Life in Tel Aviv is a beach

June 8, 2009 - 9:19 AM by David · 2 Comments
Filed under: Environment, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Travel

ta-beach If you can’t make it Tel Aviv this summer to enjoy one of the greatest beaches in the world, Israel can bring the beach to you.

Artificial beach fronts, complete with ‘arcticim’ (ice pops), ‘matkot’ (paddle ball), DJs, food, and live musical performances will be set up this summer in honor of Tel Aviv’s 100th birthday in three locations – New York’s Central Park on June 21, Vienna (from April 28 to September 1) and Copenhagen (from July 25 to August 2)

Sponsored by the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Centennial Administration, the Foreign and Tourism ministries, and corporate partner El Al Israel Airways, the Tel Aviv beach project is attempting to give people a taste of what our Mediterranean coast is really like.

In New York, that means shipping in 30 tons of sand to cover the 15 yard by 15 yard ‘beach’ that’s being erected at the Naumberg Bandshell in Central Park. That costs money, and $200,000 is being allocated to the NY-Tel Aviv beach, an expenditure that Mayor Ron Huldai thinks is money well spent.

“If tourists are going to come to Israel, it will cover the project tenfold,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “There is another Israel, not only wars and crisis.”

The one-day event, which is free to the public, will start at 11 a.m. and finish at 6 p.m. At noon, DJ Hadar Marks will host a beach party and Israeli reggae band Hatikva 6 and rock band Flow will perform.

The notion that most Americans don’t have a notion that the Tel Aviv beach is one happening place was brought home during a comedy routine Sunday night by US comic David Crowe, one of four American funnymen currently touring Israel on behalf of Comedy For Koby.

Crowe, along with fellow comics Avi Liberman, AJ Jamal, and Jeffrey Ross, wowed the sold out Jerusalem show, and the Catholic-raised Crowe (“My grandfather was a priest… evidently not a very good one”) described his first experience in the Holy Land.

“I go down to the beach outside my hotel in Tel Aviv, and I can’t believe it. There’s bronzed-skin women in tiny bikinis, drum circles, dance music. I know the Jews wanted a homeland, but I didn’t know it was Brazil!”

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