Exactly two weeks after exiting quarantine, the group of international students composed of R🇪🇸, M🇺🇸, J🇪🇸, R🇫🇷, A🇺🇸 & myself 🇫🇷 decided to leave Jerusalem and spend a week-end in Tel Aviv. So we booked an AirB&B, jumped on a bus on mid Friday and rolled toward the « consumer » city of Israel.
First thing that stroke me was just on the outskirt of Jerusalem. Leaving there, I tend to forget that Jerusalem is 800 meters above the level of the sea, so when exiting the city we’re going down. But what was particularly impressive was the huge elevation changes just outside the city. Little mountains create these differences. It only takes one hour of bus to go from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv which was very useful for us and must be very pleasant for locals.
I called this article « A tale of two cities » which is a reference to the Charles Dickens novel. I won’t lie, I started reading this book … but I somehow () forgot to finish it. Even though I do not know all the story to fully understand the novel, I understood that the main idea was « resurrection ». Now … multiple ideas came to mind :
First, Tel Aviv is much more « alive » than Jerusalem. It is literally constantly ramping with people, even on Shabbat. The topic of resurrection was there.
Second, as I am sure you know, Jesus was resurrected in Jerusalem and I explained in a previous article named « Holy Jesus » where all of these events took place.
Third, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are the two most important cities in Israel and I wanted to write an article comparing the two. That’s what you can find just below :
In Jerusalem, everything closes starting 6PM Friday (shops, public transports, …). In Tel Aviv, even Ice Cream stores are still open at 3AM on Friday.
In Jerusalem, girls wear skirts or pants always under the knees. (But not reaching the ankles otherwise it is considered rude and arrogant). In Tel Aviv, most girls dress themselves how they want to. And in the majority of cases, skirts are not below the knees … believe me.
In Jerusalem, you have two kosher McDonalds. They are really expensive though. In Tel Aviv, on Rothschild Boulevard you have one McDonalds that is not Kosher out of only two in Israel.
In Jerusalem, there are many Orthodox Jews which means they do not interpret the Torah, they fully follow it. Some people who refuse to follow suite with Orthodox ways can be excluded from their neighborhood, even from their families. On the other hand, Tel Aviv, is clearly a more open city and is actually home to its own Gay pride ; the Tel Aviv pride. Freedom and equal rights for homosexuals is quite rare in the Middle East. It’s also still not fully accepted in some places of Israel. This is why there is a high concentration of homosexuals in Tel Aviv, as it is easier to live freely.
Jerusalem is home to the Old City combining thousands of years of religious history. The rest of the city is also really nice. But Tel Aviv is a completely other deal. I have called Tel Aviv, earlier in the article, the « consuming » city. It might no be a common interpretation but according to friends of mine who know Israel better than I do : Tel Aviv is the « consuming » city, in opposition to Haifa (north of Tel Aviv) which is the « producing » city. Indeed, a lot of companies and start ups are clustered there.
Our week end in Tel Aviv wasn’t one for visit and overall seriousness. (That will come later) It was one for enjoyment of the Mediterranean Sea and for meeting new people (🇮🇱🇬🇧🇦🇹...). Both of these goals completed, we went back to Jerusalem on Sunday after lunch. Writing this article nearly one week after the our Tel Aviv trips, I can tell you that none of us could have expected the situation between Palestinians and Israelis to have escalated this much. But this is the topic of the next article …