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Are Israelis Rude or Am I a Wimp?

Navigating Culture – Are They Rude Or Am I a Wimp? My mother would tell me to remember my manners and to be polite before venturing off to a friend’s home. She did not want my animal side to come out and embarrass her, she did not want me to seem uncultured. Throughout all my [...]

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Navigating Culture – Are They Rude Or Am I a Wimp?
My mother would tell me to remember my manners and to be polite before venturing off to a friend’s home. She did not want my animal side to come out and embarrass her, she did not want me to seem uncultured. Throughout all my travels I have taken this advice with me, the best lesson for world travel is to practice a set of basic manners — this will get you anywhere.

But what happens when you meet people whose take on manners are different? What happens when the parameters of proper social interaction of your culture collide with another?

Simple, you watch how the offending group interacts with each other and you do the same. It works.

I remember reading a story about how the old time USA astronauts initially had a difficult time living with their Cosmonaut colleagues. The bi-national crew on the spaceships would eat their meals in common, the Russians would gobble it all up and take as much as they could for themselves while the Americans were left with the scraps.

In USA culture it is polite to make sure everyone sitting around a dinner table has enough to eat, we feel that it is rude to take the last of any dish in a common meal without asking first.

The USA astronauts thought that they were being polite by sitting back and letting the Russians eat all of the food. The Russians thought that they were just not hungry.

Why else would anyone just let other people eat all of their food?

Eventually, the hungry Americans broke down one night and flared at the Russians who were quickly wolfing down everything they could grab off the dinner table.

“We were wondering why you were not jumping in,” the Cosmonauts reputedly stated.

Apparently, in Russia, it is a very odd act indeed to let others gobble up all the food at a dinner table; in Russia, it is standard operating procedure to eat all the food that you want without regard for anyone else eating with you. If others don’t “jump in” it is they who have the problem — they go hungry — not you.

Knowing this — knowing that they would not be considered rude for just grabbing all the food they wanted — the Americans jumped in. The zero gravity dinner table found its equilibrium.

And that is all that social culture is, an equilibrium: one action will be automatically met by another, each symbol finds understanding and meaning. Within the sphere of a particular group with a common symbology, most actions are understood: in Russia, you grab all the food from the dinner table you can grab, in the USA, it is polite to defer to others.

The problem comes when people from other cultures meet, when people from other cultures mistake the symbology of another a being rude.

Often in travel I see Israelis misinterpreted. Many travelers from other countries call them rude, loud, cheap — the locals often hold the same sentiments. There are many hotels in the world whose doors are closed to Israelis, I have actually heard of entire towns in Southeast Asia who have banned them from staying. It is my impression that many people seem to be a little put off by Israeli travelers: they tend to be loud, they travel in gangs, they don’t pussyfoot around their points, they tend not to dance the jig of politeness, never afraid to ask for a discount, and they seem exclusive — often ignoring other non-Israelis as if they do not even exist.

I once misinterpreted Israelis myself. I allowed myself to think that that, as a group, were rude. I thought that they took no one else into account except for themselves, that they disrespected me just because I was not an Israeli, I had no idea how they could even interact with and tolerate each other.

Then I watched how they interacted. They got along well, nobody seemed to think that anyone else was rude or was stepping on anyone else’s toes, they had a system for social interaction that worked for them.

Like the US astronauts, I realized that it was I who had the problem, not them.

“You have to understand, they are Arabs,” my friend Andy told me some years ago as we sat in an Israeli hotel in Antigua.

I took this statement to heart, I watched Israelis from a new perspective: maybe they are not rude, maybe they just have a different way? I watched, I listened, I learned. Israelis seem to follow slightly different cues that guide their social interaction, I realized that needed to learn a little it if I want to get along — that I could not just speak to them as I would someone from my own country.

I needed to “jump in.”

I quickly packed away the passive manners my mother taught me, and made my intentions known. directly, clearly, making no mistake to let them know what I wanted. If they

If an Israeli gets in your way it is my impression that it is expected that you will directly request that they move: that seems to be their way. If you are walking towards the bathroom and someone runs in front of you, you walk faster to win the race.

My glimpses of Israel have only been slight, but their culture seems to have a push or be pushed element to it: if you push you will be fine, if you get knocked out of the way then you are a schmuck for choosing to be a weakling. Some cultures step aside and pretend that the weak are as strong as everyone else, while others storm ahead with an honest view of their society: the person who gets on the bus first is the one who wants to the most. If you allow yourself to be shoved to the back of the line then you made a choice to be there. Loser.

