Tel Aviv and Yossi Lemel -- a very inspiring day!

This was our day in Tel Aviv, the New York City of Israel.  It's the financial and technological center of the country; as Jerusalem is obsessed with tradition, Tel Aviv is obsessed with progress.  It's also on the Mediterranean Sea!

We spent the first hour of our time in Tel Aviv on an accidental tour of the city, as I had some difficulty reading the map.  There is no codified way to transliterate Hebrew, so the words on the street signs often looked very different from the words on my map.  That, and they were tiny.  We did end up having lots of time to see the architecture for which Tel Aviv was famous -- 1930s Bauhaus designs.  Many of the immigrants in the 20s and 30s were German Jews fleeing their homeland.  They brought with them amazing minds, including some very up-and-coming architects.  Almost all of these buildings were originally a bright white, giving the city the nickname, "The White City."  So see, it was a useful tour after all...

Examples of Bauhaus Architecture in the "White City"

Eventually, we found our way to our destination, the office of Yossi Lemel, a world-famous graphic designer and one of my mother's personal heroes.  Yossi does a great deal of political work, pushing the envelope in provocative ways to get people to think.  You can see a lot of his work here, but I will warn you that some of it is explicit. 

We took him to lunch, and over the course of the meal had a great discussion about religion, politics, and social action.  These are all inextricably linked here.  Because this is a public blog, I won't say too much about his personal opinions, although you can guess some of them from his work.  He is a deeply religious man, and we had a lot of talk about interpreting the Hebrew words of the Bible, and how there is so much extra symbolism packed into them that English simply cannot echo.  (I also found out that there is an orthodox synagogue in Tel Aviv that welcomes and accepts gay people as equals -- awesome!)  His parents are both holocaust survivors, which has really shaped his viewpoint, but not in all the ways you might expect.  He is a very intelligent and funny man, and was a great joy to be with!

Yossi talking to Eve and John.  (You might be able to notice the pun on his shirt.  The part under "holy" is a brown blob in the same shape, but a mirror image of the white blob...)

A fountain in Jaffa honoring the whale that swallowed Jonah.

Yossi also took us to Jaffa, the ancient port from which Jonah sailed in his efforts to flee his calling to preach repentance to Nineveh.  The old city of Jaffa has now merged with the metropolis of Tel Aviv, so it's quite a contrast of architecture!  We spent the afternoon on the shores of the Mediterranean.  It was lovely to dip our feet in, even if it was too cool to go swimming as I'd hoped. 

We were politely posing for a photo when a wave surprised us from behind!

Mom was starting to feel sick again, so as soon as the sun set, we skeedadled back to home base in Jerusalem, about an hour away.  We hope not to have to explore the Israeli healthcare system...