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ISRAEL

A State of Contrasts

Story by Sandro Gämperle June 12th, 2014

Jerusalem & Tel aviv - the Two poles of Israel

Up until my first travel to Israel, all my knowledge (and with it all my prejudices) about the country and its people originated from news articles, TV coverage and the like. And these sources naturally tend to put the negative aspects into the foreground. Therefore, I had mixed feelings when I boarded the plane from Zurich to Tel Aviv last summer. After all, the whole region is not best known for its security situation. Luckily, there hadn’t been suicide bombings or missiles launched toward Israeli ground for some time at the time of my travel. What I discovered were two extremes - Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - which both represent the country in their unique way.

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Jerusalem

Jerusalem is without any doubt the religious center not only of Israel but of the whole region (if not of the whole Western & Arabic world as well). The city is bustling with pilgrims from all over the world, security forces, Israeli army members and locals. Even though I am not a religious person myself, it is still awe-inspiring to walk the same steps towards the hilltop of mount Golgatha, see all those mystic places whose names you only knew from the Bible but never really thought were real. On the other side, you see heavily armed guards and soldiers all over. The morning after my visit to Jerusalem somebody got shot right at the Western Wall where I was standing mere 15 hours ago.

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Keeping a city safe

Although there are clashes and bursts of violence every now and then, I never really ever felt in danger while walking the streets of Jerusalem. This might have been a deceptive feeling but then again I’ve been to other places where I definitely felt less secure out of a diffuse and subliminal feeling of threat that was hard to pin point to a single reason. With so many tourists visiting Jerusalem every year, it must be really difficult for the authorities to make sure that people with bad intentions are spotted well before they achieve whatever evil plan they have in mind.

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Tel aviv

Tel Aviv (Hebrew: תֵּל־אָבִיב; Arabic: تل أبيب‎) is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 414,600 within its administrative limits. It is located on the Mediterranean coast in central-west Israel, within Gush Dan, Israel‘s largest metropolitan area, containing 42% of Israel‘s population. Tel Aviv is an economic hub, home to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, corporate offices and research and development centers. It is the country‘s financial capital and a major performing arts and business center. Tel Aviv has the second-largest economy in the Middle East after Dubai, and is the 31st most expensive city in the world.

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Footnote: If you are interested in more of my photos please head over to my flickr page on www.flickr.com/sandrotto
Israel