Israel: Tour Day 1 - A walkabout tour through Tel Aviv

Well, here we are, on Day 1 of our tour through Israel!


<----Tel Aviv - a view from our hotel room




Over fifty people from our synagogue in Vancouver converged at the Dan Panorama hotel over the past several days, until we were all hugging, shaking hands, and chatting excitedly in the lobby. I knew several families on the trip, however, there were others that had been only passing acquaintances, at best. We knew, however, that we would soon be encountering a new level of relationships, if nothing else than though the fact we would be together for the next two weeks, living every moment of the tour together. It is a diverse group, from kids of all ages, to young parents, to middle aged 'youthful' folks like me, to grandparents and retired folks. Our Rabbi, who will be traveling with us with his family, has put together an impressive program that looks like it will appeal to such a wide mix of people and interests. It will be very interesting to see how this unfolds!

We were quickly introduced to our tour guide, Yehuda Askenazi, thin, wiry man with a graying beard and sporting a broad brimmed Indiana Jones-style hat. As we were to find out later, however, this guy is 'the real thing'. At any rate, we got to know his quiet, relaxed style and his characteristic phrases by heart:

"Over here, Over here, people"

"Listen, we have to stay together. Come with me".

and, his favorite, usually said after stopping briefly at some spot to deliver an interesting bit of information,

"Let's go."
... after which he would immediately head off for the next destination, with us following after him like a noisy flock of baby geese.

Yehuda in the Marisssa caves, Day 11---->

Our tour started today with a modest effort, a walkabout through the Tel Aviv area. We set out, heading to the old city district, built at the turn of the century. Tel Aviv is a very young town by Middle East standards. Other cities we would soon be visiting were as old as four thousand years old!

I don't have extensive notes on the tour we did today. However, we saw Jaffa Buska orange trees, with bitter fruit near Suzanne Dellal center for dance and theater. This is part of a neighborhood built near Jaffa, called Verein Esraith.

We passed by small houses that had only two rooms. We were told that up to 10 family members used to live there in the early days of Tel Aviv.

What are these canisters on the roof? ---->

An odd feature, compared to Vancouver homes, were the presence of large canisters that were placed on the tops of roofs in many of the smaller homes and apartments we passed by, particularly the older buildings. We learned that these were, in fact, hot water tanks, next to which are flat solar panels, to heat water. Conservation of power is a major effort in Israel.

The early days of Tel Aviv were quite humble. The Jewish district had was poor. And yet, we were shown two synagogues, side by side. Despite their relative poverty, Ashkenazi and Sephardic groups could never agree to share the same synagogue, so each built their own modest building next to each other. With the great influx of European Jews at the turn of the century, Tel Aviv became more of a business center.

We saw two identical homes, side by side. Apparently, these were built by a wealthy contractor who had two sons. Initially, one son was granted a home by the father. However, when the other son saw what his father was doing for his older brother, he complained loudly enough to convince his father to build a second one. To end any arguments over being equitable, the father had the second home built to be an exact mirror image of the first.


<----The brother's homes are on the left side of the street

Nearby, we also saw where live theater used be performed years ago, with a completely different show each week to keep folks entertained and coming back for more.

Heryzl St was the first city street in Tel Aviv, built in 1909. Yehuda pointed out the first building in Tel Aviv. It was built on the corner of Ahad Ha’am and Heryzl Street as a home for Akiva Wiess, a city father, who greatly influenced the development of the city.

One of the most impressive works of art we saw in Tel Aviv was a large mural, located inside a shopping mall. The mural was made of tiny colored broken tiles of glass and ceramic, that, when viewed from a distance, depicted the immigrant waves that created the city to what it is today. It starts with its ancient beginnings in the neighboring city of Jaffa, and progresses to building of Tel Aviv. On the left of the mural, three people are shown, working at first on their own. However, in later panels, they are joined by well dressed immigrants.

Back on the street, we saw a Jasmine tree, a small bush with edible fruit.

The tour ended as we were released to explore a huge market located a few blocks from the hotel. It reminded me of Granville Island, however, this had the authenticity of a Middle East marketplace. Everything, (and I mean EVERYTHING) could be purchased there, from hand crafts, to jewelery, to t-shirts, to pirated DVD's, to nuts and fruits of all kinds, to fresh chickens (with feet attached) to newly butchered beef (you could purchase jaw-bones, hoofs attached to feet, and anything else in -between).





. . All for a price, but no price tag. Bartering is a way of life. Often sellers would shout out their wares in order to make sure people filling the aisles between stalls were paying attention. There was a timelessness to this grimy but vibrant open-air market place, with stray cats and dogs running rampant between the aisles. It gave the sense that the at times frenetic level of buying and selling here, which takes place seven days a week, twenty four hours a day, has been going on since ancient times and will likely continue for a long time to come.