No, I'm not speaking about the weather. Most definitely not, as we are experiencing a mini summer here in Yerushalayim. The weather has been stunning- no coats, frolicking outside in the sun, but the downside of that is no rain during the last little bit of the rainy season. The Kinneret still has 4 meters to go! (Hopefully we will get some rain this Thursday though, at least according to predictions.)
What I'm really referring to is a habit typical of the Israeli professionals that I've met. From the army to the science labs, Israelis do not dress formally. It's like casual Fridays taken to a whole new level. High ranking doctors walk around in jeans and Crocs. Army officers request that their soldiers call them by their first name. Formality? Gone. Thrown out the window. Scraping and bowing? Gone. The top professors in a college almost expect their students to treat them in a casual manner. In any other country, it would be chutzpadik. To the Israelis, that's normal.
It's endearing in a way. After all, that provides the young ones with the chance to speak up, to let their ideas be heard, instead of always deferring to the elder in the group. That may be why Israeli teenagers are so ingenuitive, creative, and otherwise street smart. They have a chance to speak their mind, to change the system, and to make their positions and ideas known. In a way, it's a bad thing- leading to disrespect of the older generation, and a lack of regard for authority.
All I know is that my mouth dropped open, when my new director walked in and said, "Please refer to me by my first name. Thanks."
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2 days ago
4 comments:
that has come to america, in some way, as well. perhaps being in YM you don't have it as much, but how often do I get a phone call from a company and they call me by my first name? and you are too young for this, but just wait and see what some of your friends' children will call you. I am surprised when my 13 year old's friends call me by my first name, I am older than some of their mothers....
I think the grad students here also call the professor by his first name. It's because they're PhD candidates, I guess. Us undergrads sure don't.
Daughtersintheparsha- Really? I would think they would still be more respectful than that. And yes, it is still wrong when children call other children's parents by their first name.
I have a neighbor who I'm friendly with, in which all their children grew up calling me by my first name. As they got older, the parents asked me what I would like to be called, since they didn't feel it was appropriate to use my first name any more. Hey, I even don't call my mother's friends by their first names, even though I'm married.
Lon- Well, then that seems reasonable- I'm a grad student. But in Israel, even the undergrads do it!
The lack of formality in Israel is a Communist thing, but in the past decade or two it's been becoming a little more formal under American/Western influence. For the fitst time guys are wearing ties and ladies are wearing formal dresses...
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