By Max Silverstone
On January 21st, during our opening conference, Cohort 4 spent a day in Tel-Aviv, learning about the city, its history, and its culture, with a focus on the the identities of the people there. Our day started off in the Old City of Jaffa, where we sat on steps that overlooked the coast of Tel-Aviv. While we took in the incredible views, our tour guide and educator, Jamie, told us about the early days of Tel-Aviv, and how the people who built the city were secular olim (Olim are Jews who moved to Israel). While the location was within the Ancient land of Zion, they were not interested in developing a religiously Jewish city. Rather, they saw their identities as Hebrew, not as religiously Jewish. One subject that came up was Kosher food. Of course kosher food exists in Tel-Aviv, but it is not the norm, like in Jerusalem. There are no shortage of restaurants in Tel-Aviv that mix milk and meat, where you will see Jews making the food, and Jews eating the food. To many Jews in Tel-Aviv, it is meaningful to be in the Promised Land, but not necessarily important to observe Jewish rituals and laws. As we sat on the steps, hearing from Jamie we surrounded by old buildings – old being a relative term in Tel-Aviv. They were built in the late 19th century or early 20th century.
After seeing the views from Old Jaffa, we boarded the bus and headed to Migdal HaShalom, Israel’s first skyscraper, built in 1965. In the bottom few floors, the building has many exhibits on the history of Tel-Aviv, and Jamie took us to the one about the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium. The HHG was a Hebrew High School built in 1905, at the spot we were in, but demolished in 1962 to allow the building of the Midgal HaShalom Tower. When the HHG was built, it was the tallest building in the Middle East, and when Migdal HaShalom was built, it got to reclaim that title!
While we walked around Tel-Aviv, it was hard for me to believe that only a century ago, the land was sand dunes.
The labor and hard work of first generation Olim and their descendants to develop such a dense and vibrant city is absolutely awe-inspiring. While this is attributable to the historic Israeli drive to build up the nation, it is also important to remember the thought that went into building the city. Israel was not meant to be a place only for observant Jews to live easily accessible observant life styles. Rather, it was built as a country for all Jews, where they can not only live safely, but also freely, doing Jewish how they want.
