Coming from Jerusalem with a majority of Orthodox Jews wearing clothes more suited to the 1700s than today into Tel Aviv where the new, blatantly secular, Jewish young people wear tight jeans, sip iced lattes, and smoke cigarettes in outdoor cafes is such a contrast! Tel Aviv is high rise condo after high rise condo along a beautiful white sandy beach looks like Miami. In addition to American Jews, the biggest buyers of these condo right now are French Jews who are afraid of anti-semitism in Europe.
Modern Orthodox Jews wear a special knitted skull cap and think that the formation of the country of Israel is the first spark of the coming of the Messiah. They work, serve in the army, support and/or live in the illegal settlements of the W. Bank and send their children to Israeli schools,
Ultra Orthodox feel "how dare we push the hand of God and when he is ready to bring his people home, he will." They don't work, they study the Torah and Talmud, live on welfare, don't serve in the army, don't participate in the ceremonies of Israel or sing the National Anthem and have lots of children to. There is currently a bill in the Israeli legislature to make the Ultra Orthodox work and serve in the army. At the start of Israel, they numbered less than 500 and David Ben Gurion thought they'd just die out, but they are now the faster growing group in Israel. There is also concerns that as their number continue to rapidly grow, their influence will impact Israeli life. Israel is a secular, Jewish, democratic state and most people want to keep it that way.
Israeli Arabs don't serve in the military. According to our guide, they don't want to serve and the Israeli government doesn't want them fighting other Arabs. OK--
Old Yaffa, south of Tel Aviv, was a city 5000 years ago when Tel Aviv was just another wide strip of sand on the Mediterranean.
Before Israeli independence the area was 85% Arabs. When indepence was declared in 1948, the Arabs fled--according to our guide Israel had no intention of kicking them out, but it became a place of fierce fighting between Arabs and Jews and the place was destroyed and left in ruins until the 1960s when the Israeli government gave the houses and shops to artist and regentrification started. There are still areas in need of renewal, but apparently the prices are quite high because of the potential of the area.
There are many Biblical reference to the port of Jerusalem, as Jaffa was known. Like most of the Middle East, the area has changed hands many times with the oldest inhabitant being Ramses II. Napoleon conquered it, but lost half of his army to cholera. Jaffa is also the place where Jonah tried to run away from God and got swallowed by the whale. The sea is a beautiful turquoise and the sun was shining.
Even though Jesus never walked here, the streets are full of Fundamentalist Christians because St. Peter raised Tabatha from the dead and also it is the home of Simon the Tanner, where Peter, a Jewish man, in a vision was commanded by God to eat animals that Jews would never eat. The relaxing of dietary rules opened Christ' message for pagans and Gentiles.
Ok, we are in the secular part of Israel, but since we are leaving Friday night, it is hard to find transportation to the airport. The trains and buses quit running at 5 PM and many taxi drivers don't drive on the Sabbath. In Orthodox Jerusalem, there is 24 hour transport to the airport.
In front of the church of St. Peter, a Jewish guide was explaining to a Jewish group the story of Simon the Tanner, and why Christians started eating pork, shrimp, and other forbidden food.
Tel Aviv is having a real estate boom with more and more high rises being built and prices going up. There are also lots of 30 year olds from hi tech companies and start up tech companies that will eventually sell to Microsoft, HP, etc. and it is creating the same phenomen en as we experienced in the US with our "Microsoft Millionaires". There is a book about this, Israel, Start Up Nation.
The older areas of Tel Aviv are quite European with wide Rothschild Blvd,
coffee shops on every corner
There has been a large influx of Somali Jews in the mid 1990s and we asked our guide, "are Jews color conscious?" He said, "Jews accept all Jews as equals. Unlike Christianity which is very individualistic, Jewishness is about community and doing what's good for the community. They value human life above all else in life and it's the Arabs that want to kill us." To quote "Jesus Christ, Superstar"--strange as it seems---
Modern Orthodox Jews wear a special knitted skull cap and think that the formation of the country of Israel is the first spark of the coming of the Messiah. They work, serve in the army, support and/or live in the illegal settlements of the W. Bank and send their children to Israeli schools,
Ultra Orthodox feel "how dare we push the hand of God and when he is ready to bring his people home, he will." They don't work, they study the Torah and Talmud, live on welfare, don't serve in the army, don't participate in the ceremonies of Israel or sing the National Anthem and have lots of children to. There is currently a bill in the Israeli legislature to make the Ultra Orthodox work and serve in the army. At the start of Israel, they numbered less than 500 and David Ben Gurion thought they'd just die out, but they are now the faster growing group in Israel. There is also concerns that as their number continue to rapidly grow, their influence will impact Israeli life. Israel is a secular, Jewish, democratic state and most people want to keep it that way.
Israeli Arabs don't serve in the military. According to our guide, they don't want to serve and the Israeli government doesn't want them fighting other Arabs. OK--
Old Yaffa, south of Tel Aviv, was a city 5000 years ago when Tel Aviv was just another wide strip of sand on the Mediterranean.
Even though Jesus never walked here, the streets are full of Fundamentalist Christians because St. Peter raised Tabatha from the dead and also it is the home of Simon the Tanner, where Peter, a Jewish man, in a vision was commanded by God to eat animals that Jews would never eat. The relaxing of dietary rules opened Christ' message for pagans and Gentiles.
Ok, we are in the secular part of Israel, but since we are leaving Friday night, it is hard to find transportation to the airport. The trains and buses quit running at 5 PM and many taxi drivers don't drive on the Sabbath. In Orthodox Jerusalem, there is 24 hour transport to the airport.
In front of the church of St. Peter, a Jewish guide was explaining to a Jewish group the story of Simon the Tanner, and why Christians started eating pork, shrimp, and other forbidden food.
Tel Aviv is having a real estate boom with more and more high rises being built and prices going up. There are also lots of 30 year olds from hi tech companies and start up tech companies that will eventually sell to Microsoft, HP, etc. and it is creating the same phenomen en as we experienced in the US with our "Microsoft Millionaires". There is a book about this, Israel, Start Up Nation.
The older areas of Tel Aviv are quite European with wide Rothschild Blvd,
coffee shops on every corner
and Bahaus architecture.
There has been a large influx of Somali Jews in the mid 1990s and we asked our guide, "are Jews color conscious?" He said, "Jews accept all Jews as equals. Unlike Christianity which is very individualistic, Jewishness is about community and doing what's good for the community. They value human life above all else in life and it's the Arabs that want to kill us." To quote "Jesus Christ, Superstar"--strange as it seems---
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