I remember reading an ethnography by an anthropologist doing field work somewhere in Africa — the specifics of the tale are not important. He thought that the culture that he was study were rude people, he reported they would walk up to him when he was sleeping in a hammock and just flip him over, stealing his bedding from right under him. Other aspects of social interaction worked the same. The anthropologist could not believe how rude those people were. Then one day he had enough, he was flipped out of his hammock and he reacted: he knocked the thief out and reclaimed his resting place.

The other guy just walked away as if nothing had happened. The anthropologist then realized that it was he that had the problem , that the people he was living amongst were not rude, that he was just showing himself to be a Nancy, that he was weak and could be walked over. Apparently, it was just normal for those people to take things from people who were not strong enough to protect their keep, there was nothing rude about it, it was just standard behavior. From that day on, the anthropologist asserted himself socially, physically, and matched his actions to run a little more flush with the culture around him.

We were wondering why you were not jumping in.

Interacting with Israelis is simple: you say what you think. If you want something, you tell them, if they are doing something that bothers you, you tell them. It is simple. Verbal expression is key, Israeli culture seems to follow vastly more explicit rather than implicit social cues. If you let Israelis run you over, you will be steam rolled; if you speak your feelings, your problems will more than likely disappear.

I remember one year, a long time ago in Panama City, I was staying in a hostel with many Israeli clientele. I was waiting to use the public computer. There was a little sign above the monitor that said that if people are waiting for the computer to please limit your time to 15 minutes. I waited for an hour right next to the computer for the Israeli girl to finish. I thought that my location in proximity to the computer — waiting in line — would indicate that I wanted to use it.

It didn’t. One Israeli jumped on the computer after another. I was steam rolled, I proved myself to be a wimp.

My culture teaches me that the person on the computer should look around when they are using it at show regard for people waiting. My culture is a passive culture that relies in implicit cues — we expect everyone else to mind our keep, we demand that other people should watch out for us and take us into account. My culture is one that tip toes around wimps. I do not come from a grab all you can get, fend for yourself, type of culture. So when I just expected the Israelis to understand my implicit cues — I was sitting and waiting in line for the computer — I was acting in accordance to my own culture. I did not speak up, I did not make my intentions explicit, rather I acted like a passive American ever ready to be steam rolled by my askance sense of manners. I just expected other people to understand my social cues.

I got mad and declared the Israelis rude and stormed off.

I did not yet know that the problem was with me, that I did not understand the proper cultural cues of my surroundings, that I expected other people to understand and abide by my own cultural symbology. And I paid the price: I was steam rolled, like the American astronauts eating dinner with the Russians.

If that happened today — if I was in a similar situation where I was waiting for an Israeli to finish using the public computer — I would tell them straight away that I wanted to use it and make sure that they were off in 15 minutes. I would then jump into the seat, even if someone else was already moving towards it. I would have verbally made my intentions known and I would have acted on them.

This is one of the aspects that I enjoy most about interacting with Israelis: they can handle verbal expression, they seem to be a vocal culture. You can speak directly to them, tell them to step aside, remind them that they are in your way, ask them for what you want, invite yourself into their conversations, and they usually respond with kindness.

It is my impression that the way that I speak with Israelis could be interpreted as rude to an American or European — I know that I must adjust my manners to fit who I am interacting with. I know that if I walk up to an Israeli and speak passively, with my face in my shirt, they would steam roll me — and they would have every right to.

As I write this I am listening to two Israelis s having a conversation on the other side of the finca. It sounds as if they are yelling at each other, but they are simply talking. They are approximately 100 meters away through the forest — there is no way that I should be able to hear them speaking, I would not be able to hear anyone else at this distance unless they were yelling at each other. If I could speak Hebrew I could record what they were saying, I hear them clearly. They are just a loud culture, when I talk to them I speak loudly as well.

“Perhaps they yell when they speak because that is the only way they can hear each other over everyone else yelling,” I joke with my wife.

“Studies show that Jews reply quickest in conversation after someone makes a statement, if you are not interrupting someone it is a sign that you are not listening.”

It is my impression that, taken as a whole, Israelis are not inherently rude people. Perhaps it is the lack of perception of other people to adjust and realize that the cultural interplay, the rules of social engagement, of their own culture and that of Israel sometimes do not meet end to end, that certain adjustments are needed. Culture is just a collection of patterns and symbols that guide action and thought — a maze that really can be walk, though I don’t know about being understood.

