10. Which three major groups of Arabs live in Israel, other than Muslims?
Christian Arabs (of which there are aplenty), Bedouins, and the Druze. BTW, many Bedouin and Druze Arabs serve in the army, while both Christian and Muslim Arabs are prohibited.
Upon further research: Druze Arabs have mandatory service, Bedouin's is voluntary. And apparently, Christian and Muslim Arabs can volunteer as well.
Now, it's weird that I didn't know this, but, well, I don't know every unit in the IDF, and they mostly serve in separate units except for in rare cases. (Apparently.)
And of course, Christian & Muslim Arabs would have to pass security clearance first, which not all of them will, and oh yeah, they'll have to want to enlist. Whether they self-identify as Palestinians or not, there's a conflict of interest there, and three years of your life in the army of the Jewish people... But hey, according to the IDF website, they're allowed. I'll have to dig deeper to find what the actual numbers are.
11. Who are the USSR olim (immigrants) and the Ethiopian Jews?
USSR olim - more commonly locally referred to as Russians, even though they’re not only from Russia but from all formerly USSR states - are the immigrants who made aliya from the opening of the USSR gates in 1987 and onwards, all in all about 1.1 million people to this day. Many of them aren’t Jewish according to halacha, but have one Jewish grandparent, which qualifies them to return, but causes some trouble for them later on. Their integration in Israeli society was sometimes successful, and sometimes not.
Ethiopian Jews, just like they sound, are Jews from, surprisingly, Ethiopia, who have a pretty amazing story. Their origins can only be guessed (one of the lost tribes of Israel? Descendants of Queen Sheba and Solomon? Descendants of converted Jews, or the Jews exiled from Israel in ~500BC?), and they lived in isolation for so long that at times they thought they were the only Jews left in the world, the "last guardians of Jewish tradition".
Living conditions in Ethiopia were as bad as you can imagine, and the political climate did not harbor well for the Jews. Their aliya started in the ‘70s, and peaked in two national/military operations, "Operation Moses" in 1985 and "Operation Solomon" in 1990; these operations included large scale secret airlifts from Sudan to Israel. To get to Sudan, the Ethiopian refugees had to walk through the desert, and if there’s any historical event that brings to mind the original Exodus, it’s this. Their stories are truly amazing; it’s a wonder there hasn’t been a movie yet.
Integration into society - again, sometimes successful, sometimes not. IMO, one of the best things to happen in recent year to re-expose Israelis to Ethiopian culture has been the Idan Raichel Project, an Israeli Ethiopian-style musical group that is incredibly popular and also FANTASTIC, which you should know by now since I’ve uploaded some of their stuff here before.
(Oh, and by the way, just in case it wasn’t already clear - Ethiopian Jews are black.)
12. What does "like lambs to the slaughter" refer to?
One of the dark stains on Israeli history. The Israeli mentality during its founding years was of the creation of "the new Jew" - the strong worker, the pioneer, the tough guy, the fighter - not the pale, subdued Torah pupil of Eastern Europe, not the helpless, fleeing victims who let themselves be led "like lambs to the slaughter". Holocaust survivors his behind the shame of their tragedy, and didn’t speak of it at all for fear of how they would be treated. It was only after the Eichmann trial that the attitude changed. Adolf Eichmann was an SS officer who was captured by Mossad and tried in Israel. His trial was televised live. For 14 weeks, survivor after survivor served as witnesses and gave their testimonies on the atrocities of the Holocaust, shocking Israeli society with what actually went on, a much needed slap in the face. Eichmann ended up the only person ever sentenced to a death penalty in Israel.
13. What's the correct way to eat hummus? And labaneh?
Hummus should be served in a bowl with olive oil, chickpeas, some paprika or parsley or spices of your choice, and wiped with pita. Fresh pita, not those weird toasted chips things.
