On Rudeness and Warmth:

January 14, 2007 - 7:43 PM by Allison

Chatting with some Australian friends, Yael delves into a conversation that nearly everyone who moves to Israel has at some point — examining the “bizarre dichotomy of Israeli rudeness that goes, somehow, also hand in hand with Israeli warmth and caring.”

It was the culture of rudeness that caused our host to feel, for a time, that Australian society with its polite veneer was preferable. And it was the realization (for all of us) that the politeness is indeed simply a veneer that makes the more upfront Israeliness preferable –you know what you are getting, you know where the other person stands on the issue, you know whether they like you a lot, like you only a little, or don’t like you at all. As the sabra who is currently living in Australia noted, when he was first living there his feelings were constantly being hurt because people would say, “oh, we should get together on Friday” (for instance) …and then never call and never make the plans for friday and not get together again until they accidentally bumped into one another (at which point the other person would generally end the conversation with a “we should do lunch” kind of comment again). In the meantime, because here when people say “we should get together on Friday” they mean “we are getting together on friday,” he would have deferred all other plans for that day thinking that these people actually wanted to see him and wanted to get together and that friday was the day. If they didn’t mean it, they wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place, right…?

After having been in Australia for nearly 7 years now, the “pining to come home” sabra noted that he hasn’t formed any deep friendships there. That all of the relationships between people that he’s seen, even those who claim to be friends, run along on a very superficial level. Neighbors wave at one another politely but have no strong connection to one another –they generally neither hate one another with a passion and let one another know it (as is the case here when neighbors dislike each other) on a daily basis but nor do they form close-knit, caring communities (as is the case here when they like one another). In fact, they don’t interact in general enough to know whether they would really like or dislike one another. It is true that here having a bad, nasty neighbor is an absolute nightmare that can make your life a living hell but it is also true that having good, kind neighbors makes your life not just extremely pleasant but also that they help you (and you help them in return) in numerous ways both small and large. But you get to know your neighbors well enough to know whether you like them or not! When you form a friendship here, it is a deep and lasting friendship. Sure, you form a lot of acquaintanceships here –relationships with people whom it is nice to see when you see them but with whom you really don’t have much in common and have no real desire to keep in close contact with –but these relationships are clearly recognized for what they are. There are no illusions that there is more there than what is obviously, visibly there. In Australia and in the States, what tends to pass for real friendship are generally mere acquaintanceships. I think back to my life in the U.S. and find it really sad that, out of all the years and all the people I met there, I have only 3 non-family members with whom I am in any sort of regular contact and they are all people I met within just a few years of my moving here (so we’ll see how long they continue…one of them certainly will, the others…). Here, people form friendships that last through life and they don’t form just one or two of them. If Abraham Maslow had lived in this country he never would have come up with the (very true for other places) assertion that “if you form one or two really (truly) deep and close friendships in your lifetime you are lucky.”

People are ruder here but even strangers, complete and utter strangers, are also warmer and more willing to help than is often the case with “friends” in other places. Israel is indeed warm –even when the temperature of the air says otherwise.

Share with others