Quote Originally Posted by Tellos Athenaios View Post
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.
Probably. Israel feels very split on a lot of things. This is the same country that has Dana International for example, so it's impossible for it to only be Ortodox Jews.

Thanks for telling us Hooah, first person experiences are always interesting, in particular those who changes your views (since you're always extra prone to keep those).