TEL AVIV-JAFFA

 

FROM JAFFA TO TEL AVIV: Our tour of Jaffa/Tel Aviv takes us from Jaffa Port, one of the oldest in the world, to Rothschild Boulevard, where Tel Aviv was founded and where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel's independence. On the way we'll take in the alleyways and mosques of Old Jaffa, the houses of Neve Tzedek, and the Bauhaus edifices of Tel Aviv's White City. Our aim will be to get beyond the cliches and to understand the key role these two cities have played in the history of Israel and Palestine, the relationship between the two, and their status today, during a period of unprecedented urban expansion. We'll also take in lesser known aspects of the two cities, including the African asylum seeker community, the gastronomic delights of the Yemenite Quarter, and the hipster streets of Florentine.

 

TEL AVIV - FROM THE CENTRAL BUS STATION TO THE YEMENITE QUARTER: Starting from Tel Aviv's gargantuan Central Bus Station, we'll aim to understand today's Tel Aviv by looking at some of its lesser-known neighborhoods. Starting from Neve Shaanan, home to a large population of African asylum seekers, we'll go into the trendy Florentine neighborhood, past the famous Levinsky Spice market, along Allenby Street and past Rothschild Avenue, down beautiful Bialik Square, and then to the Yemenite Quarter to finish with some delicious food. This is about Tel Aviv beyond the bubble, a multicultural and dynamic Mediterranean city.

 

"I DON'T SEE ANY WHITE" - THE BAUHAUS MYTH AND THE STORY OF TEL AVIV: Everyone knows that Tel Aviv is home to the best preserved collection of Bauhaus buildings in the world, many of which were built by Jewish Bauhaus trained architects who fled Nazi Germany. What’s less known, though, is that this story became common relatively recently, that very few of the supposedly Bauhaus buildings in Israel were actually built by Bauhaus trained architects, and that most of the buildings built in Tel Aviv in the 1930s didn’t conform to Bauhaus ideology at all. On this tour, we’ll use some of Tel Aviv’s lesser known ‘Bauhaus’ buildings to tell the story of how Tel Aviv became known as the White City, and what this story tells us about how the city and its residents understand themselves.
 

These are just samples. For more tour options, please get in touch!