59 Fun Facts About Israel

On what date did Israel declare independence?

Israel's Declaration of Independence was read in Tel Aviv on 14 May 1948, hours before the British Mandate expired at midnight; five Arab armies invaded the next day.

Who proclaimed the establishment of the State of Israel and became its first prime minister?

David Ben-Gurion, born David Grün in Płońsk in 1886, read the declaration and served as prime minister until 1954 and again from 1955 to 1963.

Which four countries share a land border with Israel?

Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt border Israel: Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east and Egypt to the south-west; the Mediterranean forms the western coast.

What is the lowest land-based elevation on Earth, found on Israel's border?

The shores of the Dead Sea, shared with Jordan, lie more than 430 metres below sea level, and the lake keeps dropping about a metre a year as inflow shrinks.

How much saltier than the ocean is the Dead Sea?

At about 34 per cent salinity against the ocean's 3.5 per cent, the Dead Sea is nearly tenfold saltier; its density of 1.24 kg per litre keeps swimmers afloat.

What is the Hebrew name for the Sea of Galilee, the lowest freshwater lake on Earth?

The Kinneret, named for its harp-like shape (kinnor), lies about 210 metres below sea level and is fed mainly by the Jordan River.

Which desert covers the south of Israel?

The Negev covers more than half of Israel's land area; Beersheba, its largest city, is the capital of the Southern District.

Israel's southernmost city, a Red Sea resort known for coral reefs, is which?

Eilat, at the head of the Gulf of Aqaba, is VAT-free and sits between Egypt's Taba and Jordan's Aqaba; its reef is protected as the Coral Beach Nature Reserve.

Which mountain cluster, home to a ski resort, holds the highest point under Israeli control?

Mount Hermon, on the northern edge of the Golan, hosts Israel's only ski resort; the 2,814-metre summit itself lies on the Syria–Lebanon border.

Israel's third-largest city, built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, is which?

Haifa spreads up Mount Carmel from its bay and ranks behind Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in population; its British-built deep-water port opened in 1933.

The Baháʼí Terraces climb Mount Carmel on how many terraces?

There are 19 terraces: nine above and nine below the Shrine of the Báb, plus the shrine's own; UNESCO listed the Baháʼí holy places in 2008.

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 as a suburb of which ancient port city?

Tel Aviv began in 1909 as Ahuzat Bayit, a garden suburb north of the ancient port of Jaffa; the two were merged as Tel Aviv-Yafo in 1950.

Tel Aviv's name is the Hebrew title of a 1902 novel by which Zionist thinker?

Theodor Herzl's utopian novel Altneuland ('Old New Land') appeared in 1902; Nahum Sokolow titled his Hebrew translation Tel Aviv, pairing 'tel' (ancient mound) with 'aviv' (spring).

Tel Aviv's White City has the world's largest concentration of buildings of which architectural school?

The White City holds some 4,000 Bauhaus and International Style buildings, many by German-Jewish architects who fled the Nazis; UNESCO listed it in 2003.

The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into how many quarters?

They are the Armenian, Christian, Jewish and Muslim quarters, all within 0.9 square kilometres.

Israel's parliament is called what?

Its name comes from the Knesset HaGdola, the Great Assembly of Jewish tradition.

How many members sit in Israel's parliament?

Israel's parliament has 120 seats, a number echoing the Great Assembly of the Second Temple era; members are elected by nationwide proportional representation from a single constituency.

What is Israel's currency?

The new shekel (ILS), introduced in the mid-1980s, is divided into 100 agorot; 'shekel' was an ancient Near Eastern unit of weight of about 11 grams.

Israel's hyperinflated 1980s currency was replaced in 1986 at what ratio?

The exchange was 1,000 to 1, a thousand old units for one new, under the 1985 stabilisation plan that ended Israel's triple-digit inflation.

What was the name of the first kibbutz, founded in 1910?

Degania, founded in 1910 where the Jordan leaves the Sea of Galilee, was the first kibbutz; by 2010 Israel had about 270 kibbutzim with some 126,000 members.

The 1917 Balfour Declaration supporting a Jewish national home in Palestine was a letter to whom?

Arthur Balfour addressed the letter to Lord Rothschild, Walter Rothschild, a leading figure in British Jewry, for transmission to the Zionist Federation; 'national home' was left deliberately vague.

The father of political Zionism convened the First Zionist Congress in 1897 in which city?

