To finish off my quartet of Tel Avivian blog posts is this two-part trip to two sites lauding past prime ministers. The first one being Rabin Centre, just outside of Tel Aviv University’s train station, which I took the opportunity to visit on my to the Yarkon Park.

The Yitzhak Rabin Centre

Inside the large centre filled with libraries, conference centres and more is a museum dedicated to the life and death of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Starting off with sombre video footage from the night of his assassination, poignantly portrayed in a large dark room, the exhibition then opened up to a chronological timeline of Rabin’s life.

Timeline of Rabin’s life

From childhood to his role in the Palmach, from his appointment of Chief of Staff in 1964 to his inauguration as prime minister in 1974 – the exhibit showed it all. Complete with numerous videos scattered throughout the timeline replaying historical footage, I will admit finding frustration keeping my sensor-triggered headset playing the right audio at the right time. A nice assortment of personal items were on display at increments, including various forms of identification, military paraphernalia and even the blood-stain paper he had in his pocket when he was assassinated, after a rally supporting the Oslo Accords. His living room, left exactly as it was the night of his death, was transferred to the museum, replaying the same soccer match he watched.

Rabin’s living room

After the lengthy timeline there was a whole slew of pictures, both family- and career-oriented. At the very end of the exhibition is a memorial room with electric candles and then a graffiti wall for guests to write on, sharing their sentiments. Looking into the whole matter of Rabin’s assassination, there seems to be quite a large number of irregularities and suspicious moments, particularly in the lone video recording of the event – known as the Kempler Video (see HERE on YouTube). I tend to take both official statements and conspiracy theories with a grain of salt, so I’ll let you be the judge for yourself. Outside the museum I found another exhibition dedicated to Operation Entebbe, the rescue mission of 106 hostages held in the Entebbe Airport in Uganda performed by Israeli commandos in 1976. Showcased are the behind-the-scenes of the top secret operation, formulated in the course of one day, as well as other thematic presentations. What I found most interesting was the short film about the hijacking of Air France Flight 139 and the subsequent rescue operation, as narrated by one of the mission’s commandos – the point man to enter the hostage room. The film is called Cohen on the Bridge: Rescue at Entebbe and the animation style reminded me a lot of a French film called Renaissance, I highly recommend it.

Cohen on the Bridge film

Outside the exhibit, parked on a balcony of sorts, is the black Mercedes Benz used in the operation to mimic a visit by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Not Idi Amin’s Mercedes

When I was done with those two museums, and after looking at a small photographic art gallery upstairs, I was ready to leave. I took some quick photograph of the view of Tel Aviv and the Yarkon Park in the foreground and then made my way to the port area to walk the length of the park.

Tel Aviv skyline

The next day, after completing my exams, I headed over to a kosher branch of Aldo, eager to at last taste one of Israel’s premier ice creams. That particular day was unworldly dusty and turned into a sandstorm that lasted several days, even obscuring Israel from NASA’s satellites. All of the photos from that day have a weird orange-yellow tint to them due to the heavy saturation of sand in the air.

Aldo ice cream

Of the three ice creams that I chose, only the Ferrero Rocher chocolate one impressed me – and just to justifiably complain, my ice cream was heavily melted by the time I paid and sat down to eat it. I then continued walking down Ibn Gabirol and then cut across to Ben Gurion to visit my next site: the Ben Gurion House. Just look at how strange it looked outside in this photo taken on the corner of Ben Gurion and Dizengoff.

Dusty street scene

I arrived at the house sweating profusely (just like everybody else walking about in the orange gloom) and began my tour of the old house which offered both air conditioning and free admission. This humble house was the Tel Aviv residence for Israel’s first prime minister, and it was between here and his desert home in Sde Boker that he divided his time.

Ben Gurion House

Built in 1930 with renovations done in 1946, the house is preserved and filled with original furniture but with decor set as it was in the later years. There was a huge amount of awards, gifts and the like from personages and institutions the world over, as well as a collection of photographs featuring David Ben Gurion and various heads of state. But what impressed me most was his personal library upstairs which boasts an astonishing 20,000 books in eleven languages.

Ben Gurion’s library

I gathered a lot of these facts and numbers from a very helpful docent whose name I forgot, if he in fact gave it to me at all. I found it interesting to see how many Judaica books he owned, and wonder how often he opened them. Finished with the museum I headed back over to Ibn Gabirol to visit a liquor store I had passed earlier and purchased some very interesting craft beers which I haven’t seen anywhere else in Israel (including a Noctus 100 and St Bernardus Abt 12, for those interested in details). With my precious liquid cargo safely double-bagged, I boarded a bus to the Independence Hall area just north of Florentin where I found an interesting Turkish restaurant called Turk Lahmajun to eat late lunch at.

