Tel Aviv Rooftop

This weekend the annual Tel Aviv art festival took to the streets. We took a walk along Yehuda Hayamit in Yaffo, a normally nondescript commercial street in a mixed Jewish-Arab area  that turned up some suprises. Outside the Galei Tzahal (Army Radio) building two dancers performed in front of a small crowd . This trio of Arab girls had a strategic view next to spotlights and seemed entranced. a From the outside, the studio/salon at number 20 looked pretty dilapidated but the interior revealed this cosy area. Further up the road, an explosion of primitivist colour. Not often that you see a cellist playing at the entrance of a carpentry shop, so  we were drawn in. To find that the cellist had friends making electronic sounds at the back. On the way we met Ahmad who was taking advantage ofthe crowds to display his bicycle technique. He agreed to have his picture taken on condition that it would appear on the internet. So this is for you Ahmad. ...

Every few weeks I take a bike ride through Yaffo (or Jaffa or Yafa) Tel Aviv's much older and much neglected sister, to watch it is changing before my eyes. In the old port area, the massive rusty hulk of a hangar that used to house fish wharehouses (before the sea almost ran out of fish)..... has been transformed into the skeleton of a what will likely be an industrialised shopping mall with galleries and and restaurants, pretty much like its recently regenerated sister Tel Aviv Port that was originally built as the Jewish response to the 'Arab Revolt' . This is part of the gentrification (some would say 'Judaisation') of Yaffo that is being fostered by the combination of planning from city hall and market demand for authentic Mediterranean real estate. Yafo - charming old Arab houses, mosques and churches, arches and alleys, shocks of colour and light - fits this bill. Back at the port, the municipality is beginning to put some life back into the still unrenovat...

Wall painting in Yaffo For the past few days the IDF and Hamas have been battling it out in a round of mutual deterrence at the end of which neither side seems deterred and both sides vow to continue. The result has been about 100 Palestinians, two Israeli soldiers and one Israeli civilian killed. According to the army about 90% of the Palestinians killed were militants; according to the Palestinians the number is 50%. The truth is no doubt somewhere in the middle. In Israel, Ashkelon was hit several times with longer range katyushas , including a direct hit on a house. This is a strategic achievement for Hamas . In Gaza the destruction was far greater, the Hamas leadership was forced underground and PM Hania's headquarters were reduced to rubble. Behind the battle scenes, by all accounts, some sort of negotiations are going on with the mediation of the Egyptians, and the involvement of Israel, the US, the PA and others, to reach an overall cease-fire, a prisoner exchange ( ...

A trip to Yaffo never fails to produce some interesting images and today was no exception. This is the once famous Jerusalem Hotel in the American Colony, built by American Christians in the 1860s and later taken over by the German Templers . Temporary home to rich and famous visitors to the Holy Land before it fell into disuse, it is now undergoing restoration. In the shuk ha- pishpishim (flea market) cars have been commandeered into display cases for old carpets. Met H for a coffee and with his unerring eye, he caught this woman applying heavy make-up (for ages). We sat at a cafe that seems to be made out of corrugated iron in the part of the flea market where people simply lay out their wares on the ground. A selection of ouds for sale. An open air pool table in clear out area that will no doubt soon be built over. Commercial towers on the seafront as seen from Eilat St on the way to Yaffo . Not Mexico, but Rehov Eilat again.

For my morning exercise I've been taking pre-breakfast bike rides around Yaffo armed with the morning news on the radio (the litany of horrors is the soundtrack of my life) and my camera. I caught this little old fisherman on the sea wall by Yaffo port. I just clicked away as usual but the photo somehow ended up looking like a painting. The old port, the traditional point of entry to Palestine for centuries, is today in a pretty dialpidated state. There are plans for it to be tarted up and developed, hopefully without spoiling its charm, part of which lies in the rusty old wharehouses like the one below. There used to be a flourishing fish restaurant in this building at street level. Deep in Yaffo I stumbled across this ungainly sculpture. I guess someone in the municipality thought the local residents would be able to identify with it. Yaffo has a high crime rates and poverty levels. Next to the traffic island I met a kid who asked me why I was taking pictures. I told him that ...