The Neve Tzedek neighborhood of Tel Aviv was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside of Jaffa at the beginning of 1887, 22 years before the establishment of the City of Tel Aviv. With the passing of the years, Neve Tzedek has become a center of taste, culture and lifestyle and a desirable area to live in. Many intellectuals and artists chose to dwell and to create here.
Neve Tzedek is a neighborhood in south-west Tel Aviv. It was the first Jewish neighborhood to be built outside the walls of the ancient port of Jaffa. For years, the neighborhood prospered as Tel Aviv, the first modern Hebrew city, grew up around it. Years of neglect and disrepair followed, but today Neve Tzedek has become one of Tel Aviv’s latest fashionable districts.
Neve Tzedek was established in 1887, 22 years before the 1909 founding of the City of Tel Aviv, by a group of Jewish families seeking a more peaceful life outside of the Jaffa’s teeming streets. Other neighborhoods sprung up around Neve Tzedek, which were incorporated into the contemporary boundaries of the neighborhood.
The residents constructed mostly colorful, short buildings along narrow streets. Residents’ homes featured many contemporary luxuries like private bathrooms and kitchens.
At the beginning of the 1900s, many artists and writers made Neve Tzedek their residence. Most notably, Nobel prize laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon, as well as Hebrew artist Nahum Gutman, used Neve Tzedek as both a home and a sanctuary for art.
As time went on, its buildings abandoned or neglected, fell into disrepair. By the 1960s, city officials deemed Neve Tzedek incompatible with bustling Tel Aviv. However, their plan to demolish the historic neighborhood to make way for high rise structures was ultimately cancelled as many Neve Tzedek buildings were placed on preservation lists. The old, worn-out neighborhood became a patch of the pastoral amidst the greater urban center.
But by the end of the 1980s, efforts began to renovate and preserve Neve Tzedek’s century-old structures. New establishments were housed in old buildings, most notably to the Suzanne Dalal Dance and Theater Center and the Nahum Gutman Museum, located in the artist’s home.
The well-needed gentrification led to Neve Tzedek’s rebirth as a fashionable and popular residence for Tel Avivians. Its main streets became lined once again with artists’ studios, alongside trendy cafés and bars. The Tel Aviv Subway, which is expected to pass near Neve Tzedek, will make the neighborhood even more accessible for visitors and residents alike.
A tour of the narrow lanes and winding streets of the neighborhood is a fabulous experience. The area has been renovated and each corner is a gem. Amongst others, you can find here the house of the Hebrew Nobel Literature prizewinning author, Shai Agnon, who lived here from 1909 to 1912. At the corner of Pines and Lilienblum Streets is a building colored pink and yellow, which served as the first cinema in Tel Aviv. This is the “Eden” cinema, which began in 1914 by screening the silent film, “The Last Days of Pompei”.
One of the most interesting spots in Neve Tzedek is the Suzanne Dellal center, which was built in 1908 as a girls’ school and became one of the most important of Tel Aviv’s theatrical and cultural centers. Also in the neighborhood - the Gutman Museum, the home of the artist Nachum Gutman, displaying his works, photographs and video films, and that of the Rokach family, pioneers of the area, which has become a museum and memorial, showing a variety of objects, as well as an exhibition of the artist, Leah Majero-Mintz, who renovated the house.
Above the neighborhood is the Shalom Tower, one of the high buildings of Tel Aviv, and its observation balcony, from which there is a fine view of Neve Tzedek, the hill of Jaffa and the Mediterranean Sea.
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