Döner

I enjoyed a very tasty lamb döner in a laffa, very similar to the classic Israeli schwarma, and then took a bus to the train for the long journey home.

After my trip to Tel Aviv a few weeks prior, I had to make the journey once again to complete some exams before applying to university. With the tests in the morning, I had the previous day to travel and sight-see – which I did! Getting off the southbound train at the Tel Aviv University stop I visited the Rabin Centre, but this post isn’t about that. Because this trip was book-ended by visits to historically-oriented places, I am relating my travels slightly out of order. So, after the Rabin Centre I took a meandering bus all the way back to Reading, a bus depot across the Yarkon River from the Tel Aviv Port, up against the Mediterranean Sea. I was embarking on a nice hike from one end of Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park to the other, in Ramat Gan where I was to be spending the night.

Yarkon Park snaking across Tel Aviv

Somewhat comparable to New York City’s Central Park, the Yarkon Park is Tel Aviv’s greenbelt and attracts a healthy amount of both people and wildlife. And so I started walking the trail, passing a rowing club and noticing all sorts of birds all over the place almost immediately. Due to the large number of bird species, and their relative acceptance of human presence, the Yarkon Park has become one of Israel’s best places for birdwatching and bird photography. At any given moment I could turn 360° and see at least five species around me, be them in the air, on the ground or in the water. At first I saw common birds seen all over Israel such as hooded crows and mynas, an invasive species from India, but then I spotted a spur-winged lapwing and a grey heron.

Grey heron wading in the shallows

Moving along, I saw a hoopoe (Israel’s national bird) pecking about in the grass and a whole flock of monk parakeets causing a disturbance on the other side of the path – I got a video of it HERE. I stuck to the trail on the northern side of the river (which is actually part of the Israel National Trail), passing gardens and sports facilities, and, even with the myriad of people and their dogs and/or bicycles, there was still a healthy amount of wildlife mostly undisturbed.

Night heron

Ever-accompanied by the shrieking of the ring-necked parakeets high up in the date and willow trees, I then witnessed something really cool. I spotted a white-throated kingfisher perched on a fence of sorts a ways away (I even had to use digital zoom). Suddenly, he dropped into the grass and came up with something in his beak. I can’t tell what it is but I watched him eat it and he seemed to like it. Throughout the day I merited to see all three of Israel’s kingfishers, each oddly in a different scientific family – the white-throated, pied and common kingfishers.

White-throated kingfisher with prey

One thing that’s photographically cool about the Yarkon Park is the stark contrast between the idyllic riverbanks lined with robust trees and then the ultra urban background with Tel Aviv’s skyscrapers appearing over the treeline.

Yarkon Park

I continued to beat the pavement with my shoes, watching the herons and egrets wading calmly through the murky green shallows while the pied kingfisher hovers ten-twenty feet over the water’s surface, plunging in to catch an unwary fish. To help us humans enjoy the nature in ease and comfort, the park has benches and wooden platforms intermittently along the water’s edge – it’s a rather nice touch. It’s absolutely marvelous having this convenient window into nature’s circle of life, just feast your eyes om this photo of a night heron with its prey:

Night heron with fish (photo: Tamar Ron)

Before long I was passing the fork where the Ayalon stream and Yarkon River meet, the train and vehicular traffic thundering along on the large bridge overhead. I wrote all about the source of the Yarkon River and its initial tributary streams in my post about the Yarkon National Park – the Ayalon is the last of these to join the decantation into the sea. Continuing along the banks of the Yarkon, I then came across a small zoo with axis deer, emu, ostrich and several other birds and mammals. Just around the corner from the zoo and a closed aviary, I found one of Israel’s greatest birdwatching sites: Sheva Tachanot (or Seven Mills). The daylight was beginning to fade, and as it had been a rather overcast day, the poor lighting made photography rather difficult, no matter how hard I tried. Despite all that, I was amazed at just how close one can get to the many types of birds frequenting the old Ottoman flour mill ruins with its pools and lush overgrowth. A talented Tel Avivian photographer by the name of Tamar Ron graciously offered me the use of her photos to properly display the beautiful birds of Seven Mills, of which you see on either ends of this paragraph.

Common kingfisher (photo: Tamar Ron)

As night began to fall I found myself tracking a few jackal cubs that were frolicking not far from the trail. Having migrated from the hills of the Shomron several years ago, jackals are now a permanent fixture of the Yarkon Park – and especially at Seven Mills, where jackals can even be seen during normal daylight hours. As I crept up to the jackal cubs I heard a bone-chilling growl in the bushes mere metres behind me which sent shivers down my spine and adrenaline pumping through my veins. With that untimely distraction, the young jackals made their escape and so I continued on, sadly jackal-less, with my hike of the Yarkon.

