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Tel Aviv (Hebrew: תל אביב, Arabic: تل أبيب) is the second largest city in Israel (after Jerusalem), and the largest metropolitan area. It is on the Mediterranean coast, about 60 km northwest of Jerusalem and 100 km south of Haifa. The official name is Tel Aviv-Yafo (תל אביב-יפו), and reflects the fact that the city has grown beside (and absorbed) the ancient port city of Yafo (English: Jaffa, Arabic: يافا Yafa), to the south of the new city center. Tel Aviv is home to most foreign embassies in Israel.

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The smallish gulf of Jaffa was the site of a fortified port town for at least 4000 years. During the 19th century the town’s population grew from about 2,500 (1806) to 17,000 (1886). The old city walls could no longer contain the population, and they were destroyed in the 1870s. New, more spacious neighborhoods started to appear.

Tel Aviv (meaning literally "Hill of Spring") was founded in 1909 by a group of distinguished Jewish residents of Jaffa. They envisaged a European-style garden suburb, with wide streets and boulevards. Leaving Jaffa wasn’t, however, only a question of an upgrade in lifestyle. Moving out of the Arab-dominated town also represented their belief in the Jewish national movement, Zionism. Before being a city, Tel Aviv was one of the many titles of Theodor Herzl's utopian Zionist book - The Old New Land. Setting out with a grand vision, the 60 Tel Aviv founders started out by building the first mid-eastern urban center with running water, no small wonder in that part of the world in 1909. Houses from this period can still be seen in the Neve Tzedek neighborhood.

Tel Aviv grew steadily under Ottoman law until World War I. By the end of the war the British took over the Holy Land: an event the Jewish community saw as encouraging, while the Muslim community viewed it as a turn for the worse after Islamic rule. Tel Aviv was seen by nearby Arabs as a symbol of the growing Jewish presence in their homeland. In May 1921, an Arab mob attacked a Jewish immigration center, killing dozens of Jews. Another group broke the windows of stores in the Jewish street in Jaffa, and a mob armed with knives and sticks made its way towards Tel Aviv. Before 1921 most Jews worked and lived in Jaffa; after the attack, thousands of the 16,000 Jews of Jaffa moved north to Tel Aviv. The suburb had become a city and within a decade, Tel Aviv had become the center of culture, commerce and light industry for the entire Jewish population of the country (and the British soldiers). 1938 marked the opening of Tel Aviv port, an important milestone in the end of its dependency on Jaffa. By this time, Tel Aviv was already the biggest city in the country, with 130,000 residents. After Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, Jaffa became a district of Tel Aviv and the city's name was officially changed to Tel Aviv-Yafo.

Today, Tel Aviv-Yafo is the heart of a thriving metropolis. The greater metropolitan area is home to approximately 3.1 million people, with around 392,700 in Tel Aviv-Yafo itself, making it the second largest city in Israel after Jerusalem. Major suburbs of Tel Aviv include Bat Yam, Holon, Ramat Gan, Givatayim, Bnei Brak, Petah Tikva, Rishon LeZion, Ramat HaSharon, Rehovot and Herzliya. The entire metropolitan area is often referred to as Gush Dan.

While Jerusalem is Israel's capital city, where most government departments are, Tel Aviv and its satellite cities form the economic and cultural center. Tel Aviv is known as "the city that doesn't stop", and you will find that the nightlife and culture are active around the clock. In summer it is not unusual to see the beach boardwalk bustling with people at 04:00, and the clubs and bars usually pick up around midnight until morning, giving Tel Aviv a well deserved reputation of being a party town. It is the pinnacle of secular life in Israel.

Tel Aviv is likely the most liberal city in Israel and in the Middle East - as it is no less liberal than the major cities of Western Europe. It has a bustling civil society and is home to many activist movements and NGOs. Its residents tend to have liberal attitudes towards gay and lesbian rights, and, in fact, Tel Aviv hosts the largest gay pride parade in Israel. It is also a destination for gay Palestinian refugees, unable to pursue their lifestyle in the Palestinian territories. With its liberalism comes a dose of sophistication and some will say detachment, and Tel Aviv is often dubbed "The Bubble" or "Medinat Tel Aviv" ("The State of Tel Aviv") by residents and non-residents alike. Some ultra-Orthodox Israelis have even dubbed the city a modern day "Sodom and Gomorrah", due to its hedonistic reputation.

