Fast Facts Fast Fact 40

Fast Fact #40

Mikve Yisrael, meaning Hope of Israel, was founded in 1870 as the first agricultural school for Jews in what would become the State of Israel. The Alliance Israelite Universelle, a French organization, purchased the land near Jaffa for the youth village and boarding school. Today, Mikve Yisrael has three schools (grades 7-12) catering to students who are secular, religious, or French-Israeli. Students begin working on the school’s farm in Grade 10.

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Fast Facts Fast Fact 39

Fast Fact #39

StartupBlink, an innovation-economy research platform, ranks Israel No. 3 – behind only the US and UK – in its global list. Israel has held this spot for four years in row. Israel is No. 1 in the world for the number of R&D branches, with 11 global tech brands such as Intel, IBM, and Oracle. The Tel Aviv area – nicknamed “Silicon Wadi” – was No. 9 globally in 2024 and has been in StartupBlink’s top 10 since 2020.

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Fast Facts Fast Fact 38

Fast Fact #38

Israelis contributed in unique ways to the Jewish chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Israeli artisans chiseled Jerusalem stone that was then shipped to the United States to construct the chapel’s front wall, which is reminiscent of the Kotel in Jerusalem. In the chapel is a Torah scroll that the IDF gave to the Brigade of Midshipmen.

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Fast Facts Fast Fact 37

Fast Fact #37

Egged is Israel’s largest bus company. Israeli poet Hayim Nahman Bialik named the company Egged from the Hebrew for “union” after four cooperatives merged in 1933. Today, one of the largest bus companies in the world, Egged has subsidiaries in the Netherlands, Poland and Bulgaria. In Israel alone, it operates almost 4,000 buses taking nearly one million passengers a distance of 622,000 miles every day.

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Fast Facts

Fast Fact #36

Israeli law officially recognizes five religions within Israel: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Druzism and the Baháʼí Faith – all monotheistic. The smallest Abrahamic faith, Samaritanism, has fewer than 1,000 adherents in Israel. In a census, they are counted as a distinct religious community, but the Chief Rabbinate defines them as ethnically Jewish.

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