Hertzeliya's New Tayelet

Hertzeliya is like a second home to me.  It’s where I remember spending long, hot days reading and lazy evenings eating and watching TV with family over the summers.  Its beaches are the ones I frequented as a child, eating Glidat Ariyeh (an Israeli ice cream chain) and splashing in the warm waters of the Mediterranean.  I remember walking to my uncle’s house, which was nearby, to play with my cousins.  I still have images of being woken up by my parents outside my grandmother’s apartment after long car rides from various places.  The nostalgia is almost overwhelming.

But thankfully, nostalgia is not the only sensation I feel when visiting Hertzeliya.  On a recent visit, I had the chance to visit the new tayelet (pedestrian walkway).  It was refreshing and rejuvenating to see the beautiful addition to the already amazing town. Not only is the tayelet attractive and fun, but so are the seemingly endless new restaurants and bars that line it.

Bars along the new tayelet in Hertzeliya

I liked the tayelet so much that I ended up visiting it three times in two days.  After the initial visit, I re-routed my running course so I could run along it and then decided to visit a bar that sat alongside it later that same evening.  It was all perfect… the first visit full of wonderment and excitement at the new construction, the first run along it which felt less rushed and hectic than my runs in busier and more crowded Tel Aviv, and the first experience at a bar on a cool Israeli eve.

Picking a bar wasn’t too difficult—Doug and I spotted our evening destination (whose name I can’t remember!) earlier during our run and chose it because it had lush and comfortable-looking seating.  We snuggled up on a cozy cabana facing the ocean and ordered a couple of beers.  The bar played relaxing, mellow music, a pleasant change from the over-loud club music often played in city bars.  We talked, laughed, and dozed (well, I dozed, anyway), simply enjoying the chance to relax while watching the waves break and crash ashore.

Snuggled up on a cabana

Despite my love for Tel Aviv and the fact that I’m a city-girl at heart, I couldn’t help but feel that I’d be willing to hop on a bus from Tel Aviv to Hertzeliya any day of the week simply to visit the tayelet and frequent the establishments along it.

While Tel Aviv Napped

Tel Aviv is a city that never sleeps.  I concluded this early on, shortly after arriving in Israel and making unending parallels between Tel Aviv and my former home-city, Manhattan (I talk about it in an earlier post, too).  The biggest difference, as my car-less and bike-less self is ever-conscious of, is the lack of 24-7 public transportation.  As much as I hate on the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the New York subway and bus systems) while I’m in Manhattan, it’s definitely doing something right.

Israel’s public transportation system stops running on Shabbat and holidays for a combination of religious and political reasons that I won’t go into right now.  I’m more interested in talking about what happens on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s most solemn holiday during which people fast, refrain from using lotions and perfumes, and abstain from physical relations.  All the usual Shabbat and High Holiday restrictions apply, as well: using electricity, driving, and writing are all taboo.

Yom Kippur, also known as The Day of Atonement, is widely celebrated in a way that other Jewish holidays are not.  Even unobservant and secular Jews tend to do something differently on Yom Kippur (even if it’s just taking the day off work in the United States, fasting for a short time, or going to synagogue for a few hours).  Non-Jewish friends have told me that Manhattan’s rush hour seems far tamer on Yom Kippur, given the significantly decreased number of commuters.

The difference between rush hour in New York on a normal day and on Yom Kippur, however, pales in comparison to the difference between life in Tel Aviv on a normal day and on Yom Kippur.  Tel Aviv, a city far more secular than Jerusalem, usually doesn’t miss a beat.  The majority of restaurants, bars, stores, pharmacies, supermarkets, and movie theatres stay open throughout Shabbat and holidays.  But Yom Kippur is different.  Everything stops running.  Well, almost everything—the traffic lights keep working, but it’s not like they do much since driving is illegal and the only things on the streets are people and bikes.  It’s as if the city’s inhabitants are taking advantage of their child’s (Tel Aviv) nap.  Rather than stay in and watch TV (which I heard from others is also limited as many networks simply put up messages wishing people happy holidays), Israelis go out en masse.  They seem to embrace Yom Kippur as a time to spend time with friends on the streets, since they have no way to get to anywhere and no where to go to in any case.

I can’t express how strange it was to walk along one of Israel’s largest highways or how cool it was to dance in the middle of a huge intersection.  It was truly a once in a lifetime experience (for me, anyways—Israelis get to experience it annually!)  While the streets were pretty packed with people in the early evening, by 1am most streets were relatively deserted. 

Dancing in an intersection next to the Azrieli Center. Picture compliments of Justin Ellis.

An empty highway.  Picture compliments of Justin Ellis.

I personally don’t use electronic items during Yom Kippur, so unfortunately I don’t have many pictures documenting the transformation of the usually bustling Tel Aviv into an eerie ghost-town.  One of my friends, however, took pictures and videos of our journey through the city.

In an intersection next to the Azrieli Center.  Picture compliments of Justin Ellis.

Hanging out on an empty highway. Picture compliments of Justin Ellis.

By the next night, as Yom Kippur concluded, the city awoke.  Cars were back on the streets before we could even finish the 10-minute walk from synagogue back to our apartment.  Tel Aviv’s restaurants and bars opened shortly after as people milled out onto the streets to break their fasts, go to parties, or simply revel in Tel Aviv’s reawakening.  Tel Aviv’s annual nap was over and its Israeli parents were ready, as always, to play with it once more.