Like the Cosmonauts, Israelis often tend to take the first steps. It is my impression that they come from a wreaking ball culture, they do not seem to sit back and observe how other people are acting around them. No, they tend to be Israeli through and through, without dilution, fully completely themselves. Their culture seems to work well within its own sphere

If it can be said that Australians always pack Vegemite, and Argentineans Matte, then it can be said that Israelis bring Israel with them when traveling. They tend to always look for each other, travel in large groups, and tend to go to the places where they know other Israelis will be waiting.

“There are so many Israelis in San Pedro,” an Israeli spoke to me in the east of Guatemala, “it is just like being home. They even have falafel there.”

Where someone from another country may speak these words with scorn, the Israeli stated them with a smile. Israelis tend to take a more old world approach to traveling: they are themselves, purely, clearly, I have never observed them bending to meet the cultural standards of anybody else.

When among a group of Israelis anywhere in the world, you may as well be in Israel — and adapt accordingly.

If I were Israeli, then maybe the angle of this article would be different — perhaps I would write about how they can adapt their behavior to better get along with other travelers, how to observe the cultural cues of more passive societies. But I am an American — this is my angle through and through — and so I write about how I, as an American, can better travel the world. My scope is limited by my culture, perception, social symbology, as it is for everyone. I cannot write for people from another place, I can only write for myself.

When traveling, when interacting with other cultures, it is my impression that you cannot expect that other people will inherently understand your cultural cues, you cannot rely on your storage of social symbolism to make sense of the world around you. Many times when you find another culture crass, rude it is because you don’t understand the premises that they work from. It takes work, time, observation to figure out where the fine line is between what is truly rude and what is just misinterpretation when two cultures interact. Sometimes in travel, people will treat you rudely; sometimes in travel, you will only think that you have been treated as such.

This is not to say that it is best to travel the world as a wishy washy Nancy, making amends and justification for each person that spits in your face, but it is to say that explicit communication and/ or observation is needed to get along with some other cultures — sometimes your own ways need to be evaluated, sometimes you need to forget the manners that your mother taught you and act in accordance with the circumstances that you find yourself in.

Acting different roles, playing different parts, adjusting your own way of socializing to match the ever changing cultural environs that surround you is part of the great affair of traveling the world. Knowing that the world is OK, that you can often restrategize your behavior to run flush with ever changing surroundings is powerful knowledge to have.

I fail to believe that anybody can truly understand another culture, they can only figure out ways to deal with another culture. I don’t understand Cosmonauts, I don’t understand Africans flipping people out of their hammocks, and I definitely do not understand Israelis. But I don’t aim to. My goal is to get along, I want to learn what I can from all people, so I develop strategies to navigate the ever shifting cultural highways of my surroundings.

Related articles: Arab Culture is Loud | Travelogue Topic – Culture



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Filed under: Culture and Society, Intercultural Conflict, Travel Philosophy, Traveler Culture

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3692 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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  • Caitlin July 10, 2010, 10:52 am

    Interesting post. I have known some wonderful Israelis – I dated a lovely Israeli guy, and I met a fun, quirky and totally open Israeli friend in Xela. It’s unfortunate that the packs of Israelis roaming around Latin America give them a bad name. (But isn’t that the way with all groups? The packs of Americans in Mexico give Americans a bad name, the packs of French people give French people a bad name… etc, etc, etc. It seems that everyone is always better on an individual basic, but annoying as hell in “packs.”)

    Anyways, I would agree with you up to a point. Indeed, it is always important to adapt one’s ways in order to get along with people from different cultures. But if that is true, aren’t those packs of Israelis rude then for not doing the same when they travel? Jeez, I met a group of post-army Israeli blokes in Panama a few years ago. They had been traveling in Central America for FOUR MONTHS already and couldn’t even say things like “Hello, how are you?” “I would like one beer” or “Where is the bathroom.” I mean, come on…

    Did I tell you I am in Mexico City now teaching? I love this city, it is amazing and weird and full of life.

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    • Wade | Vagabond Journey.com July 10, 2010, 12:56 pm

      Haha, I was trying to write the flipside of it. Israelis are an interesting bunch. I really like being around them — they challenge you. The hotel that I am working in is on the Israeli trail, so get the privilege almost daily. It is real interesting how they tend to refuse to adapt to their surroundings, but, then again, my wife just gave three hour of Spanish lessons to an Israeli yesterday and he even tipped her — left a tip for the hotel too (never had an Israeli do this before). So where there are generalizations there are exceptions, and stating generalizations does not necessarily disregard the exceptions. It is all endless patterns, patterns, patterns, the occasional ripple in the fabric makes all of this worth talking about.

