Young Tel Aviv: A Tale of Two Cities

Conclusion

155 CONCLUSION Did Tel Aviv of the 1920s and 1930s have a culture—defined as a system of worldviews, forms of communication, values, and symbols manifested in all areas of social activity—of its own? Did the city’s inhabitants participate in a distinctive physical cityscape, public events, consumer culture , leisure activity, and subcultures? One common behavior in the city involved spending a large percentage of leisure time in outside spaces. In Tel Aviv, largely because of the warm climate, the street was a place of animated interchange, not just a network that connected houses and buildings. The great majority of public events took place outdoors, as did most interactions in which the city’s inhabitants displayed the distinguishing marks of their subcultures. The central cultural role played by the outdoors was also evident in the city’s vibrant nightlife, in spontaneous singing and dancing on the streets, and in the crowds on the beach and in other public spaces. The street served as the stage for frequent ceremonies and processions; a place of business for open-air markets and peddlers; a site where people expressed themselves through their clothing; a place to eat or to drink a glass of tea outside the home. In these ways, the outdoors did not just serve a functional role—it was a widespread cultural preference. Tel Aviv’s bourgeois founders were able to fashion a city that reflected their social and political aspirations. The municipal elections conducted in the city during the two decades covered in this book consistently, with just one brief hiatus, placed the city’s governing and administrative institutions in the hands of the political representatives of the middle class. This stood in contrast to the larger balance of power—during the 1920s, the labor movement grew into a major political force, and by the 1930s it had gained control of the Yishuv’s self-governing institutions.1 Middle-class dominance was evident from the city’s many signs and billboards and in its vigorous commercial activity. Films, dance parties, and cafés reflected, reinforced , and shaped individualistic, hedonistic bourgeois values. Even the 156 y o u n g t e l a v i v distinct subculture of Tel Aviv’s workers was influenced, to a certain extent , by the city’s middle-class culture. Tel Aviv’s leaders wanted a modern city, one fundamentally different from both the small towns of Eastern Europe and from Levantine cities. Modernity was therefore a central value of Tel Aviv culture, a characteristic that could be seen clearly in the city’s International style buildings, in its electric streetlights, and in its motorized means of transport. Modern, hedonistic values were, even if indirectly expressed, central to the city’s celebrations and consumer culture. City residents enjoyed up-to-date, technology-based forms of entertainment. Exhibitions and fairs were held every few years to display the Yishuv’s modern industrial products to its inhabitants and to the world. Nevertheless, in several areas a disparity existed between the ambitions of the city’s leaders and many inhabitants and the reality. This discrepancy could be seen in the traffic jams, and in the dirty streets, sanitation problems, and inhabitants’ cavalier attitude toward their parks and public spaces. Emulation of the West while living in the Middle East was a form of escapism, the same sort that could be seen in the multiple celebrations and the consumption of light culture. Tel Aviv’s population was composed largely of Jews who had belonged to Eastern Europe’s petit bourgeoisie, but the city’s aspirations were symIllustration for the Orot Ha-Krakh (“City Lights”) column from a local weekly, 1937, which offered anecdotes of city life. The image depicts local scenes: Tel Avivians in a café, at the Mugrabi Opera, and on a bus, all directed by a Jewish policeman. Tesha ba’erev, March 25, 1937. Conclusion 157 bolized by the Western gentleman and lady who appeared in so many advertisements . Yet flesh-and-blood Western gentlemen, such as the German immigrants of the 1930s, were not always welcomed. In technical terms, Tel Avivians managed to create for themselves a city that was fairly modern , but on the cultural and esthetic level it comprised an amalgam of many influences. Paradoxically, the West penetrated the cultural sphere through the back door. This was the area in which the elite wanted most to limit outside influence and create...