From Neve Tzedek to Sheinkin Street
On Sunday, to complement the two previous days’ walking tours of Jaffa, I had breakfast with a friend a few blocks away in Neve Tzedek, Jaffa’s first Jewish neighborhood, founded before Tel Aviv. After our delicious gentrified breakfast, I got another tour, this time focused on the changes from Neve Tzedek’s earliest Jaffa-like architecture to today’s modernist design.
These are some of the oldest houses. The one to the right belonged to the writer Shmuel Yosef. Agnon, which is why it’s been renovated, unlike the more ordinary places next to it.
Agnon is one of the Founders pictured in the mural to the left.
The neighborhood will soon have its own new apartment building, extending Tel Aviv’s skyscrapers southward.
This is what’s coming.
On the edges of the neighborhood we saw an example of Israel’’s ever-present graffiti, “Am Yisrael Hai” - “The People of Israel Lives.”
This one, though, had an added political counterpoint, listing the number of dead Palestinians, israelis, Lebanese, and Others.
Ending our walk, my friend drove me to the train station through Sheinkin Street, where he used to hang out as a teenager. It’s changed, he says. More chain stores. Less fun. Less alternative.
And then we drove by what I think is Israel’s largest military base, right in the middle of Tel Aviv.
So much for keeping military targets away from civilian population centers.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Kind of funny how you always manage to find Israel’s shortcomings, but fail to even once mention any Arab shortcomings.
You also imply that there is something wrong with the “military base” in Tel Aviv. The base that you illegally photographed is the equivelant of the Pentagon. I wonder if you have a problem with the Pentagon being in a civilian area in VA. This base is just a command center. No attacks or any military operations are ever launched from there.
You have the nerve to equate this to terrorists launching missles from the rooftops of civilian homes?
Also, you call Uri Avneri a “peace activist”? He is an Ultra Leftist Extremist anti-semitic anti-Israeli that is hated by about 95% of Israelis.
Before you jump to conclusions about me, you should know that I am all for making peace and negotiantions and I am against many of the things that the Israeli government does.
As for the “Wall”, yes it inconveniences many Palestinians. But I would rather be inconvenienced than dead.