      In Mexico City? Maybe we will come, too. Getting ready for some urban landscapes. I feel like a mountain monk wanting to come down into the city to drink saki.

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      • Caitlin July 10, 2010, 2:16 pm

        Yeah! Come to Mexico City! If you are looking for urban this is THE urban. It boggles my brain every day. I’m sure my roommates wouldn’t mind hosting a young family and a baby for a bit, though I’d have to ask.

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  • Vago Damitio July 21, 2010, 7:48 am

    I’ve gotta go against the grain here. While there are plenty of Israeli’s I’ve met who were not rude, the one’s that are rude simply are. They are rude. Same with Americans. A rude traveler is a rude traveler. If you are in Israel then by all means act like an Israeli (but try not to commit genocide or create racist institutions- that’s going too far!) but otherwise you and the Israeli’s should adapt to the local way of doing things or stay home, get banned, or get treated like the garbage you are acting like. I live in an Arab country and I can be just as pushy and rude as I need to be, but when I travel to an Asian country, that kind of behavior just doesn’t fly. That’s probably the biggest reason why Israeli and American travelers are singled out as being rude, too many of them just don’t care about about who or what they step on to get what they want.

    Of course, I’ve met plenty of rude Canadians too…so it comes in all varieties.

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  • George Burley June 16, 2011, 3:57 pm

    The problem with Israeli’s is they travel in packs and pretty much take over wherever they go with absolutely no regard for whoever else is staying there.

    I’m sitting in a nice condo in Playa del Carmen right now and everyday the pool is overrun with large groups of Israeli’s who have no disregard for the other residents of the condo. They never leave the condo. They stay in the pool all day long despite the fact some of the most beautiful beaches in the world are right outside the condo. I don’t understand it. So much for a quiet holiday and relaxing days at the pool, instead we have mobs of young Israeli’s blaring their hebrew pop music. Highly annoying.

    Rude is rude no matter the culture, quit trying to make excuses for them. If you are going to try and understand their culture and ways they should give the rest of the world the common courtesy to do the same… but they don’t.

    I used to think the Israeli traveler stereotype was just that, a silly stereotype. After this trip, I see it’s not a stereotype at all… it’s based on the truth.

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    • Wade Shepard June 17, 2011, 11:11 am

      Walk up to them and calmly tell them how you feel. Don’t be a wimp.

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      • Tracy Ford September 15, 2013, 6:18 pm

        He shouldn’t have to. They aren’t in Israel.

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        • Wade Shepard September 15, 2013, 11:09 pm

          You can either cower in your room and passive aggressively moan and groan about how “rude” Israelis are or you can realize that you are dealing with a different culture, adapt, and make things better for yourself. The choice is yours.

          Travel is about adapting, decoding, and learning from all the cultures you come into contact with. The reason why you adapt to cultures isn’t to be some kind of floofy hippie on a “citizen of the world” ego trip but to learn the best ways to make life easier and more enjoyable for yourself. It makes my life way easier to go out and tell a group of Israelis that they are being loud and ask them to quiet down than it is for me to sulk about it complaining.

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  • Edith Washington March 14, 2012, 5:10 pm

    Interesting post. You’ve seem to have taken very common sense approach. Watch, listen, adapt. I think “When in Rome. . . ” is the key. I can remember having a very old teacher who began every class by saying “Children always remember “Good manners will get you a biscuit.” While that may be true in many places, I think your article points up the fact that you may have to take a more assertive approach when dealing with some cultures. Thanks for the honesty.

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    • Wade Shepard March 25, 2012, 9:55 am

      Thanks Edith, it means a lot to me when people really take the time to read these articles fully. Thanks!

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  • VadimZubarev March 22, 2013, 4:30 pm

    jews are too egoistic and self centered. I live here and can tell from their children – they don’t teach them any matters at all. their kids do whatever they want,  Russian and American kids are example of kindness and good manners compared to them.. Cant wait to move out of this hellhole.

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  • Anon_in_Colombia June 9, 2013, 4:58 pm

    Why must we adapt to suit their culture? What happened to ‘when in Rome..’ I refuse to accept that everyone else should cater to their ways. They should make an effort to meet in the middle if they want to improve their international reputation as travellers. But that’s the problem, they couldn’t care less (obviously a generalisation, I am sure there are some considerate travellers among them!) Is it too optimistic of us to believe that we are above the ways of animals? That we haven’t progressed beyond the survival of the fittest? I would like to think some of us have. Reading this article has given me a better understanding of why they behave the way they do but I still don’t think it’s right. Don’t travel if you are not willing to respect the cultures of others!!

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