Doria Kahn, a resident of NYC, is also a writer, singer, passionate seamstress, and music lover. She is currently working on her first full-length book.
Before this Sunday, when I thought of Tel Aviv, I automatically thought of tall skyscrapers, endless beach front, and vibrant nightlife. However, thanks to our tour guide Guy Sharett, I now know Tel Aviv to be home to a dynamic graffiti scene. Guy founded StreetWise Hebrew, his way of teaching an ancient language using the secular city of Israel as his medium. He showed us Florentin, an ever-changing and expanding neighborhood. On the antique, small buildings there, one could find endless graffiti pieces tightly packed together. As the group saw each wall, Guy would teach the appearing slang words on his trusty whiteboard. He also taught us to refer to Tel Aviv as “#theviv.” I suggest anyone reading this to follow his lead, specifically in your future Tweets.
Through Guy, I learned a lot more than just vocabulary. I learned how to appreciate an alternative art form. Growing up on the family-friendly Upper West Side of Manhattan, I’ve seen far more murals by preschoolers than I’ve seen street art. The appeal of this type of work was lost on me, especially since any graffiti I had been exposed to were indecipherable tags sprawled on decaying infrastructure. Furthermore, I was not able to understand why any artist would want to remain private. Wouldn’t he or she want to claim the work? Why hide under an alias?
I now see that remaining private can help create and foster a new identity. Many of these artists are waiters and service people by day, but transform into creative masterminds at night. They come from varied backgrounds: secular and religious, Palestinian and Israeli. This anonymity can be freeing. For example, one ultra-Orthodox man comes to Florentin to write his own poetry in spray paint, without his conservative community being any the wiser. While other works we saw weren’t quite as mysterious, they were all diverse. Some were serious, (like a poem about religious inequality) some were informative (like an ad for a raging dance party), and others were biting and sarcastic (like a photo of the Prime Minister with a less than flattering caption). Despite differences, each piece somehow complemented the ones around it. There could be a sketch of an intricate flower next to a screaming child, but they appeared to be in harmony. Whether poetry or cartoon characters, each body of work we saw in Florentin was beautiful and unique. No artist sprayed another’s other work, keeping the previous ones intact. This mutual respect is similar to what I’ve seen from all of the Bronfmanim since I’ve arrived here in Israel.
In an ever-growing and gentrifying neighborhood of Florentin, artists old and new are creating meaningful installations for passersby to appreciate. These characters only add to each other, and allow us to see the same streets in new ways. Often my friends’ and my beliefs oppose one another, yet we all find ways to compliment each other–like poetry next to cartoons–and we would never dare to erase each other’s individual tag. I am looking forward to three more weeks of learning with my cohort by my side.
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