One of the World’s Coolest Cities: Tel-Aviv at 100

 

Israel Studies 14:3 / Special Issue: Tel-Aviv Centenary / Guest Editor: Maoz Azaryahu

From the Introduction:

"Anniversaries are powerful reminders of the human need for signposts to mark the continuous flow of time: they are perceived as extraordinary points in time that occasion, even compel, a celebration.

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In the spring of 2009 Tel-Aviv celebrated its centennial with festive events and inauguration ceremonies of long due public projects, TV documentaries, academic conferences in Israel and abroad, albums, and anthologies. The idea of devoting a special issue of Israel Studies to Tel-Aviv on the occasion of its centennial appears self evident: it is a truism that Tel-Aviv occupies a special place in the history and geography of modern Zionism and Israel. 

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The fact that it is celebrating its centennial is a powerful reminder that despite views to the contrary, Tel-Aviv is a success story at the center of which stands the transformation of a Zionist vision into a thriving metropolis. Although the founding of Tel-Aviv dates to 1909, the ideational constitution of the city was formulated by Akiva Arieh Weiss in the prospectus he wrote in 1906. In this visionary document, the ‘genetic code’ of a projected and still nameless city (the name Tel-Aviv was applied to the neighborhood under construction in 1910) was formulated: a modern city that would represent the redemptive aspirations of the Jewish people. The new city to be built on the sand dunes north of the mixed, Arab-Jewish port city of Jaffa would be ‘the first Hebrew city’. Moreover, his vision foresaw that “[T]he same as New York is the main entrance to America, so we have to modernize our city and one day it will become the New York of the Land of Israel.” A century later, Tel-Aviv’s skyline is dotted with towering high-rises. Although an eyesore for many Tel-Avivians who fear for the traditional character of their city and the social implications of residential towers as enclaves for the rich, these prominent structures suggest that the early quest to make Tel-Aviv a modern city has not lost its appeal."

About the Guest Editor: Maoz Azaryahu

Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies

Azaryahu is an associate professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at the University of Haifa. He has written extensively on urban landscapes, memory, and society, and has recently published Tel Aviv: Mythography of a City (2006). He has been a visiting professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Penn State University, and at Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada.

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