Labaneh can either be served in a similar way, with zatar instead of paprika and chickpeas, and wiped with a regular pita - OR, better, spread and rolled up in a lafa with olive oil and zatar. A lafa, also called a Druze pita, is a large thin pita the shape and size of a large pizza, made on a tabun, which is a large metal surface the shape of an upturned bowl that’s set over a fire.
14. Who is one of the most respected Israeli politicians/diplomats, also branded "the Loser"?
Shimon Peres, current President of Israel at the age of 84 and one of the most respected statesmen we have, at least internationally. I won’t go into his biography here because there’s too much to say, but for years he got stuck with the "loser" label because he’d run for something, do great in the polls, and end up losing the vote (because, if I may add, people can be idiots. See: the election of Moshe Katzav as the previous President over Peres.)
15. Are Israeli Jews in general: more Zionist than diaspora Jews? More observant than diaspora Jews?
Well, this one’s obvious; of course not. Just had to say it aloud. There are Israelis who aren’t Zionists, and there are Israeli citizens who are actually against Zionism (for example Neturei Karta). And as for being observant, please. I am Seccy McSecular; from what I gather, even the atheist Jews on my flist are more observant than I am :-)
16. What are the borders of Israel?
"Depends who you ask". Damn, why did I save this question for last? It’s one of the basics of The Conflict.
I’ll make it short:
1947: The UN Has A Plan: both the Jews and the Arabs will have states (map). Jews say yea, because it’s better than what they’ve got (which is nothing), Arabs say nay because they want more, UN votes yay, Arabs attack, Independence War commences.
1949: Ceasefire agreements after the war (map). The Jewish state is now bigger than the original plan. (Here’s a fairly complicated map that compares between them.) These borders are recognized by the UN.
1967: Six Day War. Israel attacked first/Israel launched a preemptive strike; however you look at it, within six days the Israeli borders grew times a million. (map).
The added territories were: the Golan mountain range (from Syria), the West Bank and East Jerusalem (including the Kotel) from Jordan, and the Sinai desert and the Gaza Strip from Egypt.
Since hostile neighbors still refused to recognize Israel, the new territories had great strategic values for the very tiny land. The more religious fraction of the population also thought that we had finally gotten back land that was rightfully, Biblically, ours. A few years later, they began building small Jewish settlements in these territories - mainly the Gaza strip and the West bank. They believed they were harvesting lands rightfully theirs; the government encouraged them because when you have hostile land, you want to keep it settled for security purposes. Settlements in hostile territories also require military presence.
Meanwhile, the Golan and East Jerusalem are fully considered Israeli, and their residents Israeli citizens.
1979: Sinai desert returned to Egypt in exchange for peace. Israeli settlements there (including kibbutzim and the city of Yamit) evacuated.
2005: One-sided disengagement from Gaza: military evacuation of all the Jewish settlements in Gaza and on-and-off military withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip. (Don’t know how it was portrayed abroad, but evacuating settlements is not something to be taken lightly; it nearly caused a civil war here.) Gaza is no longer considered within Israeli borders by anyone.
Oh, and here’s another interesting map I found about Israel’s size relative to the US and to France, and the distances between Israel’s borders.
To sum up,
Today:
Some consider Israel’s borders to be the post-’67 borers minus Sinai and Gaza (Gaza is included in this map, ignore it).
Some consider Israel’s legitimate borders to be the ’49 borders, but the de facto borders being the post ’67 ones minus Sinai and Gaza.
Some say there should be two states, with Israel returning to the ’49 borders and the Palestinians getting the West Bank and Gaza and free passage in between. Today there are major Jewish cities and settlements in the West Bank that are too big to consider evacuating, so some say the Israel/West Bank border should be redrawn to accommodate the new geography.
Some say East Jerusalem should be part of Israel, some part of the Palestinian state, some international.
Some say Israel shouldn’t exist at all.
What are Israel’s borders today? You get the drift.
Last but not least:
17. Is it safe to travel in Israel?
Yes. Seriously, yes.
*
Okay whew oh my god looong.