Where most civilized societies teach their children, from day go, to be considerate of others, here in Israel many parents do exactly the opposite and encourage their children to think that, first and foremost, to look out for themselves. "Don't be a friar!" This is the beginning, middle and end of it - a complete failure in parenting! The results are clear for all to see a society slowly declining in morals and civility. Not exactly the light unto the other nations!

I'm from the UK and I have lived in Israel for 2 years. I have to say that the problems with youth and discipline is a global issue. All countries have their good kids and their reckless kids. Our world is changing, kids are seeing terrible things that they shouldn't be exposed to on the internet, videos of death, porn , kids beating each at school etc. Some people might argue that internet has nothing to do with indiscipline, I would disagree. I believe their is a link with desensitising human emotions from watching the above videos and the day to day good behaviour, respect and compassion required from all of our youth/citizens. Again though, it is a global issue, you have the same type of behaviour in the UK and the States where it is even worse then Israel. The bottom line however and will always be the bottom line is the parents. In my short time in Israel I have seen again and again kids being really rude towards other people/kids in front of their parents and watched their parents grin and say 'what can u do' A child's behaviour is mostly the direct result of parenting.

yes....and let's make a preliminary start by demanding that the teenagers keep their filthy shoes off the seats of buses and trains...they ignore any pleasant requests. Follow that with education about cell phone usage. When they go abroad their selfish behaviour of speaking loudly into cell phones wherever and whenever they choose will result in them being totally emabarassed and humiliated when witnessing the shock of the folks around them. then we can move on to their feeling free to "spit" anywhere they feel the urge. The tragedy is that these kids don't know that their behaviour is disgusting to those around them (except to their doting parents, of course)

than to people who r politly r cruel liares. so people think you r rude so what, it doesn't mean that people don't see your good side, the rudness is just excuss to hate someone, and if it wasn't rudness than it would be probably something else, so big deal. stay that way.

It's the education they receive at home that makes them the people they are. Children grow up with two slobs as parents, of course they'll follow suit, they dont' have any other examples to follow - to them, being a slob and violent is normal behaviour. Some parents simply couldn't care if their children are educated or not.

I am also from the UK and have lived here for over 40 years, but see on visits to London how UK public behaviour has grossly deteriorated, and I dont just mean the huge increase in disgusting public drunkeness which used to be an occasional sight. Vandalism and hooliganism is very noticeable, far worse than in Israel. Barry is clearly correct about the influence of distorted & often sick messages and visuals freely available on the internet. Another case where Israeli parents do not do their duty to their children by supervising their computer activity. Our children growing up in Israel were given good old fashioned British manners (including that quaint thing called table manners) and its very nice to see this being passed on to our grandchildren. Everyone benefits. Our sabra children and grandchildren do very well with their less aggressive public behaviour, so there is a lesson here!!!

Occupation is the reason for the rudeness and recklessness of the "Israeli" generations. Ask the psychiatrists if you don't trust me ;(

leftists and liberals are against discipline, they view it as a tool against human rights. Visit any major Western town friday night, you will see anarchists youths, overstimulated by drugs and alcohol doing all immoral acts in the name of human rights, freedom and entertainment. The solution here is to challenge leftists and liberal ideology and a return to common sense.

So stop occupying our land

Bring back corporal punishment and school uniforms , and like we did at school military cadets it all works because if a parent cannot discipline a child then the state must take action.

This is what happens when you take away Torah from the masses, they behave like goyim.

I agree with #1 and #5. Children are raised to do what they want; there is no discipline. The end result is to produce adults who have never matured and hence: 1. Talk loud with no respect for the presence of others as in using their cell phone 2. Just like children they are concerned with themselves and do not care what happens to others. 3. The way they drive and the high number of accidents these are just few examples to ponder.

even if the basis of the article is true, your view is full of sense when one comes from countries where you find nazism behind a polished make up ...

whats out there. Go to any trauma centre in North America Saturday morning to see how many have been beaten, kicked, stompted, knifed and had their teeth kicked out to see where western society is heading. Israel is a picnic compared to the US Canada Europe Australia and all points in between. Granted your kids may behave like assholes but they are pussies compared to the kick ass goyim out there. Case in point..In Montreal we have the occasional Israeli behaving like an asshole downtown in the bars. More often then not they get their clock wacked and they hightail it back home lickety split. Just this year we had this Israeli guy here in Montreal who pissed off his gay goy lover. The Israeli ended up stuffed in a luggage ...dead.

An over-abundance of self-criticism, at some point, becomes pathological. Some in Israel have gone past pathological, because Israelis are not 100% perfect according to their standards, suddenly, we are the worst. Well, we are not the worst, many countries have youth problems far in excess of our own. No, our kids are not perfect. No one's are. I will not attribute this uniquely to various modern phenomenon. There were plenty of rotten kids years ago, today, they are parents. All through history, people have been saying the same thing. I can give you references to the behavior of Roman teenagers from 2000 yrs ago that would make your hair stand up. Everyone thinks the current generation is worst than the ''good old days'' - except, in truth, there was nothing so good about the old days. The deterioration of our educational system is a whole different subject. Please, no mixing of apples, oranges, & bananas unless you are making a fruit salad. I realize that it's summer & you need ''filler'' to take up space but that's not a reason to lower standards any more than they already are. So maybe I should say, ''oh, journalism in Israel is the worst, everything is deteriorating, the profession has gone to hell, just look at how today's journalists behave, blah, blah, blah .........lol

you might not cure all of it, but you should cure the majority of it if parents were more disciplined, less arrogant. same all over western world to greater or lesser extent. shows a lessening of parental love/care as a cultural norm. parenting classes possible long term solution in secondary schools?

