Tel Aviv Syndrome

Tel Aviv, translated into Hebrew as- Spring Hill - sprung up as a Jewish settlement north of the Arab city of Jafo in 1909 on the top of a sort of sand dune - as it's name implies. Jews came to escape persecution and violence leveled at them at the hands of the Arabs who, at the turn of the 20th century, were beginning to have a widespread intolerance for a growing Jewish community. The settlers who moved to the north, first to Neve Tzedek, and then on to Tel Aviv, layed the bricks for what would become the commercial capital of Israel only a few decades later. The city was founded and developed under the same frontier approach that I alluded to in a previous post - Rugged collectivism.

It seems to me that this approach to life and to development of the country dissappeared from Tel Aviv over the ensuing decades. The focus is not on Israel itself and it's crucial development as a state, but rather on being something that is largely foreign to Israel. What is commonplace here is life lived vichariously through The West. Tel Avivians' eyes light up when the topic of Europe or American lifestyles come up. Although for Tel Avivians, the latter is synonomous with obesity, stupidity, and superficiality, it is also synonomous with opportunity and excess, two important things that I feel are wanted here. The former is like the latter, only that it carries less of an x-factor, that I would say is the American Dream. In a country where the median salary is 96,000 shekels (roughly $26,000 per year), it is no surprise that when Tel Avivians, already star stuck with the American Dream that they have seen on TV and in Movies, hear that American salaries are so high and that America is not like this developing country, they switch into "escape mode" and dream of Times Square, Hollywood and big bucks. The same is also true with Europe. It is also no surprise that Tel Avivians are trying desperately to obtain passports of European Union countries by tracing back their closest relatives and scouring through European countries' laws to see if they are admissable. This "escape mode" is also the "escape" from how the country used to be. For this reason, there is a pallatable difference outside of the Tel Aviv bubble in which one can feel the nationalism, the collectivism and the altruism, even if it's thinly veiled by the typical Israeli brashness.

That's not to say that it has dissappeared completely in Tel Aviv. It's still here, only buried under the ubiquitous "banana" porn mags littered over the streets and sidewalks, the gays discos, the miles (or kilometers I should say) of strip malls full of European and American stores, and of course the also ubiquitous dog shit all over the place. It's there, in it's own special way; it's just that the pull of the developed "Western dream" that American and European influence has infused in it has trumped almost everything that once was. The "Mediterranean Capital of Cool" has no tolerance for all things non-superficial. So one can fully understand why Tel Aviv is known as "the Miami Beach of the Mediterreanan".

Is this my sanctimony seeping out? Is it getting the better of me? Not sure. I think it's just a generalization partly from the reactions that are illicited when I explain to people that I hope to live on a kibbutz in the north and that I'll be in the army.

"The army? What the fuck man? I don't understand. Why the fuck would you not try to escape that shit? You made aliyah knowing that you'd serve in the army and you still did it?"

Maybe the most Tel Avivi comment known to man. On the other hand, a comment from my friend in Jerusalem:

"That's really cool man. This is what Israel needs, more people like you who want to contribute."

Night and day. I guess it's safe to say that, although I enjoy living in this city, I need something a little more suiting.