In July 2003 Tel Aviv-Yafo was declared a cultural UNESCO World Heritage site in recognition of the many "International" (or "Bauhaus") style buildings built here during the 1930s-50s. As this style emphasized simplicity and the color white, Tel Aviv is also called the White City.

Orientation

Tel Aviv lies alongside the Mediterranean coastline. Most points of interest for tourists are in the center district, a rectangle defined by the sea to the west, the Yarkon River to the north, the Ayalon highway to the east, and Salame Road to the south. Within this district, most of the attractions are to the west of Ibn Gabirol street, a large north-south street which divides the district into two roughly equal halves.

Tel Aviv developed from south to north. At the southwest corner of the center district you will find old Jaffa. To its north is the first Jewish neighborhood outside Jaffa, Neve Tzedek (meaning "Oasis of Justice"). To Neve Tzedek’s east is Florentin (a 1920s light-industry quarter founded by Jews from Salonika in Greece, that has turned into a trendy neighborhood for young people, albeit with a large population of older and poor people); and then the Central Bus Station area, now home to foreign workers from around the world.

To the north of Neve Tzedek is "Kerem Ha'Temanim" (the Yemenite Vineyard), a crowded but picturesque neighborhood dating to the early 20th century. East and north of here lies the city center, a chiefly residential area built in the 1920s and 1930s, where the majority of Bauhaus ("International") style architecture is to be found. Further north and east, the "old north" (not to be confused with "the north" on the other side of the Yarkon), is a more spacious residential area built during the 1940s and 1950s.

Tel Aviv residents often speak of a north-south divide in Tel Aviv-Yafo. The north is usually associated with a continental, chic, and suburbanite lifestyle centered around Kikar haMedina and "Ramat Aviv". To the south, the city takes on a more working-class and Middle Eastern, albeit evermore trendy, urban feel. North Tel Aviv is generally residential and family-oriented; Tel Aviv Center is the hipper-younger area with many single people and couples in their 20s and 30s; south Tel Aviv is a rapidly gentrifying area with a mixed population - from older working-class people to artists to migrant African workers.

Culture

Watch out for bikes and scooters on main sidewalks. Tel Aviv's traffic is horrible and there is no metro system yet, so many people use them to get around. Smoking in restaurants is limited to specific parts of their outdoor seating - smoking is illegal in restaurants, but the law is rarely enforced. Dogs wearing muzzles on public transit are not aggressive monsters - there's a (sporadically enforced) law requiring muzzles on buses and trains. Taking kids to cafes and restaurants is completely normal, and the malls usually have kid play and breast-feeding areas. Israelis can be pretty aggressive about cutting in lines; don't feel guilty about body-blocking little old ladies, as they have no problem taking advantage of tourists to cut half a line. Shabbat is less dramatic in Tel Aviv than the rest of Israel, but stores like pharmacies and supermarkets close on Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. Whether restaurants and bodegos ("makolet"s) are open during Shabbat varies by neighborhood.

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Jerusalem (Hebrew: ירושלים Yerushalayim, Arabic: القدس al-Quds) is the capital and largest city of Israel, though most other countries and the United Nations do not recognize it as Israel's capital.

The ancient city in the Judean Hills has a fascinating history spanning thousands of years. The city is holy to the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and serves as a spiritual, religious, and cultural center. Due to the religious significance of the city, and in particular the many sites of the Old City area, Jerusalem is one of the main tourist destinations in Israel. Jerusalem has many historic, archeological and cultural sites, along with vibrant and crowded shopping centers, cafés, and restaurants.

Jerusalem of Gold, as it has come to be known in Hebrew, is a fascinatingly unique place where the first century rubs shoulders with the twenty-first century, each jostling for legitimacy and space, and where picturesque "old" neighborhoods nestle against glistening office towers and high-rise apartments. It is one of those places that have to be seen to be believed.

