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Dec 21, 2014

The Streets of Tel Aviv

The Streets of Tel Aviv © Rabbi Menachem Creditor

The streets of Tel Aviv are so incredibly real. Jewish poets' names on street signs, playgrounds named for righteous gentiles, memorials for a slain leader flanked by a utility cover emblazoned with the name of a Hebrew municipality...

...a mechitza minyan housed in a local high school named for a Russian Yiddish writer (who was killed in the Warsaw Ghetto holding a copy of the Zohar), prayers led by women and gay men, a room filled with brides and grooms and and babies and scholars and melodies from a start-up minyan in New York...

As opposed to Jerusalem, whose very air is pervaded by mythic power, the amazing world of Tel Aviv is real and gritty, grounded and reflective of living Judaism defined by living Jews making day-to-day life.
I'm not sure which is holier any more.