Tel-Aviv, the First Century: Visions, Designs, Actualities

Introduction: Tel-Aviv Imagined and Realized

xi Introduction: Tel-Aviv Imagined and Realized S. Ilan Troen The interest in Tel-Aviv is no longer a parochial pursuit engaging residents of a city on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. It has become a central topic for those who wish to understand Israel itself. Since the 1930s, metropolitan Tel-Aviv has constituted at least one-third of the Yishuv, i.e., the Jewish settlement in Mandatory Palestine, and later of the State of Israel. As such, it is not only the first Hebrew city established in nearly two millennia; it became, in but one century, one of the major centers of Jewish life in all of Jewish history. As this book suggests, the impact of Tel-Aviv on the intellectual, artistic, economic, and political life of Israel is beyond simple measure. It is for this reason that this volume brings together scholars in the areas of cultural studies, art history, sociology, anthropology, women’s studies, Hebrew literature, social and economic history, geography, architecture, and town planning. Tel-Aviv is where most of the Hebrew press and book publishers are located. It is the center of art, theatre, and communications. It is the location of most of the foreign embassies in Israel. It is where Israel’s stock market, banks, and most major companies are headquartered. Even the kirya, Israel’s Pentagon, is located in Tel-Aviv, rather than Jerusalem, the country’s formal capital. It is the major point of entry and exit between Israel and the rest of the world. Tel-Aviv is Israel’s global city. Despite these perhaps obvious observations, Tel-Aviv has long been a neglected topic in scholarship on Israel and by Israelis in general. This requires explanation. Students of France must be familiar with Paris, as are students of Britain with London, and so on. The lack of scholarship xii S. Ilan Troen on Tel-Aviv, until recently, may be due to several reasons.1 I will offer two here: the first concerns the salience of Jerusalem in the Jewish world and imagination, and the second reflects the primacy of the kibbutz as the paramount symbol of Zionist achievement. For many, Jerusalem is the iconic city of the Jewish state. Its glorified status echoes that of other major cities of the ancient world. The Greeks, Romans, and Jews placed the centers of their national religion in the mountains at some distance from the commercial centers on the coast. This was true of Athens and Piraeus, Rome and Ostia, Jerusalem and Jaffa. Cities on the coast, on the via maris, were far more vulnerable than those enjoying the natural protection afforded by venues in the mountains . The sacred centers and institutions of the nation’s religion were thus located in the fastness of the mountain strongholds. The coastline of the Mediterranean, however, was the natural locale of commercial and cultural interchange. As this plays out today, Jerusalem is not at the junction of world trade routes, has no economic hinterland, and is not a significant center for industry (except for tourism and pilgrimages). The city houses government offices, educational institutions, and centers for health care. Indeed, Jerusalem is a financial drain on the national economy requiring massive transfers of capital to maintain a large population that includes many unproductive citizens. Yet, it is Israel’s capital by virtue of historic and traditional symbolism centering on national cults or the cult of nationalism. In reality, Tel-Aviv is the true capital in the spheres relevant to the creation and maintenance of modern states. That recognition is taking hold in contemporary scholarship. Moreover, particularly younger academics who have made the city their home have turned to examining where they live and recognize that Tel-Aviv is the center of national culture. My second observation is that a good argument could be made that our attention should be fixed on another centennial, that of the kibbutz, the unique form of Zionist settlement that has played an enormous role in the creation of Israel. The year 2010 marked the centenary of the founding of the “kvutza” or collective agricultural colony at Degania— the mother kibbutz. Central icons of modern Israel have long privileged the kibbutz and the kibbutznik who heralded and made possible the reestablishment of the Jewish people in their ancient homeland, and who have contributed so much to its defense. xiii Introduction At approximately the same time when a small group of...