Tel Aviv in 3 days

Neve Tzedek ("Oasis of Justice" — founded 1887 as the first Jewish neighbourhood outside the walls of Jaffa, predating the official founding of Tel Aviv in 1909; the most atmospheric neighbourhood in Tel Aviv: the narrow lanes with the limestone Ottoman-era houses (the late 19th-century single-storey and two-storey limestone residences of the original neighbourhood), the bougainvillea growing over the iron gates, the independent fashion boutiques and design studios in converted limestone cottages; the Suzanne Dellal Centre for Dance and Theatre (the most important dance centre in Israel — the Batsheva Dance Company (founded by Martha Graham in 1964; now led by Ohad Naharin (the choreographer who developed the Gaga movement language) — the most internationally recognised Israeli cultural export); the Nachum Gutman Museum of Art (the paintings and mosaics by Nachum Gutman (1898-1980), the artist who documented the early Tel Aviv decades; the entrance mosaic (the Gutman mosaic at the building's entrance depicts the founding of Tel Aviv in 1909 with the lottery of plots in the sand dunes)).

Abu Hassan (Ali Karavan) Hummus (the hummus restaurant in the Jaffa port area — universally acknowledged as the finest hummus restaurant in Israel; the restaurant serves only 3 dishes (hummus, masabacha (the warm whole chickpea hummus) and foul (the fava bean version)); the Abu Hassan hummus technique: the chickpeas are cooked from dried (not canned), the tahini is the raw sesame paste from Nablus (the finest tahini in the world, by Israeli, Palestinian and international consensus), the garlic and lemon juice are added at service rather than blended in (ensuring freshness), and the hummus is served warm (at 55°C — a temperature that most commercial hummus never reaches); the Abu Hassan experience: the restaurant opens at 07:00 and closes when the hummus runs out (typically by 14:00); the queue begins before 09:00 on weekends; the lunch rush is intense and the turnover is fast; the pita (the warm pita bread from the Jaffa bakery next door, delivered hourly).

Tel Aviv Port (Namal Tel Aviv — the 1930s British Mandate-era port at the northern end of the Tel Aviv beachfront, decommissioned for cargo in 1965 and converted to a leisure and commercial district in 2001; the curved wooden boardwalk (the 70,000 sq m curved waterfront boardwalk of the port district — the most distinctive urban design project in Tel Aviv; the wooden decking follows the curve of the original port basin wall in an S-curve over the water); the food market (the Namal Tel Aviv food market (Friday morning only, 08:00-16:00) — the farmers' market with the Israeli producers of artisanal cheese, organic olive oil, the sourdough bread, the Galilean honey and the heritage tomatoes); the restaurants (the port restaurants serve the Mediterranean fish (the St. Peter's Fish (tilapia), the sea bass (loupas), the red mullet (sultan Ibrahim) and the tuna from the Israeli tuna fishing zone in the eastern Mediterranean)); the Namal beach (the secluded small beach at the northern end of the port, favoured by the surfers — the Tel Aviv coast receives the Mediterranean swell from the northwest and produces rideable waves October-April).

Tel Aviv nightlife (consistently ranked in the global top 5 most vibrant nightlife cities alongside Berlin, Amsterdam, New York and London): the Florentin neighbourhood (the most authentic nightlife neighbourhood in Tel Aviv — the working-class Yemenite-Jewish neighbourhood south of the city centre, gentrified into the city's most interesting bar and club district (the Florentin bars: the HaPeek bar, the Hoodna bar, the Sputnik); the Rothschild Boulevard (the most cosmopolitan boulevard in Israel — the tree-lined Bauhaus boulevard is the social gathering point of the Tel Aviv creative class with the outdoor café culture from morning to 03:00 on weekends)); the beach clubs (the Tel Aviv beach clubs from Frishman south to the Jaffa are the most hedonistic outdoor nightlife spaces in the Middle East — the Thursday and Saturday beach parties at the HaSharon Beach Club and the Manta Ray Beach Bar); the LGBTQ+ scene (Tel Aviv is consistently ranked the most LGBTQ+-friendly city in the Middle East and one of the top 5 in the world; the Hilton Beach (Independence Park), the Rothschild bars and the Shenkin Street are the centres of the community).