Dusk settling over the park

Nightfall shrouded the tall trees and I could occasionally hear or see jackals in the distance as I walked, and shortly thereafter I think I heard the calls of a tree frog. The path kept going and going, often poorly lit with cyclists whizzing by almost dangerously.

Urban Ramat Gan

I passed the Meymadion water park and then the Ramat Gan Stadium before reaching the Maccabiah Bridge. A name born from tragedy, the current bridge’s predecessor had a deadly collapse in 1997 – four Australian athletes were killed and another sixty injured.

Crossing the Maccabiah Bridge at the Ayalon Mall

Thankfully, the bridge took me safely across the Yarkon River where I made a bee-line for the Ayalon Mall. There I had a rather filling falafel and headed to my host’s place in Ramat Gan for a good night’s sleep in preparation for the following day’s exams.

Continuing with my trip the other week to Israel’s coastal metropolis, Tel Aviv, I started my morning off bright and early. I made it to the exams building and did what needed to be done. On the way back to my host’s place, I stopped off at the Krinizi House, a museum on the history of Ramat Gan (a city in the Tel Aviv district).

Krinizi House

Located in the old house of Avraham Krinizi, the first mayor of Ramat Gan, the museum retells the city’s rise from a small satellite town to a booming commercial city. After returning and subsequently saying goodbye to my host I took a bus back into Tel Aviv, getting off on King George street at Metzudat Ze’ev, a large Brutalist-style building also known as Jabotinsky House.

Metzudat Ze’ev

My first visit was to the Etzel Museum where I learned more about the paramilitary organisation’s activities over the years leading up to Israeli independence. One thing that really impressed me were the many detailed models that portrayed in miniature scale how and where the group’s violent activities took place – like the attack on the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in 1946.

Memorial to the fallen Etzel members

After browsing through the two floors of Etzel exhibits and having watched the video, I purchased a cheap book about “the Irgun” (another name for Etzel) and headed upstairs to visit the Jabotinsky Centre.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky sitting in prison

There I was treated to a rather interesting video about the life of Ze’ev Jabotinsky, told over by actors playing Ze’ev and his son, Eri. When I was done looking around l discovered the centre’s archives with an extraordinary amount of filed documents, photographs and more.

Perusing the Jabotinsky Centre archives

Leaving the fancy building I boarded a bus heading for the even fancier Rothschild Boulevard and Independence Hall. My bus dropped me off a few blocks south of Rothschild and so I found myself walking through the streets, with the alternate Bauhaus and modern buildings of steel and glass casting their shadows over me.

Upscale Tel Aviv

I then encountered the Herzlilienblum Museum of banking history on the corner of Herzl and Lilienblum, but unfortunately the museum is only open to groups with an advance reservation. With the guard not yielding to my cajoling, I turned the corner and found Independence Hall, originally known as Dizengoff House. After paying the rather steep entrance fee I watched a short film about the house and the signing of the Declaration of Independence, which, when aired on public broadcast to the world, sparked the War for Independence.

Inside Independence Hall

I thought the restored room which hosted the monumental moment was rather nice but that they should lower the cost of visiting – after all, it is a national heritage site and the museum is basically just that room. I walked around the area a bit, sight-seeing, and then headed to a restaurant I had passed a few blocks away for late lunch. After having their burger, which was considerably less interesting than the other more ethic choices in the area, I headed for Allenby street. Somewhat notorious for being rather seedy, at least by Israeli standards, Allenby does have one redeeming site – the Great Synagogue of Tel Aviv. Built in the 1920’s and renovated in the 1970’s, the Great Synagogue is a rather impressive building with its large arches and stained glass windows.

Inside Tel Aviv’s Great Synagogue

When it was built, the synagogue was in the centre of old Tel Aviv, but now the surrounding areas have become commercial and the building has lost some of its practical importance. I found the great doors unlocked and was overjoyed to finally step inside for the first time in many unsuccessful visits. I had chanced upon preparations for an important event – the Great Synagogue was celebrating 90 years and, in honour, four new sifrei torah (torah scrolls) were being dedicated. Unfortunately, the event was late in the evening and it would be problematic coinciding with the public transportation I was using to get back home. And so I took my pictures, prayed mincha (evening prayer) and bid the grand synagogue farewell. Continuing down Allenby I popped into the Carmel Shuk in search for the Beer Bazaar, a craft beer place with a great stock.

