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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Israel, a country of fewer than 10 million people, punches above its weight in many fields. Newsweek lists Sheba Medical Center as the 9th best hospital in the world. The Center for World University Rankings lists 4 Israeli universities in the top 1% worldwide: Hebrew University, the Weizmann Institute, Tel Aviv University and the Technion. The UN’s WIPO lists Israel as #14 in its Global Innovation Index.
Israel has one Knesset but thousands of “parliaments”. These groups – usually of retired men, who are often army buddies or even childhood friends – convene daily at cafes nationwide. On the agenda: To take their usual table and schmooze. The tradition has its roots in the artsy 1930s Tel Aviv coffeehouse scene, where coffee wasn’t all that they drank.
Israelis and Jews worldwide celebrate Lag BaOmer with bonfires. Traditionally, hundreds of thousands of religious Jews gather at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in Meron. Early Zionists associated their bonfires with Simon bar Kokhba, who led a revolt against the Romans. Therefore, Lag BaOmer became a symbol for the fighting Jewish spirit. In 1948, the order establishing the Israel Defense Forces was issued on Lag BaOmer.
The Eurasian Hoopoe, with its remarkable “crown” of black-tipped feathers, became Israel’s national bird in 2008 in honor of the 60th anniversary of the state. Some 155,000 citizens – from kindergartners to diplomats – participated in the selection process. Known as the “duchifat” in Hebrew, the hoopoe is mentioned in the Bible as being a non-kosher bird.
