New in Israel

Making friends in Israel

Moving country resets your social life to zero, and Israel is a country where most circles were formed in the army or at university - long before you arrived. That is not unfriendliness; it is simply that nothing here is built to introduce strangers to each other.

Each city below is a different version of the problem. Start with the one you live in.

• Tel AvivTel Aviv is the easiest city in Israel to be busy in and one of the hardest to make close friends in. Everyone is out, and almost none of it is open to someone new.
• JerusalemJerusalem is a city of communities, and community is exactly what makes it welcoming once you are inside one - and quiet before that.
• NetanyaNetanya is the rare Israeli city where starting over socially is the normal experience rather than the awkward one.
• HaifaHaifa is a city people arrive in for studies, medicine or tech - and leave from just as often, which is what makes a social circle here hard to keep.
• HerzliyaHerzliya is full of interesting people who are all at work, and it offers almost no reason for any of them to meet each other.
• Ramat GanRamat Gan is where a lot of people live because it is next to everything, and then discover their friends all stayed in the city they left.
• ModiinModiin was built from nothing, and so were its social circles - which is why they closed around whoever arrived first.