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Located in the Judean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea and the Dead Sea, Jerusalem is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the Jewish people since the 10th century BCE, the third-holiest in Islam, and one of the holiest for Christianity. It has a history of nearly 4000 years, and has been fought over and conquered countless times in that period. While the city began to have a Jewish plurality in the late 19th century, today a wide range of national, religious, and socioeconomic groups are represented here. During the Jordanian occupation 1949-1967 all Jews in East Jerusalem were expelled and entry was barred for Israeli citizens of any faith and even today there tend to be more Muslims in east Jerusalem and more Jews in West Jerusalem.

The walled area of Jerusalem, which until the 1860s formed the entire city, is now called the Old City, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982. It consists of four ethnic and religious sections—the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. Barely one square kilometer, the Old City is home to Jerusalem's most important and contested religious sites - the Western Wall and Temple Mount for Jews, the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians.

Surrounding the Old City are more modern areas of Jerusalem. The civic and cultural center of modern Israel is in western Jerusalem, while Arab neighborhoods can be found in the east. Jerusalem became Israel's capital upon its independence. The city was reunited after the 1967 War when Israel captured East Jerusalem. Nowadays there is no visible sign of the pre-1967 border, but Jewish and Arab neighborhoods are still generally separate.

History

Archaeological findings show development within present-day Jerusalem as far back as the 4th millennium BCE, but the earliest written records of the city come in the Execration Texts (c. 19th century BCE) and the Amarna letters (c. 14th century BCE). According to Biblical accounts, the Jebusites (a Canaanite tribe) inhabited Jerusalem until c. 1000 BCE, at which point the Israelites (led by King David) conquered the city, establishing it as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. Throughout this period, Jerusalem was located in what is now known as the "City of David", just outside the current Old City walls to the southeast, where a large natural spring is located.

According to the Bible, after David died, his son Solomon built the first of two Holy Temples. The temples were north of the City of David, on a site underneath or very close to the current Dome of the Rock. Upon Solomon's death the kingdom split in two (though many historians contend that the two Israelite kingdoms were never united to begin with). The ten northern tribes became known as the Kingdom of Israel, while Jerusalem remained the capital of the southern Kingdom of Judah, ruled by David and Solomon's descendants. After the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 BCE, Jerusalem was the center of the only remaining Israelite/Jewish kingdom. In 586 BCE, the Babylonians conquered the Kingdom of Judah including Jerusalem, destroying the temple and exiling many of the inhabitants.

In 538 BCE, the Persian King Cyrus the Great allowed the Jews to return to Judah and Jerusalem. The rebuilt (Second) Temple was completed in 516 BCE. Jerusalem regained its status as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship for nearly six centuries. In the second century BCE, the Hasmonean family led a successful rebellion against the Syrian Greeks who then ruled Judea, establishing an independent Jewish state which lasted over 100 years. In about 19 BCE, Herod the Great (a Jewish client king under Roman rule) vastly expanded the temple area by building retaining walls to support a flat rectangular platform around the temple site. One of these retaining walls survives to this day as the Western Wall, and the platform survives as the Temple Mount.

The Great Jewish Revolt against Roman rule broke out in 66 CE. Its failure resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. A second failed revolt (132-136 CE, led by Bar Kokhba) led to Jews being banned from entering Jerusalem, a policy which continued for most of the time until the Muslim conquest.

For the following five centuries, the city remained under Roman/Byzantine rule. Under Emperor Constantine I in the 4th century, Jerusalem became a center for Christianity, with the construction of sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Muslim forces conquered Jerusalem in the year 638. According to tradition, their leader Caliph Umar visited Jerusalem and established the Temple site as a place of prayer. By the end of the 7th century, a subsequent caliph, Abd al-Malik, had commissioned the construction of the Dome of the Rock on this spot, as well as al-Aqsa Mosque on the southern edge of the Temple Mount. Muslim traditions vary about whether Muhammad's flight to heaven was from the Dome of the Rock or from al-Aqsa.

