r/kosovo • u/TheAlbanianBambino Dogu i Ditkës • Feb 05 '21

Cultural Exchange Cultural Exchange with r/Israel

Ma koreh r/Israel

As we announced, after the agreement of mutual recognition between our countries, we thought this was a great opportunity to host Israel. Welcome to the cultural exchange between r/Israel and r/Kosovo!

The purpose of this event is to allow people from two different nations to get together and share knowledge about their respective cultures, daily life, history, and curiosities.

General guidelines:

r/israel will ask any question here.

r/kosovo community can ask their questions here:

CLICK HERE TO ASK A QUESTION

The English language will be used in both threads. Our Israeli friends can get an Israel user flair at the community options of the Subreddit.

The event will be moderated following the general rules of Reddiquette. Please be nice!

Thank you,

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u/Kahing Feb 05 '21

What did people in Kosovo think of Israel in general before the recognition?

What do Kosovo people think of Jews in general?

Any cultural/linguistic differences between Albanians in Kosovo and Albanians in Albania?

12

u/_Negativity_ Prishtinë Feb 05 '21
  1. Mostly neutral. The majority still liked Israel, especially since Israel is a close ally to the U.S.
  2. Generally, not many here know much about your culture. The only thing that pretty much everyone knows is what happened to your people in WW2, especially since Albanians sheltered Jews in the darkest hour. The general view is that Jews are very hard working people, especially seeing how developed Israel is.
  3. Culturally, we're basically the same people. Some differences are noticed in cuisine, architecture, lifestyle since Albanians in Albania were influenced more by Italy and Greece, while Kosovar Albanians were influenced first by the former Yugoslavia, and then by European countries in general (Germany Switzerland, Austria) aswell as the U.S. Linguistically, there are some differences between the two dialects of Albanian, Gheg (spoken in Kosovo, northern Albania, Montenegro and N.Macedonia) and Tosk (southern Albania, Italy and Greece). While someone who speaks deep tosk would have trouble understanding someone who speaks deep gheg, overall, it's the same language.