Berlin with Palm Trees

"Berlin with Palm Trees" -- that's how they sometimes refer to the vibrance of Tel Aviv. It's a bustling modern city with much to see. The full name is Tel Aviv-Jafo -- the latter referring to the ancient Arab port of Jaffa which sits at the southern edge of Tel Aviv. Photos are here.

I was fortunate to have my friend Honi to show me around. We walked the southern part of the city's shoreline, and spent time in Jaffa in search of the best hommus in town. When we found it, the line was way out the door -- also at the restaurant's second location, directly across the street.

Jaffa, an ancient port, has ruins dating to 1500 B.C. right in the middle of town. During Ottoman times, discrimination against Jaffa's Jewish population contributed to the founding of Tel Aviv in 1909, and incorporation in 1921 under British administration. The city expanded quickly until Tel Aviv and Jaffa grew together. The stories most often repeated tell of the struggles between Arabs and Jews during the growth of Zionism and the founding of Israel: stories, such as the mosque built way beyond the northern edge of Jaffa, in an attempt to contain the southerly expansion of Tel Aviv, and its minaret which became a deadly sniper tower during the 1948 war. But these stories don't do justice to the commitment to peace one sees today on the streets of Jaffa.

This land was indeed the site of some of the most serious conflicts -- but today Jaffa looks like a model of successful coexistence between Jews and Arabs. The cities are deeply entwined, with a unified administration. Jaffa is more or less evenly divided between Jewish and Arab populations, and everywhere you look there are people living in close proximity, going about business as if no conflict is relevant to their lives.

Elsewhere in Israel and the West Bank, many people identify their religious or ethnic group through their appearance, but here in Tel Aviv-Jafo, one sees a minimal amount of those clues. Friends who live here tell me even they can't always tell who is in which group -- suggesting that the Israelis who choose to live in this environment, both Jewish and Arab, are the ones who tend to be most interested in a unified coexistence within a secular state. And indeed, when you talk to Israelis they have strong preferences for Tel Aviv or Jerusalem -- representing two different ways of coexisting.

My second trip to Tel Aviv was spent mostly in the Museum of the Diaspora -- telling the stories of Jews all over the world, and the ways they lived before their return to their biblical and historical homeland. A nice treat was the special exhibit on the Jews of Iran. It brought up memories of my very special visit to Iran over the summer of 1978, just before the Islamic revolution.

You know, that Jaffa mosque could be seen as a parable of coexistence: although its minaret was misused as a sniper tower in 1948, the community resisted calls after the war to tear it down. And when 40 years later the minaret fell down of its own accord, it was rebuilt even taller. Such is the confidence of the people of Tel Aviv-Jafo in their shared future.

Photos are here.