- published: 07 Nov 2014
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Israelis (Hebrew: ישראלים, Yisra'elim), are citizens or nationals of the modern state of Israel. Although Israel is a Jewish state, it has a multiethnic society, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds. The largest ethnic group is that of Israeli Jews, followed by Arab citizens, mostly Arab Muslims, with smaller numbers of Arab Christians in addition to Druze, Circassians, and others. As a result, some Israelis don't take their nationality as an ethnicity, but identify themselves with both their nationality and their ancestral origins.
Due to the multi-ethnic composition, Israel is a multicultural nation, home to a wide variety of traditions and values. Large-scale immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Europe and Yemen and more recent Large-scale immigration from North Africa, Western Asia, North America, Former Soviet Union and Ethiopia introduced many new cultural elements and has had broad impact. The resulting cultural mix may be described as a melting pot.
Richard "Rick" Steves (born May 10, 1955, Edmonds, Washington) is an American author and television personality focusing on European travel. He is the host of the American Public Television series Rick Steves' Europe, has a public radio travel show, Travel with Rick Steves, and has authored various location-specific travel guides.
Steves started his career by teaching travel classes at his alma mater, University of Washington, and working as a tour guide in the summer. At the time, he also worked as a piano teacher (his father had owned a piano store). In 1979, based on his travel classes, he wrote the first edition of Europe Through the Back Door (ETBD), a general guide on how to travel in Europe. Steves self-published the first edition of his travel skills book ETBD in 1980. Unlike most guidebook entrepreneurs, he opened a storefront business, which at first was both travel center and piano teaching studio. He held travel classes and slide shows, did travel consulting, organized a few group tours per year, and updated his books. He did not provide ticket booking or other standard travel agency services. He incorporated his business as "Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door." The store was in Steves' hometown of Edmonds, Washington (a city north of Seattle). The company's headquarters are still in Edmonds.