Enjoy my article on the growing hipness of Givatayim, featured as the cover story in Jerusalem Post’s Metro Section. You could probably consider it like a cool neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Tel Aviv still remains Manhattan.
The popular neighborhood pub Bogart on Katzenelson, Givatayim’s main street, was built in what was once the first DVD rental place in Israel. Today, movie posters serve as decor and DVD cases as menu encasements.
This blend of the new and the old is representative of the change that this Tel Aviv suburb has undergone in the past few years: from an old-fashioned, sleepy city populated largely by pensioners and families to an attractive destination for young professionals.
Katzenelson Street (named for the socialist Zionist pioneer Berl Katzenelson) is growing into a sort of Sheinkin, the boulevard in Tel Aviv that abounds with trendy boutiques, bars and cafés (although Sheinkin’s glory days have arguably passed).
Within a one-block radius near the busy intersection of Katzenelson and Weizmann, there’s a Cofix, a felafel place and several bars that have all popped up in the last year following the migration of young professionals from Tel Aviv to Givatayim in the wake of Tel Aviv’s rising costs. Add the mall that opened in 2005, and Givatayim is emerging as a self-sustaining city, especially for 20- and 30-something-yearolds.