In the four hundred years that followed, Jerusalem's prominence diminished as Muslim powers in the region jockeyed for control. In 1099 the First Crusaders captured Jerusalem. The Muslim ruler Saladin reconquered Jerusalem in 1187, but between 1228 and 1244, it was given by Saladin's descendant al-Kamil to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Jerusalem fell again in 1244 to the Khawarizmi Turks, who in 1260 were replaced by the Egyptian Mamelukes. In 1517, Jerusalem fell to the Ottoman Turks, who then controlled the Holy Land until the First World War. The current Old City walls were built by the Ottomans shortly after 1517. In the 1860s, new neighborhoods were built outside the walls for the first time.

In 1917, the British Army captured the city. The League of Nations, through its 1922 ratification of the Balfour Declaration, entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate of Palestine as a Jewish national home. The period of the Mandate saw the construction of new garden suburbs in the western and northern parts of the city, and the establishment of institutions of higher learning such as the Hebrew University.

As the British Mandate of Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan recommended "the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem, constituting it as a corpus separatum under the administration of the United Nations." However, this plan was rejected by the Arabs. At the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem found itself divided between Israel and Jordan (then known as Transjordan). The ceasefire line established through the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Israel and Jordan cut through the center of the city. In 1949, west Jerusalem became Israel's capital. After the 1967 war, all of Jerusalem was claimed by Israel as its capital. Israel has since annexed the entirety of East Jerusalem and treats it as part of its territory and distinct from the West Bank (though few other countries accept this annexation). Arab residents of East Jerusalem can apply for Israeli citizenship, but for various reasons few have actually made use of that option.

Demographics

Jerusalem's population of around 800,000 is about 62% Jewish, 35% Muslim, 2% Christian, and 1% other. Neighborhoods tend to be overwhelmingly Jewish or Muslim; there are few really mixed neighborhoods, though many neighborhoods have a small minority of people from other religions. However, it is common for people of all religions to meet in the workplace. The Jewish population is a mix of cultures, with many immigrants from the former USSR, North Africa, Iraq, Eastern Europe, the US, and other places. Compared especially to Tel Aviv, Jerusalem is noted for its large number of religious Jews, ranging from Conservative Jews to the Haredi ('ultra-Orthodox'). Haredi also tend to self-segregate for various reasons and you'll find most of them in a few overwhelmingly Haredi neighborhoods.

The demographic history of Jerusalem over the last two hundred years is interesting and somewhat contentious. Jerusalem became a plurality Jewish city in the 19th century, and was a majority Jewish city throughout the British Mandate. However, then as now many Jerusalem Jews were Haredi and rejected Zionism. The 1948 war led to the forced displacement of all Jews (Zionist or not, immigrant or rooted in the area for centuries) from East Jerusalem and the Old City, including the historic Jewish quarter. From 1948-1967 the Jordanian government prohibited Jews from living in East Jerusalem and tried to erase traces of the Jewish past. Some Jews who have settled in east Jerusalem since 1967 see their actions thus as nothing but a "return" after the forced absence under Jordanian control.

Language

The main languages spoken in Jerusalem are Hebrew in West Jerusalem and Arabic in East Jerusalem. Most people throughout the city speak sufficient English for communication. In particular, English is widely spoken in areas most visited by tourists, especially the Old City. Typically, even if you do not find an English speaker on first attempt, one will be nearby. Inhabitants of Jerusalem of (almost) any background are always ready to help out tourists with the language as with other needs.

Additionally, some Charedi (ultra Orthodox) Jews speak Yiddish in daily lives in part because they see using Hebrew for mundane things as blasphemous, and there is a significant number of French-speaking Jews. Smaller groups of Jews speak Dutch and Spanish. There is a large number of Russian immigrants of Jewish background, so it is not uncommon to see signs in Russian or hear Russian language radio.

Note: Remember that Hebrew and Arabic are written from right to left.

Climate

|source 2 # NOAA (sun, 1961–1990) |date=August 2016}} Located near the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, Jerusalem has a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. Due to its relatively high elevation (600 m-800 m above sea level) Jerusalem's air is less humid and more pleasant than in most other parts of Israel.

