Spot-on commentary!

 "Here is one example that keeps popping in the book: your repeated puzzlement with the fact that Israelis constantly improvise."

When I did the IDF medic's course way back in early 1991, written (painted actually) in very big letters on the wall of our classroom was "A good medic improvises."  I was discharged in 2005 but I still quote that to myself all the time (our kids reply, "But Abba, you're out of the army!").

 I made aliyah 21+ years ago.  More than anything else, it was doing miluim for 14 years that helped me understand, more than anything, what makes my fellow Israelis tick.

Nicely written!

 Oxartes 

"But leave the Wise to wrangle,
and with me The Quarrel of the Universe let be:     
And, in some corner of the Hubbub coucht,     
Make Game of that which makes as much of Thee."
[Omar Khayyam, "The Rubaiyat