Studying in Tel Aviv

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The Florence Melton School in Palo Alto and the Melton Israel Seminar in Palo Alto is funded by the ALS Jewish Community Center, and the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, Marin County, and the Peninsula.

From Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, our 3rd full day of intense study.

Tensions -- from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv

On Thursday we once again do a compare and contrast, this time between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the Old New City (Tel -- an old mound with layers of civilization and Aviv -- the new spring).

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We drive from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and begin to explore the founding of the city by 66 families by going to the lobby of a commercial building at the intersection of Hertzl Street and HaAdam Street.  This seems like a strange place to begin, but there are mosaics there, and a model of the first buildings in Tel Aviv and wonderful photographs from the early days of the city.  The place is bustling with IDF soldiers who are also being taken there on tours.  We start by studying the mosaics, on on the beginnings of Jaffa, the Arab city, and Tel Aviv, the Jewish suburb, and one on the next generation.  We read texts about the goals of the founders of Tel Aviv to establish a modern city for the "new Jews", the Jews of muscle, in the manner of New York City.  Ironic when you think that the reality was just 66 houses built on sand dunes.  But you already feel the tension between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

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It is only at the end of the study session that we learn that this commercial building was the originally the site of the "enlightenment" gymnasium that taught both religious and secular subjects which was the central building in early Tel Aviv.  This school was built in 1909, and, to the dismay of its students, it was replaced with a commercial building in 1962.  A central symbol of the early days of Tel Aviv, it is featured in one of the mosaics.

We have lunch (falafel and smoothies) in the area near Allenby Street and King George Street in Tel Aviv, and then we have an opportunity to wander briefly in the market.

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Then off we go to Independence Hall for a memorable visit.  The staff at Independence Hall give a brief introduction, followed by a short video about the founding of the State of Israel, followed by a dynamic, engaging presentation by a young Israeli woman on the details of what happened on May 14, 1948 in the room where the Megillat Ha'atzmaut, the Proclamation of the State of Israel, was signed.  We read the Proclamation itself and sing Hatikvah.  If anyone of our group entered that room with any doubts about his or her connection to the State of Israel, they left with tears in their eyes, knowing that they were home, that this was their land.  Any Jew who has not visited Independence Hall in Tel Aviv should go.

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Then we continued through Tel Aviv, walking in the neighborhood of the Bialik House, the home of Bialik the poet.  As we walked, we considered the Hebrew-Oriental design of the houses along the way, and the special Hebrew script in the address signs on the sides of the buildings.  En route we paused in the sweet shade to read about the construction boom in the 1920's, and the struggle of Israeli women to enter the building trades.

What I have realized from three days of intense on-site study that this experiential study is incredibly powerful.  It is one thing to study text as we usually do, sitting in a room, engaging with words on the page.  It is another thing to tour and experience the reality of the material world.  Combining those two activities, studying as you wander the streets of Israel, results in an incomparable experience, difficult to describe but very powerful.

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We learn more about Bialik, not only as a poet, but also as the author of the Sefer Aggadah with the mission to preserve the knowledge of Jewish traditional stories among these "new Jews".  And we talk about the tension between the use of Yiddish language and Hebrew language in the 1920's and 1930's.  Yes, Bialik, the master of Hebrew poetry, did also speak Yiddish sometimes.

We are not able to study inside the Bialik House because it is being renovated.  (Note to self -- come back here again sometime.)  So our group settled in the shade on a large outdoor stairway of an apartment building not far away to study Midrash from the Sefer Aggadah as well as poetry.  It was another very hot and humid day in Tel Aviv, and we were drenched with sweat.  A woman who lived in the building came out, curious as to what we were up to.  She took compassion on us, going back in and coming out with large bottles of cold water and cups, truly in the tradition of Rivka watering the camels.

Tel Aviv is a city on the Mediterranean Sea, but it was not built in a way to capture the sea breezes.  The heat and humidity was oppressive; we needed to be revived.  And Hayim, our leader is a wise and practical man; he knew that a refreshing break at the Tel Aviv beach would do the trick.  We sat in the shade in a beach-side restaurant, enjoying iced coffee and ice cream and the cool sea breezes.  And some of us even got to dip our toes briefly in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, a most beautiful sea.  Ah, for more time with the beckoning sea. (Yes, ignore those skyscraper hotels which surround us.  :-)  )

But it is time to move on to Kikar Rabin (Rabin Square) which had formerly been called the Square of the Kings of Israel.  And we learned of the central importance of this square as a place for Israelis to demonstrate, to show by showing up what they support and what they do not support.  Then we studied about the events of the 1990's  --  the Oslo Peace Process and the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.  We continued on to the Rabin Memorial, a small place to mark the site of the terrible deed, the deed which should not be done in Yisrael, today easy to miss in the midst of the hustle and bustle of Tel Aviv.  We read the speech of Yehuda Amichai at the occasion of the Shloshim of Yitzchak Rabin.  And we talk -- what lessons do we take from this assassination?  And what did it mean for a significant proportion of the Israeli population to believe at the time that it was a necessary thing for such a terrible thing to occur?  And had Israel, even today, 12 years later, really dealt with the implications of this assassination?  Lots of questions.

It is time for dinner.  We do eat well and often on the Israel Seminar.  We eat at the Maganda Restaurant, a Yemenite restaurant in the Yemenite Quarter of Tel Aviv.  It is located at Keren Hateimanim, 26 Rabi Meir Street.  Wonderful salad, delicious shish ka-bob.  Highly recommended.

It has been a long, hot day with much to consider and reflect upon in the darkness as we drive back in our bus late at night to our home base in Jerusalem.

We are promised that this heat wave will break on Shabbat.  We can only hope.