Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
skyscrapers of Tel Aviv are exclamation points that seem to declare, “We've come a long
way.”
Tel Aviv, born in 1909, must be the youngest major city on the Mediterranean.
Tel Aviv's waterfront promenade is the place to rock to the rhythm of contemporary
Israel—foamy cafés, sugar-sand beaches, and the beckoning Mediterranean. With a “use
it or lose it” approach to the good life, young Israelis embrace the present. I see Tel Aviv
as a fun-loving resort, just the opposite of Jerusalem. People in Tel Aviv told me that many
don't like the religiosity of Jerusalem. “The cities have two different mindsets. The sea
makes you open. There's no sea in Jerusalem, and no beach. In Jerusalem, everybody is
political, religious, or a tourist.”
The relative prosperity between Israel and its neighbors is striking. Waking up on my
first morning here, I looked out my hotel window at the wonderful sandy beach (which is
made of sediment blown and washed over from the Nile River). Pondering the joggers and
kayakers getting in their morning exercise, I kept thinking it's as if someone put Southern
California in the middle of Central America.
The historic town of Jaffa—now consumed by the sprawl of Tel Aviv—was the Ellis
Island of the new state. This was where new arrivals first set foot in Israel. Much of his-
