The Story Behind Israel's Greatest (and Most Overlooked) Accomplishment

Hint: It comes impressively packaged in two Hebrew words.

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Modern-day Israel and Israelis are known for a myriad of achievements: rebuilding a Jewish homeland; the world’s strongest (and most humane) military, “pound-for-pound”; Start-Up Nation; inventions like drip irrigation; Bamba; among the world’s top 20 economies in GDP per capita¹ …

Oh, and Israeli cows produce the highest milk yield per cow (true story).²

Israel also finds itself placed on these per capita lists:

1. Most museums³

2. Most engineers and scientists⁴

3. Most startups⁵

4. Most expenditure on research and development (R&D) as a percentage of GDP⁶

5. Lowest rate of diet-related deaths⁷

6. Most film schools⁸

7. Most hi-tech “unicorns”⁹

8. Most vegetarians and vegans¹⁰

9. Second-most scientific research¹¹

10. Second-most venture capital investments¹²

11. Third-most university degrees¹³

12. Fifth-most healthy longevity¹⁴

But there’s one Israeli accomplishment which often gets grossly overlooked. It comes impressively packaged in two Hebrew words: