How being in Israel changed me.

[Hooahguy]

Sounds terribly depressing

Tell me about it...

To be fair, I'd expect a relatively large number of “peanut” material in an exchange programme of a religious institution, by default. Reason is that such programmes have a tendency to attract “Born Again” type of people who tend to make up for their ignorance with zeal.

I also expect that your experience is skewed by the nature of the institution itself. For instance, I'd expect you to feel more at home at a secular university -- partly for the reasons Jolt mentioned, and partly because you get to see a much more broad cross section of Israel and in particular a much more secular and progressive part of Israeli society. For all claims of “progressiveness” that still means little more than allowing their disciplines to access Internet in the context of Torah study when it comes to the Orthodox Jews. They are roughly on the level of the Taliban, only without the latter's practical attitude and forward thinking outlook towards it all.

On the other hand there are plenty of ordinary Israeli's who really couldn't give a toss about whether you're a Jew or a Jedi.

Agreed. I would be. Except my parents wanted me to go to the institution Im in currently, and since I plan on joining the US Army after I get back, I figured that doing what they wanted for a year wouldnt be so bad, since afterwards Id be doing what I wanted. Man I was wrong.

And I might be showing a bit of an extreme side of Israelis. Dont get me wrong, there are a lot of really nice people, its just here they are depressingly a silent majority.

Now if you want to talk about experiences that truly changed me......in Tel Aviv right next to our hotel, there was this strip club 'The Pussy Cat Club'....highly recommend it :P

I was in Tel-Aviv for one day, about 3 weeks ago. Id argue that it was the best day I had in Israel, even though we didnt end up going to any strip clubs.