This article fails to examine the larger picture of Israel’s moral and social decay. The simple truth is that, if unchecked, unruly children grow up to be unruly adults. For example: The children of religious illegal settlers are taught that they are ‘god’s chosen people’ and they have a ‘god-given right’ to settle and cleanse the land of non-Jews. They are shown by their parents that it is okay to steal land and attack Palestinians. They are also told that it is okay to defy the evil secular Israeli Gov. Naturally these children will grow up to be carbon copies of their parents; they will become violent religious extremists with no respect for life or property and utter contempt for Israeli secular laws and values. The children of secular Israelis, as the article points out, are more violent, arrogant and intolerant than their parents. These children are also more likely to join the IDF where they are taught that under military law it is permissible and an accepted part of ‘military life’ to use Palestinian civilians as human shields, use live rounds on unarmed Palestinian civilians, etc, etc. In short these violent, arrogant and intolerant secular youths are taught that Palestinian people can be oppressed and killed with near impunity. Likewise these secular and settler children see foreign and Palestinian workers being exploited, they will grow up to with the notion that it is acceptable to exploit and take advantage of lower economic classes. Haredi children on the other hand are conditioned from birth to be ignorant to everything outside Haredim culture. These children grow up watching their parents reverting to violence at every opportunity, treating women as second-class citizens, and rebelling against Israeli secular laws and values. Israeli Arab children, as an underprivileged, second class minority within Israel, will by default grow up to be more prone to violent racist incidents etc, basically discrimination leads to backlash of anger and hate. Collectively the children from these four main sectors of Israeli society will grow up to become: violent, intolerant, racist adults with contempt and anger for the Israeli state. While it is common to ‘blame the parents’ it should be remembered that the Israeli state is fueling these social divisions by funding and supporting the illegal settler movement and Haredim, by discriminating against Israeli Arabs and finally by allowing a the Israeli military to be a law unto itself. Given the higher birth rates among the religious settlers, Haredim and possibly among Israeli Arabs/Bedouins the author of this article should be more concerned about civil war within Israel rather than a few unruly Israeli youth in Greece.

Like you, I grew up in Britain in the fifties and sixties and have lived here for over 40 years. I completely agree with your remarks. Table manners? I used to get compliments about my kids from other (Israeli) parents, even while my son would say "you and your British manners!". But it paid off. And as we all know, it's the hardest thing in the world to say 'No' to a child, not to give in, yet without making it a battle of wills. It takes EFFORT on the parents' side, something which many parents - Israeli and globally - often find just too much trouble. And then they wonder where they went wrong. To some extent "chutzpa" can be a positive attribute in the correct circumstances, but there is no excuse for rudenss, violence and total disregard for fellow human beings.

the last time someone gave freedom to palis, you started shooting at each other, as any Fatah hamas member. you blame Israel on your situation there will be a time you will have to take responsibility on your own actions and not blame others for your bad behavior.

considering 13 years old children become parents, and your drinking habits r really bad, everyone complaining. :) something in the uk is rotten and it's not Johnny.

this new liberal parenting which lacks discipline towards upbringing is making the youth in the west, not just in israel, a complete an utter joke of humanity. it will only spill out in the future and make it worse. the west is in a decline because its disregard of values and lack of discipline towards children makes them practically into human monkeys. if no boundaries are set, what do you expect? i really wonder why israelis are so liberal in their upbringing. most israeli youngsters i've seen or met really are a sad excuse for human behavior. oh well, they might grow up the hard way. it really isn't the child's fault that the adult was a selfish individual who didn't care about their kids enough to show them who is boss once in a while. SHAME ON OUR PARENTS. you have doomed us all. the west is digging its own grave because of this, letting outsiders dictate their own rules. first of all, YOU DO NOT ASK WHAT A CHILD WANTS TO EAT. I see this too often and it disgusts me. Giving a child a power to choose something they really are incapable of is defeatist. YOU DO NOT GIVE HIM OPTIONS. YOU GIVE HIM FOOD AND SAY: "EAT!". Otherwise you spoil them and make them into sissies. but not all hope is lost.

When I lived in Israel, I was in my mid 20's and the way kids acted there was disturbing...always confrontational, always obnoxious, always rude...you couldn't walk in downtown Tel Aviv with your girlfriend without some Israeli Guido 16 year olds insulting you and your date. It saddens me because I felt that Zionism was about all Jews being part of a big family but it simply isn't true.

and our elders were rude, crude, and loud. Now they complain? If you want to change this you must first be a friar. You should stand in line as those around you cut in front, you should pay extra rather than argue for a reasonable price, you should not ask questions when you are being cheated, and accept other people's damn excuses and kowtow to their demands... or be a rude Israeli. There is no middle ground.

I have never had my car egged in secular neighborhoods in Israel because I was helping a mother with her son's problems. But I guess throwing eggs and threatening women is the part of the Shulon Oruch I have not gotten to yet.

What does "don't be a friar!" mean?

While it is true that Israeli kids and young adults have developed there very own brand of being annoying (arrogance, rudeness, etc..), Israeli kids are by comparison fairly laid back, and mostly don't resort to violence. It is a global and historical phenomenon that kids between 15-21 during a couple of years choose to behave like monkeys, especially when in groups. In Israel the long army duty sometimes delay this behavior to 25. BUT: The exact same criticism of the youth of the nation was written by Aristotle 2400 years ago. And every generation since have believed that *their" youth is the one that actually *is" the first rotten crop, And these kids will in time grow up to say the same thing.... Obviously more disciplin in school would be a good thing but it's not a complete solution.

This has nothing to do with nationality. It Happens anywhere in the world and the only way to resolve is with a heavy financial penalty on parents.