In “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen fretted about how his beloved New York City was perceived. “Don’t you see, the rest of the country looks upon New York like we’re left-wing, Communist, Jewish, homosexual pornographers? I think of us that way sometimes, and I live here.”
Well, substitute Tel Aviv for New York and traif for Jewish, and Allen could have been describing how the rank-and-file Israeli views the jet-setting Mediterranean metropolis.
But unlike Allen, most Tel Avivians aren’t worried about what they call a skewed perception that their 24-hour capital of culture, finance and nightlife is a detached bubble, a den of Sodom-heavy iniquities. They’re too busy enjoying it.
“Tel Aviv is a big metropolitan city that enables people from all over Israel to live the life of a big city,” says longtime resident Gal Uchovsky, a movie producer, journalist and judge on “Kochav Nolad” (the Israeli “Idol”). “It’s where the artists are, where the advertising is. It’s where everything is happening, especially for younger people who want to create and live in an international, vibrant, open-minded environment — this is the place to go.”
So, why does Tel Aviv get a bad rap? Or, more pointedly, is Tel Aviv the quintessential expression of the Israeli spirit, or is it cut off from it?
Journalist Yair Lapid succinctly outlined the fundamental schism between Tel Aviv and the rest of the country in an essay in Yediot Aharonot earlier this month.
“A hundred years after it was born, Tel Aviv is a dilemma: Is it the model the entire country should follow, or will it always remain a state within a state, conducting itself according to its own rules? [The country] has gone in wholly different directions, more conservative, more radical and more traditional. People accused Tel Aviv — sometimes justly and sometimes blindly — of trying to dress up as a cheery and care-free European city, while all the others contend with worries and engage in a determined existential struggle.
“This image, as images tend to be, is larger than life. Tel Aviv has no fewer scars than any other city in Israel, ranging from the suicide bombings on the No. 5 bus to the missiles of the first Gulf War. The main difference is that Tel Aviv refuses to be burdened by history. We leave that for the Jerusalemites.”
According to Tel Aviv–based novelist and filmmaker Etgar Keret, Tel Aviv offers the Jewish people a thrilling option from this historical model that has led them for 2,000 years.
“Jerusalem is based on history. In Tel Aviv, there’s a lack of history, which can offer many advantages. Tel Aviv isn’t burdened by the clashes in the region that have been going on for thousands of years,” says Keret.
“Tel Aviv is not really a geographical place, it’s more a state of mind. Very few people are born in Tel Aviv and die there. People pass through the city at some phase in their lives. It’s a place to seek philosophical or political discourse, artistic collaboration or inspiration, and innovation.
“I think that what Tel Avivians have in common is some form of yearning, a wish to change and the need for an atmosphere in which they can create and remain curious. When I meet people in Tel Aviv, they ask me questions. In Jerusalem, they give me answers to questions I didn’t even ask.”
According to sociologist Oz Almog of the University of Haifa, the original settlers of Tel Aviv aspired to break away from the influence of Jerusalem and create a Middle Eastern version of New York City. And they’ve succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
“Jerusalem symbolizes our Jewishness and Tel Aviv our Israeliness. It’s a city of youngsters, full of vivid nightlife, clubs, pubs, cafe culture. It’s an Israeli ritual that once you finish your military service, you spend a year living in Tel Aviv,” says Almog.
As a result of this pilgrimage, Almog adds, a new generation has been created. “They know how to have fun and it’s a major part of their life. In the old days, the Zionists didn’t have the slightest idea of how to have fun,” says Almog. “Tel Aviv represents the way of thinking that it’s not a sin to enjoy and have fun.”
It’s precisely that part of society that many Israelis prefer not to think about. “You know, there’s always this game of images,” Uchovsky says. “When there’s a war, there’s a tendency to gang up on Tel Aviv. In the rest of the country, there’s a wave of patriotism and a ‘we’re so right’ mentality of getting behind the war effort. Part of that psyche would be to hate Tel Aviv, where everyone is perceived as sitting in coffee shops and not caring about the war.
“But when there’s nothing major politically going on, people like Tel Aviv — they like coming to go to restaurants or cafes, see an art show, or shop, or have fun at the beach. Things aren’t so monochromatic here — it’s always a little more colorful in Israel than that.”
Tel Aviv, in recent years, has begun to rival Jerusalem as the destination for tourists and visiting dignitaries to visit. When the Foreign Ministry brings over delegations of journalists in an effort to expose the modern Israel, the itinerary is increasingly weighted toward Tel Aviv.
“I think Tel Aviv is gaining recognition as a place you need to see,” says Uchovsky. “When Jews used to come to Israel, they’d get off the plane and go straight to Jerusalem. I think around five or six years ago, people began to understand that you can come to Israel and visit the Western Wall, but that you can still come to Tel Aviv and have fun, and feel Jewish — because everyone around you is Jewish, and you can feel at home.”
It’s that kind of attitude that has contributed to the perception of Tel Aviv as some kind of bubble. Uchovsky, together with his filmmaking and life partner Eytan Fox, helped codify that image with their 2006 film “The Bubble,” which wove a conflict-based story through the lenses of a group of Tel Aviv friends encompassing gays, yuppies and Palestinians, who intersect against the backdrop of Rehov Sheinkin — the mythical center of the bubble universe. But for Uchovsky, it’s not a bubble he’s describing — it’s life.
“It’s like in the U.S. — you have New York and you have Iowa. Which one is America, and which one is the bubble? There’s always going to be tension between the big city and the Bible Belt, no matter where you are,” he says.
As Tel Aviv enters its second century, the challenge facing the rest of the country will be how to prevent the culture of this modern Israeli city from consuming its own.
“Tel Aviv is the fulfillment of that Zionist idea to normalize the Jew — that was the conception the early Zionists used as a solution for anti-Semitism. If we ‘gentilize’ the Jew, and if we have our own land and independence, we can avoid hostility,” says Almog.
“But maybe we overnormalized. We’ve been so successful, that from a Zionist point of view, it’s become counterproductive. There’s been so much normalization that we’ve become gentiles ourselves. If you live in Tel Aviv, you basically live in a very Western, secular environment, not that much different than London or Rome. And if living in Israel is like living anywhere else, then what’s the point?”