This article is still under construction
The Israeli concept of privacy may be different from your experiences in a Western country, where people hardly know their own neighbors.
Israel's mixture of cultures brings varying concepts of public and private issues.
This website and the other websites in the series were created to a large degree on public buses. The author spoke softly into a small recorder. It was difficult for anybody else to hear the actual words.
However, the surrounding people all seemed to surreptitiously glance – or even stare openly – during the recording session. They acted as if it was strange or unusual. It was annoying at first, but later it was ignored. After all, there is no way to train everybody not to be rude.
Yet, on that same bus there may have been two other groups of people who were talking loudly. An effort was made to ignore them:
Although their discussions may have included private or intimate issues, the topics were not considered to be a breach of privacy. People did not stare at them. As a matter of fact, people tried to give the impression that they are ignoring the conversation. They were in a bubble.
Those who speak a language other than Hebrew believe that they can maintain their privacy at any volume. They, too, believe that they are in a bubble, and that nobody else can hear what they are saying.
However, Israel is a country of immigrants. It is very likely that some of the other passengers will be able to understand just about any language that they may speak. Furthermore, many Israelis love languages. (The others hate languages, often because of their experiences in school, but that is the topic for a different article).
Interestingly, some of these people are tourists or visitors. For some reason, as soon as they arrive in Israel, their concepts of privacy change in order to match that of the local population.
Thus, privacy is becoming a non-issue in Israel. Many people from other cultures find this infringement on their privacy to be annoying, at least initially. After some time, they begin to get used to it. Still others find ways to maintain their privacy.
What happens when you are located in a culture that includes a mixture of people from many other cultures?
Well, until everybody finds a happy medium, some will be happy, some will be annoyed, and the rest of us will just have to learn how to manage with the situation.
One thing is abundantly clear:
There's no way to educate the rest of the population about your particular cocepts of privacy.
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Keywords: Discuss, Involvement, Manners, Personality, Privacy, Psychology, Recording, Telephone, Transportation/Bus, Yenta
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