I’ve been living in Tel Aviv for four years, and still keep discovering new things all the time. This week I became a tourist in a my own city – I joined a graffiti tour in the Florentine neighborhood, which ends with tasting food in the Levinsky market. Now it is the perfect time for urban tours on Friday morning: the humidity of Tel Aviv has dropped completely, the weather is pleasant and the rain has not yet begun.
The tour of Aaron Gretz
i learnd about this tour from a friend who had done it end said it was perfect for her instagram account.. She was right! The tour is given by Aaron (Aron) Gretz, a cute guide with perfect American English, who immigrated to Israel a decade ago and has lived in Florentine in recent years. The tour began on Elifelet Street, progressed to the alleys of the neighborhood and ended at the Levinsky Market, two and a half hours of tour combined with tastings. Tthe lagre najority of people on our tour were tourists, and it was very refreshing to hear how they were told about Israeli customs and culture and also learned a lot of new things.
Graffiti: The art that never stays in the same place
What is nice about this graffiti tour is the knowledge that the graffiti art is short lived. Most graffiti are deleted, repainted or changed every few days, which adds to their interest. Aaron pointed out some familiar graffiti artists, so you can identify their work in different places. some artists have an agenda) encouraging vegetarianism and veganism, equality, the need for peace, or messages against excessive consumption and violence. Some take a particular figure and plant it in many places, or choose a particular quote that appears in many places.
This is for example an artist named Kislev, who has a crane and the ability to paint on high floors:
And this is an artist named Hashtag
Apart from getting to know the various graffiti artists, Aharon also gave a review of the Florentine neighborhood, which began as a Jewish merchant neighborhood. It became a poverty-stricken area in the 1960s and 1970s, and in recent years has become a liberal and cool center for hipsters, artists and young people who have even started to raise their children here.
Tastes in the Levinsky market
The last part of the tour was in the Levinsky market, where the graffiti is also celebrated but the attention has already gone to carbohydrates – we have moved between a few cool places and tasted them. After the tour you can of course sit in one of the many restaurants of the area (we went to the “Tahinia”) or to shop for nuts and other nonsense in the market.
