South Tel Aviv/ Yaffo

One thing I never mentioned on this blog was that Emma and I “moved” mid way through my stay in Tel Aviv. The first flat we stayed in was on King George, in central Tel Aviv. As of a week ago we have been staying at much nicer digs in the northern fringes of Yaffo. It’s in an old industrial area with spots of weird gentrification and fancyness that reminds me quite a bit of Williamsburg.

Here are some shots, there are more on my Flickr page, as usual.

“Our” House:

“Our” Street:

“Our” Back Yard:

Tel Aviv Street Art:

Small Synagogues:

Empty House:

What’s In a Street Name

Much like in the U.S. most cities here seem to have the same set of street names. This is what happens in a young country in love with its founding mythology, I suppose. So, there’s Ben Gurion, Herzl, Jabotinsky, Olei Zion etc.

This extends to Arab neighborhoods too. I can only imagine how galling it must be for a Palestinian to live on Olei Zion or Ben Gurion.

On a side note, it is amusing to see many of the same street names here as in Berlin — the only city outside Israel with a large number of streets named for dead Jewish thinkers. Heine, Rabin and Ben Gurion come to mind.

Shopworn Utopia

Yesterday I took a free Tel Aviv Bauhaus architecture tour. As some of you may know, Tel Aviv has the single largest concentration of Bauhaus buildings in the world. More than 4000 to be exact.

This is largely due to the large numbers of German-Jewish architects who ended up here in the ’30s and ’40s during a time when the Jewish population was expanding rapidly and needed to be housed somehow.

So it came to be that Zionist utopia was packaged in the so-called international style. That is; Bahaus with some Mediterranean tweaks. These houses can be seen all over Tel Aviv. Some in better repair than others.

Actually, this is one of the somewhat weird aspects of the city. It has this sort of feel of forlorn and discarded futurism and utopia. A space-age city stranded on a crummy beach. It sort of reminds me of that city in Star Wars: Phantom Menace. I believe it is called Mos Eisley.

Mos Eisley:

Tel Aviv:

Cool Corners

Described by the guide as the most perfect Bauhaus building in Tel Aviv. Has seen better days:

Windows:

The future in disrepair:

Yaffa x 2 Narratives

So, it turns out the beach we were at yesterday used to be a cemetery. Literally.

Today we got up earlier than we have so far to meet up with a friend of Emma’s. His name is Dimi and he is part of a Arab-Jewish coexistence organization in Yaffa. This week the organization was going for a tour of Yaffa. The tour incorporated two narratives of the city history; the Palestinian one and the official Zionist version. We tagged along with the tour and the subsequent discussions and lunch.

Again, it felt very strange returning to central Tel Aviv after having been in a more organic (albeit disrupted) urban setting. There is a lot I could say. For now I just give you some pics. As usual you can click the photos to see more on my flickr page.

Pausing for shade and a discussion of the historical part of the tour in the Arab-Hebrew Theatre of Yaffa:

Sami, the Palestinian tour guide briefs us on gentrification and displacement in modern day Yaffa:

Getting the Zionist narrative:

A razed house; most likely Palestinian:

Building new luxury developments:

Yaffa Cafe; a Hebrew-Arabic bookstore in Yaffa. Also excellent mint lemonade:

American Apparel Gays and The Situation

So, I’ll probably offend some people by saying this: I have seen very few people with any discernable “style” in Tel Aviv. That is, until I saw the American Apparel gays who work at the A.A. store down the street. I don’t usually get worked up over such things, but I do find it pretty funny that have the exact same Cheap Monday pants pre-fab hipster look as they would in the Brooklyn store. That’s all.

Also, this will sound banal and trite. And obviously I chose to travel here knowing full well what it would be like. But it really is so strange to be lounging on the beach and then go home and read the news and realize people were killed and rockets fired mere miles from where one is summering and stuffing one’s face with melon and hummus. Tel Aviv really is a strange place.

Day Trip to Haifa

Sometimes it takes leaving a place to gain some perspective on it. Tel Aviv is fine. Yet, after visiting Haifa today I understand why people here like to complain of the lack of a sea breeze and natural beauty.

Our day trip Haifa high-lighted what a homogenous city Tel Aviv is. Haifa has a fairly large Arab-Israeli population, alongside the Jewish one. There also seems to be more religious variety within ethnic groups and religions in Haifa, judging from my very hasty observation. In Tel Aviv I haven’t seen many religious Jews and even fewer Muslims. In Haifa there were quite a few women in hijab, as well as Carmelite nuns and visible signs of Christian Arab religion. In all I found it somewhat easier to breathe in Haifa.

Also, insane amount of soliders on the train to and from Haifa. I suppose that is just the way things are in this country. I have to say, I am too much of a softy European/ New Yorker to be at ease when there is an Uzi in the seat next to mine.

We could see Lebanon from Mt. Carmel. I wonder how long it would take to go from Tel Aviv to Beirut by train if such a thing was possible. (It isn’t.) Two hours? One, on a high-speed train? That would be neat.

Remains of our Lunch in Wadi Nisnas

The owner; photo taken on the sly.

Quite possibly the best coffee I’ve had in my life. And I know from coffee.

We wen’t to the top.

And looked down.

That’s Lebanon in the far background.

More photos on my Flickr page.

Picture This

My sister tanning on the beach in Tel Aviv. But wait, what is she reading? Could it be “The Tragedy of Zionism.” Well yes. It could.

What am I reading? “The Pity of It All: A portrait of the German Jewish epoch.” Heh. I know, I know.

Over and out, am going to try to be a bit productive now.

Farewell to Berlin. Hello Tel Aviv

So, I’ve arrived in Israel. Flying from Berlin, over central Europe I’ve got to say: Damn it’s flat. Just fields all the way from Berlin to Bulgaria basically. Talk about West Asian steppe.

When I got off the plane the 60-ish man who had been sitting one seat down from me on the flight asked me where I was from. “Sweden,” I said. “Sweden? no, no, no! Hair not blonde.”

I’ve had this conversation in many varied forms before, good to know it never fails. Actually, never had it in Berlin this time. Not sure if they

A.) Just assumed I was American. B.) Are too P.C. to ask.

My taxi driver was a friendly Buhkaran Jew from Tasjkent. He didn’t speak much English and I speak virtually no Hebrew, but that didn’t stop us from yammering away all the way in to Tel Aviv.

I usually don’t initiate conversations with taxi drivers. It can be a bit of a crapshot, more often than not you find yourself fending off questions about your love life. This guy was 100% appropriate. I learned he had three kids, got to see a cellphone pic of his newborn son and learned that he had family in Queens, NYC (holla!) and Phoenix, Arizona. Also he once drove a tank in Gaza and used to be a photographer in Uzbekistan.

I didn’t want to pigeon hole him and talk about Queens, sheep roasts and diamonds. He had no such qualms. He talked diamond merchants and Lev Leviev with great pride. Also, he waxed poetic about the fine culture of Ukraine, Uzbekistan and other FSRs.

View from our Tel Aviv window. (Click for more pics on my Flickr page.)

Narcissism in Tel Aviv Bedroom:

Our Tel Aviv Bedroom:

One last pic from Berlin (me and my Berliner Weisse)