o involved in Joint projects with the United States in electronics, software and medical equipment. The name of this venture is the Israel-US Binational Industrial and Development Research Foundation. It is supported by both countries and acts as a capital foundation for American-Israel ventures.Israel’s economy seems to be getting much better and a lot more stable. The Moody’s credit ranking organization has upgraded its rating of Israel from stable to positive, and has confirmed Israel’s credit grade to an A (Bank 1). There is cause for optimism in the near future. Israel’s economy seems to be getting much stronger with the opening of the economy to free competition and the significant improvement in the security situation in light of the progress in the peace process (Bank 2).Considering the fact that Israel is a recently founded nation, it still has a very strong cultural foundation. What makes this country so interesting is the fact that it has a broad mix of ethnicity but is based on the Jewish religion. Many of the Israeli customs stem from the integration of immigrant culture. In order to understand the Israeli culture many factors must be analyzed. These include religion, ethnic background, customs, social structure, and etiquette.Religion and ethnicity are very closely tied in Israel. By looking at percentage of population it is clear the Jews are the major ethnicity and therefore Judaism is the major religion. Here is ethnic breakdown of the population as of 1996: European/American-born Jewish 32.1% Israeli-born Jewish 20.8%African-born Jewish 14.6% Asian-born Jewish12.6%Non-Jewish (mostly Arab) 19.9% (CIA-WFB)According to this about 80 % of the Israeli population follows the Judaic religion. Other religious groups include Islam, 15% of the population, Christian, 2%, and the Druze, Baha’is, and Circassians make up the majority of the other 3%. The official language of Israel is Hebre...
