Tel Aviv Rooftop

On a rare Friday off heading down Rothschild Boulevard , past the renovated first kiosk in Tel Aviv (now a cutesie branch in the Espresso Bar chain) in the direction of the Well Houses exhibition I've been going on about. On the way, we came across this group of young people dressed in red, being interviewed for TV. They were handing out stickers that read 'Don't abandon Sderot on Rothschild'. Their clothes red symbolised the 'Colour Red' alert that sounds in Sderot and other parts of the western Negev, every time a mortar shell or a qassam rocket is fired. This gives you about 15 seconds to find shelter, or hit the ground. On the margins of the group we met Y whose daughter, I, had single-handedly organised this show of "the bubble"'s solidarity with the embattled and shell-shocked residents of Sderot . From Rothschild they were going to march down to Rabin Square and join the protesting Sderot residents camping out there. Later on I r...

I've gathered a few shots of TA from above. This is from the 15th floor of a building in the diamond boursa area in Ramat Gan facing north-west onto the Ayalon Freeway which runs alongside the Ayalon stream that occasionally overflows. The office and commercial buildings that line the Ayalon Freeway, (a ringroad with easy access to Haifa and Jerusalem) have been called Ayalon City. The squat tower with the helipad is the defense ministry. The towers on the left (one triangular, one circular and one square) constitute the Azrielli Centre and include a massive shopping mall. The Azrieli Centre, thrusting and stylish, has become an unofficial Tel Aviv symbol Next (and the rest) was taken from the 13th floor of the Neve Tsedek Tower (thanks to L&P and enjoy your new second home). It looks back at the previous picture, through the central business district towards Ramat Gan with its own almost Manhattenesque skyline. The red roofs of the Suzanne Dellal Dance Centre in the heart ...

A short wander around the neighbourhood with the missus on Shabbat revealed some architectural jewels like these wonderfully ornate windows on the top floor of an old Arab mansion on Derekh Yaffo. This was formerly a "well house" i.e. the house built next to a well that watered the Arab citrus orchards that flourished here before the 1948 War. These well houses are the subject of a new exhibition curated by conservation architect (and friend) Amnon Bar Or who is trying to raise awareness of them and promote their conservation. At least one critic from the far left has accused him of accepting the "occupation of 1948" by preserving these Arab Jaffa houses for the use of the "occupying community". Amnon countercharges that by raising awarness of the houses he is also reving "the forgotten past", argues that "I am not appropriating anything" and proposes that the buildings be used "in the service of the communities that live around...

An illegal African migrant being escorted by Israeli policemen before being dumped in an unprepared city, normally inTel Aviv. This morning I finally got round to donating some old blankets and clothes to one of the refugee shelters that have sprung up in south Tel Aviv in recent months. The contact number in the paper for the volunteers helping the African refugees was incorrect and I finally got some information from a lady at the African Refugees Development Centre who told me that it was best to head for the big shelter on 3 Har Zion Boulevard, in the heart of the dilapidated Old Central Bus Station area where the foreign worker community lives. Scrutinised by some young black guys I walked through the dark, decrepit badly lit and unmarked entrance. At the end of the corridor was a sign that read machon briyut (health institute - a euphimism for a brothel) Behind it, a plump, elderly lady in a tight fitting black dress beckoned me to enter. But she, I reckoned, was not interes...