7 Interesting Facts About Israel
Celebrating modern state of Israel’s 74th Independence Day
1. High birth rate - Israelis love kids
With an average of three children per woman, Israel has the highest fertility rate among the 37 countries in the OECD, where the average is 1.7.
This isn’t only in our ultra orthodox communities (average of~7 kids per family), but also our secular and traditional communities have a higher birth rate than the OECD average.
In many countries low birth rate is a real crisis. In some countries like Saudi Arabia there has been a decrease in birth rates as the country westernizes. In Israel, the last 50 years our average birth rate remains the same.
Why? A few possible reasons may be- family being an important value in Israeli society, trauma from the holocaust, influence from our ultra orthodox community or an ongoing “baby boom” as we are in a constant state of war with our surrounding enemies.
2. Israel has more immigrants than any other country in the world per capita
Since it was founded in 1948, 3.3 million people have immigrated to the country, 45% of them arriving since 1990.
The immigrants are not necessarily Jewish under religious law (born to a Jewish mother or undergone Orthodox conversion). To qualify for citizenship under the Law of Return, you must have at least one Jewish grandparent, a Jewish spouse or have undergone a conversion in a recognized Jewish community.
3. Israelis eat the most chicken per person in the world
We eat a lot of chicken! Based on a comparison of 161 countries in 2019, Israel ranked the highest in consumption of poultry per person.
We also- eat a lot of meat and have a lot of lawyers, startups and patents per capita.
4. Israeli food inventions
Bamba and Shkedim are some of the foods invented in Israel.
Bamba (snack) is a peanut butter flavored snack. Been marketed since 1964 and till today is one of the most popular snacks in Israel. Medical researchers think that the extensive consumption of Bamba by infants in Israel, is the reason peanut allergy is rare among Israelis
Shkedei marak is a crisp small crouton used as a soup accompaniment. (Great way to get kids to love soup! :) They are based on the crispy squares of dough (mandlach) traditionally served with chicken soup by Ashkenazi Jews.
5. Mandatory military service for women
Aside from North Korea, Israel is the only army to require women by law to serve in their army.
Women have served in the IDF since its establishment in 1948.
Why? Some reasons may be- perception of IDF as the “people’s army” or real security needs. Read more on this topic here or here.
6. We have our own electric plug type
The universal system of plug types (World Plugs) uses a single letter (from A to N) . Each plug type letter describes a general description of a different plug type.
Israel uses plug type H, used by no other country. United states uses A and B. When visiting relatives in the states, we always need to remember to bring an adapter.
7. Roads in Israel are numbered logically
North-South roads are even numbers such as route 2,6,90. East-West are odd numbers such as route 1,3,5.
Also generally, for highways with the same number of digits the numbers ascend from south to north and from west to east.
