Israel: Not Just Religion—Also Food, Culture, and the Best-Looking People You’ve Ever Ignored Your Friends For
Israel is a lot of things. Spiritual, intense, controversial, ancient. But no one told me it was also this cool. Like, startup accelerator on the beach kind of cool.
I came for a reset. What I got was shakshuka, shirtless philosophers, and a country that somehow balances 3,000 years of history with 3-hour delivery from a drone.
Tel Aviv: Where You Can Launch a Startup Between Beach Breaks
Tel Aviv is chaos in the most seductive form. It’s also quietly (or not-so-quietly) becoming the second-most unicorn-dense city in the world. That’s right—right after Silicon Valley, it’s Tel Aviv. The only difference is here, the pitch meetings happen in board shorts, and your investor might also DJ on weekends.
There’s a buzz to this city. It’s not just caffeine or coastal optimism—it’s something in the air that makes you believe your half-baked app idea might actually be worth $10 million.
And I’ll admit it—I tapped in. I started working out of a co-working space full of people coding, building, failing, pivoting, repeating. I met a guy who raised $5M in sandals. Another who built an AI for grief counseling and then invited me to a rooftop wine night.
Some places humble you. Tel Aviv dares you to move faster.
Jerusalem: Where Time Slows Down and You Question Everything
Jerusalem was the counterweight to all this ambition. Where Tel Aviv made me feel like I should launch something, Jerusalem made me want to sit with something.
I walked through ancient streets and had conversations that felt older than I was. The city doesn’t ask for your pitch deck—it asks what you believe in, and then makes you answer without Wi-Fi.
It’s not my forever city, but it reminded me that not everything needs to scale. Some things—faith, tradition, silence—are worth keeping small and sacred.
It’s Not Just Religion
The biggest lie about Israel is that it’s all politics and prayer. What no one tells you is:
The food is outrageous (yes, I said it: better than Italy).
The people are impossibly attractive and impossibly direct.
The culture hits somewhere between ancient philosophy and a 3 a.m. tech launch party.
Every corner of this place feels like a contradiction that somehow works. You can go from synagogue to surf session without changing outfits.
So… Is It Home?
Maybe.
There’s a lot of world left to see, and I’m not done wandering. But there’s something about Tel Aviv—its energy, its unpredictability, its unapologetic weirdness—that makes it feel different. Like maybe, just maybe, I could stop moving one day… and start something real here.