I lived in Israel as a child up until the age of 8 at which point my family decided to move to Toronto. I've been living in Canada for 13 years now. I still frequently travel to Israel on a regular basis to visit friends and family, and spend extended periods of time there during the summer months.
On remembrance day in Israel, the entire country literally comes to a standstill. A nation-wide siren blares, and everyone stops what they are doing and stands in silence. People driving literally slam on the breaks so they can stand for as much of the siren as they can. The country is entirely unified in its effort to pay tribute to the soldiers that have died defending the country and those that continue to do so. Given these experiences, I was completely stunned at the events that took place in my classroom the morning of Remembrance Day at York University. You can read that story in another post on this forum here. Basically, my professor had no idea what Remembrance Day was. I encourage you to read that thread.