For most Americans, a common response to “How are you?” is “I am doing well.” If a person is tired, stressed, overworked, anxious or simply, not doing well at all, the response still tends to be along the lines of “I’m fine” or “I’m good” - no questions asked. This is the quick-and-easy response, of course, as there is typically no expectation to explain why one is “fine” or “well.” The conversation carries on, and a person’s true feelings at the moment gets swept under the rug.
In Israel, the scene is rather different.
For the next ten weeks, I will be training neural networks at Brodmann17, a tech startup for self-driving cars, in the heart of Tel-Aviv. It is my first time in Israel, and I feel very lucky expand my cultural horizons, intellectual comfort zone, and taste palette all in one summer.
I walked in on the second day of work and was greeted by a sea of eyes peering above the large desktop screens and a cascade of boker tovs (“good morning” in Hebrew). One of my coworkers who I met the day before hit me with the classic greeting: “Boker tov! How are you?”
“I’m doing well! How are you?”
“An, you know you can be honest. If you’re not doing well, you can say it. I am kind of tired myself.”
I laughed off the response, assuming he was cracking a joke, and honestly, I was doing quite well; however, this encounter was not the first of its kind. Over the past week in Tel-Aviv, I have encountered similar levels of directness in conversations with other coworkers and strangers alike:
“So…are you Christian?”
“I am getting married this weekend. Would you like to attend my wedding?”
“Why didn’t you ask for help earlier?
“What do you think of Trump?”
“Why did you come to Israel?”
“What do your parents do?”
“If you wanted the A/C turned down, why didn’t you just ask?”
Israelis, as I have been told and as I experienced in those interactions, are very direct. Unlike many Americans, they say what they mean and mean what they say; no fluff added. Israelis simply do not have the same concept of ‘minding one’s own business’ as other nations have. Everything is everyone else’s business. “I want” or “I need” replaces more indirect phrases like “It would be nice if…” or “Would it be possible to…” Similarly, “You’re wrong” is a more common response to a difference in opinion instead of a more subtle “In my opinion…” or “I see where you’re coming from, but…”
What Israelis call directness and many outsiders consider rude stems from a variety of factors: the country’s small geographic size, a sense of kinship among Jews from all over the world, a socialist past that focused on a radical egalitarianism, and the aggressive ethos instilled by Israel’s military culture.
Regardless, directness certainly has its benefits, and I almost wish we adopted a similar degree of directness back in the states. It would make communication more straightforward, and misinterpretations would be nearly obsolete. And in case you were wondering, I did go to the wedding, and it was (with Israeli honestly) a beautiful experience.