Nostalgia Sunday

August 3, 2008 - 10:20 PM by Rachel Neiman · 4 Comments
Filed under: General

Only 241 more days till the Tel Aviv Centennial celebrations start and I can’t wait. It’s going to be party, party, party all day and all night from April 2009 till December 2009. Why? Because that’s the kind of city we are.

Tel Aviv has a grand old tradition of revelry in the face of adversity and austerity – I could wax nostalgic for hours about the open-house parties of the Eighties – but will suffice by saying this: we are not a trite city. We simply take our fun very seriously.

Every month during the centennial celebrations will have a theme: April – The Grand Opening; May – Education and Heritage; June – Little Tel Aviv; July/August – Summer; September – Spirit of Peace; October – Green City; November-December – History and Community.

Old Tel Aviv photo - Purim Queen

One community project is called “Revealing the Hidden City,” in which volunteers will scan and save old photos of the city from private collections and upload them to the Tel Aviv 100 website. Many will be displayed in 11 exhibits planned for the centennial year. The English part of the site isn’t ready yet, but you can check out some photos on the Hebrew site already.

But really, the monthly themes will be party, party, party! April features the opening ceremonies and the newly reinstated Tel Aviv Marathon; May will have art and film exhibitions; June will be a series of Tel Aviv “White Nights” all-nighters, the Tel Aviv Book Fair and the RS:X European Windsurfing Championships; July-August includes the 18th Maccabiah Games, a Children’s Festival and La Scala; September takes a more spiritual turn each Friday with a city-wide kabalat Shabbat to welcome the Sabbath; October’s ecological theme means a bike race and an international harp competition; and while November-December sounds serious (founders conference, business conference, Calder retrospective), don’t forget that December 31st is New Year’s Eve! More partying for us. Yay! Everyone’s invited, so start planning your visit now.

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