From austerity to show-off: despite the cost of living, Israelis refuse to close their wallets

How do you identify Israelis abroad? Detractors will say 'loudness' or something that casts aspersions on our collective behavior. On the other hand, I would like to attribute to us a relatively new national trait, which is indirectly related to the cost of living: 'largeness' (generosity/magnanimity).

Although it seems simple, it is difficult to translate this term into Hebrew. 'Width of hand' or 'width of heart' is a close attempt, but it does not accurately express the combination of generosity, show-off, love of humanity, and more.

Admit it, it doesn't quite fit with the traits we tend to attribute to ourselves, such as the unwillingness to be a 'sucker' and the love of small perks on the house. And yet — let me enter any given restaurant abroad, and I can easily point to the tables where Israelis are sitting.

Maybe it's the desire to demonstrate, precisely in the diaspora, the fact that the people of Israel are alive — and even living like a king. Maybe it's the fact that in Israel everything is so expensive that for the price of an average meal for a couple in a Tel Aviv restaurant, one can (generally speaking) order the entire menu abroad. Whatever the reason, we are 'large' — including the camaraderie with waiters and a reasonable to generous tip, even in countries where tipping is less anchored in the norm.

Even in Israel, we tend to be relatively 'large'. For example, in everything related to extreme situations forced upon us. Rumors of war? Supermarket shelves empty, even though if we learned anything from previous rounds, it is that the supply chain is not affected. Restaurants closed due to COVID? On the contrary — we will organize decadent meals in sweatpants, inside the house.

It is true that this phenomenon is known all over the world, but in Israel it is especially extreme. It is not an innate trait of the Jewish people, but something we have developed over the years.

From austerity to show-off

In the first years of the state's existence, an austerity regime prevailed here. Weddings, for example, were mostly held at home and sandwiches were considered legitimate refreshments: in the case of those who could afford it, with salami and a pickled cucumber. In even more popular cases, even a sandwich with jam served as dessert... I mean to say, Israeli 'largeness' grew with the culture of abundance.

But the Israeli 'large' person does not live by money alone, as there is also an ethnic element here: the growing influence of Mizrahi culture on the Israeli mainstream has turned us from ascetics who settle for little (generally speaking: a trait characteristic of Eastern European immigrants), into those who love to celebrate life, 'set the table', mark events with a 'hafla' (feast) and not a mask.

Some might think this is a privilege reserved for those who have, but that would be a sin against the truth. It is true that those who are hungry for bread cannot 'set the table', but from the level of a full refrigerator (an economic task that most Israelis do not struggle to meet despite the cost of living) and beyond — it is just a question of approach.

On the margins of this blessed phenomenon, there is also a twilight zone: from tasteless and odorless wedding celebrations costing hundreds of thousands of shekels, to those whom the culture of abundance around them has driven out of their minds and pushed them to try quick and illegal ways to stay in the game.

And yet, most of the influences are blessed: we love to hang out, we love to eat, we love to host, we love large family meals (just look at our average Rosh Hashanah and Seder night tables compared to Thanksgiving and Christmas tables in the USA). We are party-goers, messy, and in short — 'large'.

On the edge

This is one of the reasons why it is expensive here: we may save less for a rainy day (the 'whatever will be, will be' syndrome), but we celebrate the day — in an overly expensive restaurant, in a hotel that was a chicken coop on the confrontation line in the north and became a 'tzimmer' (vacation cabin) for 2,500 shekels a night, on a flight abroad that starts with filling a cart at the Duty Free and more.

It may be that nothing lasts forever, it may be that the effects of the ongoing fighting and the lack of a chance for a peace solution on the horizon will still take their toll on us, but at least for now, nothing manages to extinguish the Israeli lust for the good life.

Even the divisive and polarizing political dispute does not cause us to lose our 'largeness': at the departure gate at the crowded Ben Gurion Airport (despite the constant fear that it is not certain that everyone who leaves will also have a way to return, in case of airspace closure) you will find, side by side, both supporters of the government and those who are flying because they are unable to survive even one more news edition in the current political climate.

In other words, we spend when we are happy with reality and we spend even more to disconnect from it. Why? Because if I am 'large', I exist — and this Israeli character, so difficult to understand to foreign eyes, is the soul of the relative prosperity in the economy, even in a period when we are managing the longest (and most expensive!) of Israel's wars.

Some economists are losing their minds: in their eyes, one of the challenges of economics is to try to turn everything into something measurable, into data that can be expressed in numbers, into models that can be based on facts and more. Well, the aspiration to anchor theses in facts, rather than gut feelings and beliefs, is indeed the basis of the scientific method. The thing is that, as Israel 2026 proves, economics is a much more elusive matter.

Why? Because no index and almost no psychological model from the field of consumer behavior can explain how a person who fears the day when their current account will be charged with credit card expenses, just ate at a restaurant costing almost a thousand shekels for a couple.

No economic model is capable of predicting how someone who is barely meeting their mortgage payments gives their daughter who is about to get married a hundred thousand shekels for the event.

It's not about miracles: in economics there is no 'something from nothing', and the day of payment will come. It always comes. It's just that Israeli 'largeness' knows how to manage well when it lives on the edge: stretching its forces from horizon to horizon on every possible combat front and 'choking' its credit limit to beyond the red line. Because a bit like the level of the Sea of Galilee — it will always be possible to redraw the red line, a little lower.