Four Views From the Roof - Introduction
Four Views From the Roof Introduction In 1994, against the advice of friends and family, we managed to scrape together the deposit for a dilapidated three room, third floor flat in an old apartment building on Yehuda Halevi Street in south Tel Aviv. It was all we could afford if we wanted to put down a stake in Tel Aviv. The building and its environs literally reeked of negligence. The once impressive but now deserted building opposite ours that had once served as a courthouse, was populated by drunks and junkies. To the west was tumbledown Neve Tzedek just starting to attract artists and students. To the east was a business area heavy on cheap eateries, wholesale textiles and low-end fashion outlets. Old men on tricycles navigated long bales of textiles against the traffic on the narrow streets (and still do). On parallel Lilienblum Street, dubious characters would whisper “Dollar? Dollar?” to passers-by interested in by-...