If you have never spend adequate time with Israelis or spend a significant amount of time in Israel then there are a few things that you don’t know about Israelis.
The first area of life where you could consider yourself Israeli would be concerning cleaning, that is, if cleaning is the proper word to use. Israelis don’t necessarily ‘clean’ as much as they push off to the side. The mandatory implement that allows Israelis to complete this action is the squeegee. The squeegee is absolutely essential to the Israeli and can be used in almost any setting. The preferred usage is after a bucket of water is poured out upon a floor.
Lets say that the floor in your apartment is dirty, well no problem in Israel, the solution is to pour out a bucket of water and then squeegee all of the filthy water into the hallway or in front of your neighbors door and then leave it to dry. 
Or, if you are one of the university employees a method could be to dump a bucket of water in the hallway and then squeegee the nasty water right outside the entrance so that every person entering the building must walk through it.
This experience can best be summed up by a simple statement. Hey roommate, “where is the mop?” Response, “What’s a maup”
Secondly, you know you are Israeli if you drink Nescafe. 
A normal coffee drinker will take coffee beans, grind them up and then have hot water run through them. But in Israel, that is way too much work and will only be done at a cafe. The single option to drink coffee at home is by getting a spoonful of brown mystery powder from your jar of Nescafe and dropping it into a cup of hot water. So if you are coming to Israel and thinking that you will experience amazing middle eastern coffee, you have come to the wrong country. My suggestion is to hit up the local starbucks so it doesn’t go out of business.
3 Comments
July 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Um. The coffee thing could be a problem for me when I come to Israel.
August 2, 2008 at 10:10 pm
David, most Israelis do not clean like that. You have spent too much time in the university dorms. You should come to my place, I’ll show you.
Ah, the Nescafe. Well this is true. If you go to cafe’s we are considered to be spoiled children. If we do it at home, we are considered to have no taste. What should we do then?
August 3, 2008 at 11:15 pm
yo David, I just read through all your entries about your time in Israel, and it sounds like an adventure. Definitely a different culture than here in the States. Keep having fun.
Alex