Carmel Shuk of Tel Aviv

The man behind the counter was pleasantly knowledgeable and helped me pick out six new stouts and porters to try, all Israeli made. After having tasted them all and enjoying them to various degrees, I still prefer my favourite beer, Salara Smoked Stout from Kibbutz Ginegar (which I had the opportunity of visiting the following week). With the beers safely wrapped up I took a bus to the train and the train back to the north, wrapping up my two-day trip to Tel Aviv. But I was to visit again shortly after…

Last week I took a trip down to Tel Aviv to take some morning exams the following day in preparation for university. Leaving Ma’alot in the late morning, I arrived in bustling Tel Aviv by train and immediately headed towards my first destination, the IDF History Museum. Located just outside the newly renovated HaTachana (old train station) with its cafés, restaurants and boutique shops, the IDF museum has been on my map for quite some time. I had visited once before, while in basic training, but didn’t really get the chance to see everything (post HERE).

IDF History Museum

Inside the museum’s confines I started with the rifle and machine gun exhibit, a large collection of firearms from all over the world and spanning hundreds of years. Considering today’s political situation, I found irony in seeing an Israeli-made Uzi sub-machine gun displayed as a weapon used by the Iranian armed forces.

Guns galore!

Next I browsed the captured anti-aircraft guns and the extensive armoured units collection, ranging from American Shermans and Pattons to British Centurions and Soviet T-54s/T-55s all the way to Israel’s first tank, the Merkava I.

Tank pavilion

Next was a large room filled with pistols from the last three hundred years or so and from all over the world, including a few “VIP” pistols owned by various Israeli generals. Moving along, I passed a collection of armoured vehicles and then entered a building dedicated towards the War for Independence in 1948. It was in this room that an elderly woman, a fellow visitor, stopped me and told me a story about a Jewish man who lived in Yafo (Jaffa) in 1947-1948 and was killed by his Arab neighbours when Israeli independence was announced. Leaving that room, I passed artillery guns and entered the exhibits of each of the successive Chiefs of General Staff. My museum visit continued on for another hour or so, giving me time to look at the many exhibitions including this one called the IDF Equipment Centre Pavilion:

“Kitchens are important too”

My visit ended with a look at a number of vehicles that made history including official cars of Defence Ministers and some famous military vehicles. One, a Fargo pickup truck made in the US in 1942 boasted quite a rich history. This particular vehicle was used by three separate armies and had seen battle in four wars – quite the veteran! Leaving the museum at closing time I headed towards the chic neighbourhood of Neve Tzedek, not really sure where to go next as museums were all either closed or closing shortly.

Neve Tzedek street scene

As I walked through the well-kept streets I was surprised to mostly hear English and French being spoken. When I stopped into a Tunisian restaurant, the menu was in Hebrew and French only – no English. It was at this restaurant, Jasmine, that I had a late lunch of (off-menu) shakshuka with a variety of Tunisian salads and some beer.

Tunisian shakshuka

Leaving Neve Tzedek I bused to the Tel Aviv Port to watch the sunset and explore the area for the first time. Crossing the Yarkon River, I walked along the water taking pictures of the various birds hanging about. I saw kingfishers, mynas, a spur-winged lapwing and more, but it was these colourful Egyptian geese that captivated me most:

Egyptian geese preening on the banks of the Yarkon

Unfortunately, the water at the mouth of the Yarkon is heavily polluted by the Reading power plant among other industrial culprits. In the picture below you can see the river and the power plant beside it, with a tiny lighthouse on the left-hand  side. This lighthouse was built in the mid 1930’s by the British and the ruins of two Assyrian fortresses were found at the base of it, known today as Tel Kudadi. The power plant was originally built in the late 1930’s, which made the lighthouse superfluous with its bright lighted chimney, and has been added to over the subsequent decades. Today the plant is only in partial use and the exterior was renovated to recreate its original 1930’s appearance.

Reading power plant

I crossed over the Wauchope bridge, dodging the multitudes of pedestrians, bikers and rollerbladers to take pictures of the beautiful sunset.

Sunset at Tel Aviv Port

Looping around Reading Park as the sun disappeared over the horizon, I then headed back to the Tel Aviv Port area to take in the sights. Surprising packed with visitors and locals alike, I jostled my way along the wooden deck overlooking the crashing waves as I paused here and there to take pictures. I then stumbled upon a concert waiting to start, but even when I left an hour or so later, the singer Avraham Tal had yet to show his presence.

Carousel at dusk

I passed a wedding and an older couple who, upon seeing me with a camera hanging from my neck, asked me to take their picture. I dodged salty waves, saltier waiters (I jest) and the ever-present mob of people as I walked all the way down to the northernmost Tel Aviv beach and then back up to the Yarkon river where I found the buses and headed over to Ramat Gan to stay the night.

Tel Aviv Port at night

The next day proved to be just as adventurous, chock-full of museum visits…