Winters are often wet, with nearly all of Jerusalem's annual 590 mm (23 in) of precipitation occurring between October and April. However, in between the rainy days there are numerous clear and sunny days. The coldest month is January, with an average high of 12 °C (53 °F) and an average low of 4 °C (39 °F). Sub-freezing temperatures are rare, but do happen, and the city will get occasional snowfall during the winter, though it usually only lasts a matter of hours rather than days. Once every few years, the city will experience significant accumulating snow.

Summers are hot and dry as a bone with virtually no rainfall between the months of May and September. Temperatures will generally approach around 30 °C (88 °F) during the day and cool to around 15 °C (59 °F) at night. Being near the desert, there is often a big difference between the day and night temperatures, and even the hottest days can turn into chilly nights. Spring and fall are mild, with minimal rainfall and pleasant temperatures, though heat-waves are not unheard of. Most evenings and nights are quite windy and long pants and a shirt are recommended.

© Sourced from Wikivoyage

Haifa (Hebrew חֵיפָה Heifa; Arabic حَيْفَا Ḥayfā) is the third largest city in Israel and the largest city in the north of the country with a population close to 300,000. The city is located on Israel's Mediterranean shoreline, on Mount Carmel and at its foot. Haifa is an important transportation, industrial and cultural center and one of Israel's most important maritime trade centers.

Haifa is the second holiest city in the Baha'i Faith. The Bahá'í sites in Haifa were declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2008 and serve as one of the city's leading tourist sites.

Additional Information

Haifa is first mentioned historically around the 3rd century CE as a small town near Shikmona, the main Jewish town in the area at that time and a center for making the traditional Tekhelet dye used for Jewish Priests' temple cloth. The archaeological site of Shikmona lies southwest of the modern Bat Galim neighborhood. The Byzantine ruled there until the 7th century, when the city was conquered — first by the Persians, then by the Arabs. In 1100, it was conquered again by the Crusaders after a fierce battle with its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. Under Crusader rule, the city was a part of the Principality of Galilee until the Muslim Mameluks captured it in 1265.

In 1761 Daher El-Omar, Bedouin ruler of Acre and Galilee, destroyed and rebuilt the town in a new location, surrounding it with a thin wall. This event is marked as the beginning of the town's modern era. After El-Omar's death in 1775, the town was under Ottoman rule until 1918, except for two brief periods. In the years following, Haifa grew in terms of traffic, population and importance, as Akko suffered a decline. The development of Haifa increased further with the arrival of members of the German Protestant Temple Society in 1868, who settled a modern neighbourhood near the city, now known as the "German Colony". The Templers greatly contributed to the town's commerce and industry, playing an important role in its modernization.

By the beginning of the 20th century, Haifa had emerged as an industrial port city and growing population center, reflected by the establishment of facilities like the Hejaz railway and Technion. At that time Haifa District was home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants, comprised of 82% Muslim Arab, 14% Christian Arabs, and 4% Jewish residents. The Jewish population increased steadily with immigration primarily from Europe, and by 1945 the population had shifted to 38% Muslim, 13% Christian and 47% Jewish.

Today, Haifa is home to Jews, Muslim and Christian Arabs, as well as small communities of Ahmadis (in Kababir), Druze (in nearby Isfiya and Daliyat al-Karmel), Bahá'ís, and others. Haifa is characterised as a mosaic of peaceful coexistence between the communities. It is also the second-holiest city in the Bahai faith.

The phrase "Haifa works, Jerusalem prays, and Tel Aviv plays" refers to Haifa's reputation as a city of workers. A generation ago Haifa's image was that of a serious—and somewhat dull—labor city because of its factories and port. It still has an industrial area to its north, where one of Israel's two oil refineries is located. But it also has a world-class high-tech strip in its south, in the "Matam" technology park along the beach. The park includes blue-chip tech firms such as Intel, Philips, Microsoft, and Google as well as some of Israel's largest tech firms, Elbit, Zoran, and Amdocs. IBM has an R&D center on the top of Mount Carmel at Haifa University and HP has a lab at the Technion, Israel's leading technological university.

© Sourced from Wikivoyage