The First Zionist Congress met in Basel's Stadtcasino concert hall in August 1897; its organiser wrote in his diary afterwards, 'At Basel I founded the Jewish State.'

Which linguist, who moved to Jerusalem in 1881, drove the revival of spoken Hebrew?

Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who arrived in Jerusalem in 1881, raised his son Itamar speaking only Hebrew and compiled a 17-volume dictionary of ancient and modern Hebrew.

Israel's national anthem is called Hatikvah. What does the title mean?

The words are adapted from an 1878 poem by Naftali Herz Imber.

The two blue stripes on the Israeli flag are modelled on what?

The stripes echo a tallit prayer shawl, the white garment with blue or black bands worn at prayer; the flag with its Star of David was adopted on 28 October 1948.

In which war of June 1967 did Israel capture the West Bank, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights?

The Six-Day War, 5–10 June 1967, opened with Operation Focus, a surprise air strike that destroyed most of Egypt's air force on the ground within hours.

Which two leaders signed the Camp David Accords in September 1978, witnessed by Jimmy Carter?

Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin signed the accords at the White House on 17 September 1978; they shared that year's Nobel Peace Prize, and the Egypt–Israel treaty followed in March 1979.

Which prime minister was assassinated in November 1995 after signing the Oslo Accords?

Yitzhak Rabin, Israel's first native-born prime minister, was shot by Yigal Amir after a Tel Aviv peace rally on 4 November 1995; he had shared the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize with Peres and Arafat.

Golda Meir, prime minister from 1969 to 1974, grew up in which US city?

Born in Kyiv in 1898, Golda Meir moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1906, trained there as a teacher and embraced Labor Zionism before emigrating to Palestine in 1921.

What event forced Golda Meir to resign in 1974?

The Yom Kippur War began with Egypt and Syria's surprise attack on 6 October 1973; the Agranat Commission's criticism of Israel's unpreparedness led Meir to resign in April 1974.

In which country did Mossad agents capture Adolf Eichmann in 1960 before his trial in Jerusalem?

Mossad agents seized Eichmann outside his home in a Buenos Aires suburb, Argentina, on 11 May 1960 and smuggled him to Israel; he was hanged at Ramla on 1 June 1962.

The 1976 Entebbe hostage rescue took place in which country?

The hostages were held at Entebbe airport in Uganda, whose dictator Idi Amin sided with the hijackers; Israeli commandos flew some 4,000 km on 4 July 1976 and freed 102 of them.

Masada, the desert fortress overlooking the Dead Sea, was fortified as a refuge by which king?

Herod the Great built Masada's palaces, cisterns and casemate wall around 37–31 BC as a refuge; Josephus records its Sicarii defenders dying by mass suicide when Rome breached it in 73 or 74 AD.

Which Roman legion besieged Masada, building a circumvallation wall and a massive ramp?

Legio X Fretensis, the Tenth, under Lucius Flavius Silva ringed Masada with a siege wall and eight camps and raised an earthen ramp against its western side.

The Western Wall in Jerusalem is a retaining wall of which structure?

The Western Wall is a surviving stretch of the Temple Mount's western retaining wall, built in the first century BC to support the expanded platform of the Second Temple.

In the early 2010s, Yad Vashem was Israel's second most-visited site after which?

The Kotel, the Western Wall, drew the most visitors; Yad Vashem, founded by law in 1953 on Jerusalem's Mount of Remembrance, came next.

What title does Yad Vashem confer on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust?

Yad Vashem names them Righteous Among the Nations; more than 28,000 have been recognised, honoured in the Avenue and Garden of the Righteous at the memorial.

Which Israeli city hosted the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest?

Tel Aviv hosted the 2019 contest at Expo Tel Aviv following the 2018 win; Jerusalem had staged the 1979 and 1999 editions.

Which singer's song Toy won Eurovision for Israel in 2018?

Netta Barzilai's 'Toy', with its looping vocals and chicken clucks, took the 2018 contest in Lisbon with 529 points, Israel's first win since Dana International's 'Diva' in 1998.

Shakshouka reached Israel with Jewish immigrants from which region?

Shakshouka, eggs poached in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce, came with Jewish immigrants from North Africa, especially Tunisia and Libya, and became a staple Israeli breakfast.

Falafel, a national favourite, is a fritter of what origin?

Falafel is Egyptian in origin: Egypt's ta'amiya is made from fava beans, while the chickpea version spread through the Levant and became Israel's street-food staple.

