Spaghetti Florentin

By far, my favorite siyur of this semester was when we learned about the arts in Tel Aviv by touring around Florentin. We started the day by having a tour of the Nachum Gutman museum in Neve Tzedek. We learned about Gutman’s life and his art that reflected his love of Tel Aviv, Yafo, his wife Dora, and Israel overall. We then took a walking tour of Florentin, an up-and-coming neighborhood nearby. Florentin is known for its graffiti and street art. In the past few years it has become a popular location for young people to move to. It is a very cool place to be (it’s where I got my eyebrow pierced). Looking at the street art we learned that graffiti is a very powerful way to send messages and expose commentary. However cool it is, Florentin is still a victim of gentrification and we discussed that on the tour. We finished the tour at the Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Center where we got to look around and see local artists’ works in pottery. The art was beautiful and made me wish I could take classes at the ceramics school there.

My hometown is Columbus, OH, which is also a rising artist community. This siyur spoke to me so deeply because I really could see the similarities between Columbus and Florentin, especially when talking about gentrification. As the artist communities grow in “bad” areas, people realize they are cool places to live and they are cheap so gentrification slowly takes over. It was interesting to draw that connection so vividly.

(Tova Mars)