Things you might not know about Israel if you've never lived here

These things are obvious to me but I wonder how many of them would surprise the average European or American?

• Work week starts on Sunday. We work Sunday through Thursday, and then the weekend is Friday-Saturday. This makes sense, because Saturday is the Jewish day of rest and Friday is the Muslim day of rest, and Israel is mostly Jewish and Muslim. There are Christians here too of course, and their schools and community centers operate Mon-Fri, but for all other purposes Sunday is the first day of the week.
• Every house, apartment, and public building built since 1991 has a bomb shelter in it called a "mamad." It looks like a regular room but the walls are solid concrete, the door is made of steel and has a hermetic seal around it, and if there's a window then it has a steel cover that you have to close in the event of a war. (*Turns out Switzerland has these too, which is funny because they haven't fought a war in over a hundred years.) Most of the time it's just used as a regular room, but you're supposed to have some emergency supplies in it in case you have to stay there for a while - so we keep bottled water and some snacks there, and should probably have a first aid kit and maybe an extra phone charger. In 2003 we all kept our gas masks there too.
• The IDF is a conscription army, which means that every Israeli over the age of 18 must serve for 2-3 years (as long as the country is in danger, but this has been the case since the country was founded in 1948). There are exemptions of course, but the vast majority of Israelis do some sort of army service right out of highschool. It's not all combat, right? There are plenty of desk jobs and there's even an Education Corps (which is a fascinating topic altogether). I have lots to say about what this does to a society (for better or for worse), maybe for a different post.
  
• Israel is very proud of its agriculture. Main exports include oranges and other citrus fruits and we have a successful wine industry. This is pretty cool considering that almost half the area of Israel is desert (definition for desert: an area that gets less than 200 mm of precipitation per year). Still, a lot of our fruits and vegetables are imported - I guess for financial reasons.
• Israel's official language is Hebrew, but street signs and official documents usually include Hebrew, Arabic, and English.
• German engineering. The building style in Israel is similar to European building, specifically German. Also, lots of words used in construction are German. The reason has to do with the German immigrants who came here at the beginning of the 20th century and brought the construction industry with them. In fact the Technion University, which is a prestigious engineering school in Haifa, originally taught all its classes in German. (Fun fact, that's why the Hebrew University is called the "Hebrew" university - because it was the first university in Israel to teach in the Hebrew language.) 

I'm sure I'll think of others. I'll keep adding.