This year my interest, my passion for Tel Aviv has been reawakened.
After my trip in April I realized that I wanted to visit my native country on a regular and frequent basis from now on. It’s puzzling even to myself why I got this feeling in 2008 and not years ago. It seems all that had been hidden for years surfaced unexpectedly and has become my top priority, as if nothing else had happened.

In my blog I’m planning to portrait Tel Aviv from various perspectives, with emphasis on every-day life, but I’m also going to talk about the city’s characteristics, such as architecture, culture, and art.
And of course, I’m going to include the historically significant city of Jaffa.
After all, Tel Aviv’s official name is “Tel Aviv-Jaffa”.
During my upcoming stays in Israel I’ll most likely visit a number of other places in addition to Tel Aviv. They are going to be included in this blog as well.

It is impossible to be in Israel and to ignore the ever present political situation. The media, both on the Israeli and Palestinian side, seem to be more interested in presenting violence instead of pragmatic dialogues or the development of a situation.
Yet, what excites me most are cultural projects and social initiatives that established themselves in everyday life. My blog is all about those people who, despite of their cultural differences and backgrounds try to keep the dialogue going because they long for an egalitarian society.
Is it utopia – to transfer a small success here and there to the whole population? Perhaps, but living in a permanent state of war with all its negative consequences and to consider it impossible to solve, to construct real as well as imaginary walls as a legitimate answer to society’s questions – this cannot be the aim. It is irresponsible.

And if you’re wondering now: Is she not afraid of traveling to Israel under these circumstances? The answer would be: yes, I am afraid – afraid of flying. But as soon as I’ve settled down in my airplane seat, at the mercy and the whims of air travel, my fear subsides…especially when I’m thinking of boarding a cab at Ben Gurion airport. Israeli taxi drivers are are permanently in a mad rush! No, of course not all of them, but a lot.

Depending on my condition I might even take the train.