Which Israeli navigation app did Google buy for $1.3 billion in 2013?

Waze, the crowd-sourced traffic app, began in 2006 as Ehud Shabtai's community project FreeMap Israel and was bought by Google in June 2013 for about $1.3 billion.

Which company, founded with a kibbutz in 1965, commercialised modern drip irrigation?

Netafim grew from engineer Simcha Blass's partnership with Kibbutz Hatzerim, where the first commercial drip-irrigation systems were made from 1965.

Which Israeli company filed the 1999 patent for the USB flash drive?

M-Systems of Kfar Saba, led by Dov Moran, filed the patent in April 1999 with Amir Ban and Oron Ogdan as co-inventors and launched the DiskOnKey in 2000; rival claims exist.

Which is Israel's oldest university, with a cornerstone laid in 1912?

The Technion's cornerstone was laid in 1912 and teaching began in 1924; the 1913 War of the Languages over whether to teach in German or Hebrew helped make Hebrew the national language.

The research institute in Rehovot is named after which chemist, who became Israel's first president?

Chaim Weizmann, the chemist whose acetone process aided Britain in the First World War, became president in 1949; the Daniel Sieff Institute he founded in 1934 was renamed for him that year.

Israel earned its entrepreneurship nickname in a 2009 book for leading the world in what?

Dan Senor and Saul Singer's 2009 book Start-up Nation noted that Israel had more start-ups per capita than any other country, roughly one for every 1,800 Israelis.

Sorek, near Tel Aviv, opened in 2013 as the world's largest facility of what kind?

Sorek is a seawater desalination plant using reverse osmosis, producing about 624,000 cubic metres a day when it opened in 2013; desalination supplied roughly a third of Israel's drinking water by 2014.

The Maccabiah Games, the 'Jewish Olympics', were first held in Tel Aviv in which year?

The first Maccabiah was held in Tel Aviv in March 1932 with some 390 athletes from 18 countries; a second followed in 1935, and the games resumed in 1950.

Israel's first Olympic medal, a silver in 1992, came in which sport?

Judoka Yael Arad took silver in the under-61 kg class at Barcelona 1992; Oren Smadja added a judo bronze days later, and Gal Fridman's 2004 windsurfing gold was Israel's first.

At which Olympics were eleven members of the Israeli team murdered by Black September?

At Munich 1972, Black September gunmen seized the Israeli team's quarters in the Olympic Village; eleven athletes and coaches died, nine of them in a botched rescue at Fürstenfeldbruck airfield.

The 1950 law granting Jews the right to immigrate to Israel and gain citizenship is called what?

The Law of Return, passed on 5 July 1950, lets any Jew settle in Israel and claim citizenship; a 1970 amendment extended it to children, grandchildren and spouses of Jews.

What is the oldest known artefact to mention 'Israel' as a people?

The Merneptah Stele, carved for Pharaoh Merneptah about 1208 BCE, lists 'Israel' among peoples defeated in Canaan; the name itself is traditionally traced to the patriarch Jacob.

By what vote did the provisional government pick the name 'Israel' over Zion, Judea and Ever?

David Ben-Gurion proposed the name; 'Ever' would have honoured the biblical ancestor Eber.

Into how many main administrative districts, or mehozot, is Israel divided?

Israel has six districts, or mehozot, each run by a commissioner of the Interior Ministry and subdivided into 15 sub-districts (nafot); the West Bank's Judea and Samaria Area is administered separately.

In 2018 which language lost its official status in Israel and was given a 'special status' instead?

Arabic lost its official status under the July 2018 Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, which declared Hebrew the state language and gave Arabic a 'special status'.

Which Israeli writer shared the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature with Nelly Sachs?

S. Y. Agnon, born Shmuel Yosef Czaczkes in Galicia in 1887, shared the 1966 prize for novels such as The Bridal Canopy and A Guest for the Night.

Which offshore natural gas field, discovered in 2010, began production in 2019?

Leviathan, some 130 km off Israel's northern coast, was discovered in December 2010 by Noble Energy and partners and began flowing gas on 31 December 2019, about a decade after Tamar was found.

Which theatre company, Israel's oldest, has been the national theatre since 1958?

Habima began in Moscow in 1917 as a Hebrew-language studio under Stanislavski's patronage, toured abroad, settled in Tel Aviv in 1931 and was declared Israel's national theatre in 1958.