rwndk1: What you describe as the “more businesslike” Israeli mindset, is what I call a lebedik velt, an anything goes, midos deficient hardness of people playing hardball, borne of a hardscrabble life. It is not anything near what a yid should be, hard realities or not. My two marrieds, A listers, are living in rented flats at the largess of my machatonim, God bless them. The insecurity dose not bother them, and this itself is a level midos that I doubt you would find in the siddur maleniks.
