Hacker News Reader

Not OP, but gonna pipe in as a Jerusalemite: in Israel, being a foreigner is almost a default state. Consider that a very significant portion of the population only came in the last 30 or so years, and a vast majority of peoples’ ancestors only came in the last century. It’s a relatively new country. From a more practical standpoint, there are large English speaking communities all over & most Israelis are very fluent English speakers.

I’ve been all over Europe and I really don’t know where this would be true. If you can speak the local language well enough to have a conversation, 99% of people will talk to you in it. If they can’t understand you, well, you need to study more.

Jerusalem is a very international city. Lots of students, artists and tourists from all over the world. Locals are used to and friendly friendly to foreigners