Tel-Aviv, the First Century brings together a broad range of disciplinary approaches and cutting-edge research to trace the development and paradoxes of Tel-Aviv as an urban center and a national symbol. Through the lenses of history, literature, urban planning, gender studies, architecture, art, and other fields, these essays reveal the place of Tel-Aviv in the life and imagination of its diverse inhabitants. The careful and insightful tracing of the development of the city's urban landscape, the relationship of its varied architecture to its competing social cultures, and its evolving place in Israel's literary imagination come together to offer a vivid and complex picture of Tel-Aviv as a microcosm of Israeli life and a vibrant modern global city.
Joachim Schlor brings the reader closer to this most talked about city. Having interviewed numerous inhabitants and gathered information from memoirs, travel accounts and newspapers, the present day , as a centre of immigration containing reminders of every immigrants mother country, and as a catalyst between East and West.
Israeli architecture was and is still influenced by the International Style, and specifically by the Bauhaus school, with some local modifications. The Bauhaus approach to design began permeating into what was then Palestine under the British Mandate, and developed quickly and strongly in the emerging state of Israel. The International Style was introduced into the country by young architects, many of German extraction, some of whom had trained or taught at the Bauhaus, most of whom came with their families to escape Nazism. Others came from Russia and Poland, competing their studies in Europe, absorbing the then emerging ideas of the International Style. The will to build a new society, uninfluenced by older European traditions caught on readily, and the simple forms of the Bauhaus were applied. Tel Aviv contains up to 1000 buildings in the Bauhaus idiom, designed using simple geometry, usually inexpensive buildings on small, regular parcels of land. The technology was simple; using plastered and stuccoed block and concrete construction in a country lacking the elaboration of more traditional and expensive materials. This book describes a heritage that is only now being conserved and appreciated.
In the economy class of a plane, the lives of two passengers intersect: Walid, a Palestinian writer, is returning to Gaza for the first time in thirty-eight years; Dana, an Israeli actress, is on her way back to Tel Aviv. As the night sky hurtles past, what each confides and conceals will expose the chasm between them in the land they both call home. Walid soon discovers that Gaza has changed beyond all recognition. Yet through the haze of checkpoints and lives lived across borders, he finds a message from Dana that will change the course of his life. The Lady from Tel Aviv is a powerful and poetic story of love, loss and the desire to belong. The Lady from Tel Aviv will take you to the height of reading pleasure' Elias Khoury Al-Madhoun brings Gaza to life vividly through his characters and his ability to acknowledge the absurd within the tragic.' Selma Dabbagh
A New York Times Notable Book of 2020 “[A] sweeping and authoritative history" (The New York Times Book Review), Black Wave is an unprecedented and ambitious examination of how the modern Middle East unraveled and why it started with the pivotal year of 1979. Kim Ghattas seamlessly weaves together history, geopolitics, and culture to deliver a gripping read of the largely unexplored story of the rivalry between between Saudi Arabia and Iran, born from the sparks of the 1979 Iranian revolution and fueled by American policy. With vivid story-telling, extensive historical research and on-the-ground reporting, Ghattas dispels accepted truths about a region she calls home. She explores how Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran, once allies and twin pillars of US strategy in the region, became mortal enemies after 1979. She shows how they used and distorted religion in a competition that went well beyond geopolitics. Feeding intolerance, suppressing cultural expression, and encouraging sectarian violence from Egypt to Pakistan, the war for cultural supremacy led to Iran’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie, the assassination of countless intellectuals, the birth of groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the September 11th terrorist attacks, and the rise of ISIS. Ghattas introduces us to a riveting cast of characters whose lives were upended by the geopolitical drama over four decades: from the Pakistani television anchor who defied her country’s dictator, to the Egyptian novelist thrown in jail for indecent writings all the way to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Black Wave is both an intimate and sweeping history of the region and will significantly alter perceptions of the Middle East.
Iran leads five armies in a brutal victory over Israel, which ceases to exist. Within hours, its leaders are rounded up and murdered, the IDF is routed, and the country's six million Jews concentrated in Tel Aviv, which becomes a starving ghetto. While the US and the West sit by, Israel's enemies prepare to kill off the entire population.On the eve of genocide, Tel Aviv makes one last attempt to save itself, as an Israeli businessman, a gangster, and a cross-dressing fighter pilot put together a daring plan to counterattack. Will it succeed?
A Place in History is a cultural study of Tel Aviv, Israel's population center and one of the original settlements, established in 1909. The book describes how a largely European Jewish immigrant society attempted to forge a home in the Mediterranean, and explores the difficulties and challenges of this endeavor.
Because of its more than 4,000 Bauhaus buildings, Tel Aviv is often called "the White City." The city center, created in the 1930s and 1940s under the influence of international modernism, was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Photographer Stefan Boness captures the unique atmosphere of the city, juxtaposing classical modernism and contemporary architecture.
