Israelis in India: Where Ex-Soldiers Go to Unwind

When we hear about India these days, it is usually a news item about outsourcing, or a wonderful curry recipe. There is another side to India though: the Israeli invasion.

Israeli youngsters are enrolled in the army right after High school, and must serve for a mandatory three years. Their time there being rigorous and often difficult (think about the Intifada or even daily patrols), it has become fashinable over the past ten years to unwind by going to India.

While it's not certain how the phenomenon began, we do know that backpacking there is much cheaper than in Europe. An Israeli student with the low Shekel can actually go far in India.
Many people also go to 'Find themselves'. While there are orthodox Jews in Israel, many of the secular Jews tend to have no connection with root Judaism whatsoever, and so they trek through India in search of whatever they might find.

I have heard personal accounts of young men and women adopting local religions for a time, sitting in mud huts to meditate and eating all sorts of things that would be really strange under different circumstances. Most of these people eventually let go of the spell and go back to Israel to attend university and get life back on track.

Funnily enough, some actually find the Jewish religion while in India. There are representatives of the Chabad movement in many Indian cities, ready to assist Israelis with kosher food and lodgings, as well as teach the basics of Judiasm like prayer, Shabbat (observing the Sabbath as the day of rest) etc. Many people who are opposed to religion on their own turf find themselves softening when encountering fellow Jews in other countries.

Indian business profit majorly from the backpackers, offering hostels and food, tours and more. Many stores have up signs in Hebrew, to better accommodate the tourists.The problem is that drugs and other recreations are readily available in many places, and while some of the ex soldiers dabble in substances to blow off steam, Chabad rabbis are sometimes forced to supervise a drug addict who has gone too far and send for his relatives to come take him to a rehab center in Israel.

Israelis can also be rude at times, due to their prickly survival instinct, so the relationship between them and the locals is of the love-hate nature.

In a humorous twist, an Israeli bride and groom who got married in India in 2005 had to pay a $22 fine for embracing and kissing in public during the Hindu ceremony.