Jerusalem (60 km east of Tel Aviv — 45 min by train (ILS 16) or 1h by direct bus; the train from Tel Aviv HaShalom station to Jerusalem Biblical Zoo station (line 1 — the Jerusalem Light Rail then connects to the Old City); the Old City (UNESCO World Heritage 1981; the 1 km² walled old city divided into four quarters: the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Muslim Quarter and the Armenian Quarter; the Western Wall (HaKotel — the surviving section of the outer retaining wall of the Temple Mount (the Second Temple platform); the holiest accessible site in Judaism — the site where the Shekhina (divine presence) is believed to permanently reside; the prayer notes (kvitlekh) placed in the wall cracks are collected twice yearly and buried on the Mount of Olives); the Dome of the Rock (the 7th-century Umayyad shrine on the Temple Mount — the gilded dome is the most recognisable landmark of Jerusalem); the Via Dolorosa (the "Way of Grief" — the 14 Stations of the Cross route from the site of Pontius Pilate's judgement to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (the site of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus (by Christian belief) — the most sacred building in Christendom)).

ANU — Museum of the Jewish People (the בֵּית הַתְּפוּצוֹת — formerly Beit Hatfutsot, on the Tel Aviv University campus; the most comprehensive museum of Jewish history and culture in the world; the museum documents 3,000 years of Jewish life in all its geographic and cultural manifestations (the Ashkenazi Jewish world of Eastern Europe, the Sephardic Jewish world of the Mediterranean, the Mizrahi Jewish world of Iraq, Iran, Yemen and North Africa, and the worldwide Jewish diaspora communities); the Family Names Database (the 100,000+ Jewish family genealogies available for research); the Jewish music archive (the collection of Jewish musical traditions from the klezmer of Eastern Europe to the Yemenite mawwal singing); the Holocaust documentation (the testimonies, the artefacts and the photographs of the Jewish communities destroyed in the Shoah — the museum does not focus on the Holocaust as the primary Jewish experience (the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem specialises in Holocaust documentation) but includes it in the context of 3,000 years of Jewish resilience).

Bauhaus Center Tel Aviv (the visitor centre and museum on Dizengoff Street — the essential resource for understanding the White City; the permanent exhibition documents the German-Jewish architects who fled Nazism and rebuilt Tel Aviv in the Bauhaus style (the 60 architects and urban planners who arrived in Tel Aviv from Germany between 1933-1939, each bringing the specific Bauhaus curriculum knowledge that Walter Gropius's school had taught before the Nazis closed it); the walking tour (the guided Friday morning walking tour of the White City led by the Bauhaus Center (ILS 50) covers the finest examples: the Dizengoff Square circular fountain plaza (the Round Building by Genia Averbach, 1938), the Bialik Street (the best-preserved Bauhaus streetscape), the pedestrianised Nachalat Binyamin market street (the visual contrast between the Bauhaus buildings and the 1990s added floors); the architecture's climate adaptation (the south-facing shutters, the recessed balconies and the east-west strip windows that make the Bauhaus buildings naturally comfortable in the Tel Aviv summer without air conditioning).

Tel Aviv evening food tour (the most concentrated expression of Israeli food culture): the Yemenite Quarter (Kerem HaTeimanim — the neighbourhood between the Carmel Market and the Nahalat Binyamin pedestrian market; the original settlement of the Yemenite Jewish community who arrived in Tel Aviv from 1906; the neighbourhood food: the Yemenite soup (the Hawaiian soup — the slow-cooked beef broth with the bone marrow and the hawaij spice blend (the Yemenite spice blend of turmeric, black pepper, cumin and cardamom)); the sabich (the Iraqi-Jewish street sandwich — the pita stuffed with the fried aubergine (the sabich aubergine is cooked in cottonseed oil until it becomes translucent and slightly sweet), hard-boiled egg, Israeli salad, hummus, tahini and the amba sauce (the pickled mango condiment, the defining ingredient of the sabich); the sabich was invented in the Ramat Gan suburb of Tel Aviv in the 1950s by Iraqi Jewish immigrants who adapted the Iraqi shabbat breakfast (aubergine and egg) for street food consumption); the malabi (the rosewater milk pudding topped with the pomegranate syrup and coconut flakes — the most popular Tel Aviv street dessert).