50 reasons to love Tel Aviv (and never, ever leave)

“>street art, fliers, cheap plaster and half-assed coats of paint. (Or as “>ruin lust, of which a curator at the Tate once said: “It’s a way of us thinking through time.”

47. Sherut rides. As we speak, there is a soothing ritual taking place within Tel Aviv's hundreds of shared taxi vans, or moniot sherut. Upon boarding, each passenger will take a seat and pass his six-and-half shekel fare from person to person, until it reaches the driver — who then clinks the coins into a row of Mancala cups and passes back the change, person to person. The whole procedure is quite meditative; everyone gets really into it. Because for 10 to 20 minutes, they are a shared-taxi family.

46. Weddings. Israeli weddings are the original crowdfund: Each guest gifts the couple at least enough cash to cover his own placemat, and thus the total wedding cost is covered. Genius! For more wonderful things about Israeli weddings, see comedian Benji Lovitt's ““>group of party Jews who rage around Tel Aviv in a fleet of white creeper vans at all hours of the day and night. They blast Hebrew techno, blow into sheep's horns and occasionally jump out to dance at intersections. They are the Na Nach clan — disciples of the happy-go-lucky Rabbi Nachman of Breslov — and they're a reliable fixture of every street party and traffic jam. You've got to see them to believe.

44. The wiring. For better or worse, most of Tel Aviv looks like it was built in a day. Bunches of pipes and electrical lines cling to the walls and poles of the city like determined weeds. And as long as they work, no one really cares how they're arranged. This haphazard construction style even has its own word in Hebrew: hurbash. Function over form — that's Israel.

43. Yom Kippur. For 24 hours each year, on the Jewish day of atonement, honky, crazy Tel Aviv goes “>Venice Beach way — about daily stuff like airplane noise and youth who play their music too loud. Living here, you feel the weight of the world and the neighborhood, in equal parts.

“>Loveat; there's the shy gray kitty that follows me all the way down Barzilai Street. (Or is it me who belongs to them?)

40. The ideas. The whole “>best efforts of the Israeli Ministry of Interior, an insane mix of ethnicities and religions today stir through Tel Aviv. There are girls like “>the Aroma barista who sells overpriced coffee after serving three years in the occupied territories” working alongside a cook who escaped the war in Darfur. There are the 750 students from 48 different countries at “>by Natalie Portman, beloved Israeli author Amos Oz described his fascination with Tel Aviv as a young boy: “It's not just that the light in Tel Aviv was different from the light in Jerusalem, more than it is today, even the laws of gravity were different. People didn't walk in Tel Aviv: they leaped and floated, like Neil Armstrong on the moon.”

37. Beautiful mermaid people. Again, I'll let Oz do the talking: “There were great sportsmen in Tel Aviv. And there was the sea, full of bronzed Jews who could swim. Who in Jerusalem could swim? Who had ever heard of swimming Jews? These were different genes. A mutation.”

“>offsetting the burkas.

34. Arsim. (And I mean this in the most affectionate sense of the slur.) The first Hebrew term my Israeli friends taught me was arse, or a member of the lower classes — kind of like a redneck or a Guido in America, or a flaite in Chile. These arsim, oh fauxhawked ones, have since become my favorite members of Tel Aviv society. They're the dudes who will offer you a plastic cup of special juice in the sherut on a Friday night, or sing along loudly to Hebrew classics through janky speakers on the beach. Annoying, yes, but you kind of miss them back on the quiet shores of Santa Monica.

“>one Israeli-turned-international DJ: “The Israelis are very enthusiastic. They jump, and they scream, and they're really getting into it — it's nice to have some Israeli crowd, because they really put everybody in excitement. The Europeans are more, like, holding themselves together.”

31. Proximity. Downtown Tel Aviv is situated only 45 minutes from the world's holiest city, one hour from Jordan, a couple hours from Lebanon and Syria, a few hours from Egypt and 15 minutes from an international airport with short, cheap flights to Istanbul, Italy and beyond. 

“>phallic images and innuendo ooze from its billboards and shop windows. And once you're in the mood, whichever way you like your sex — with whips and chains or in large groups, arranged via Tinder or spur-of-the-moment in a nightclub bathroom with a soldier — your kink will be embraced.

29. Your favorite hummus place. (Mine is “>Isla Vista!

27. The survivor's mentality. A sense of purpose and patriotism that is so hard to find in America runs thick in the veins of Tel Aviv's youth. As I wrote “>throws street parties (not just PG outdoor concerts or food festivals, but full-on ragers) like the world's coolest mom. 

“>World's Only Matkot Museum in his tiny Neve Tzedek apartment to pay tribute. Join the fun or be shunned from all future Israeli beach reunions.

22. Bauhaus architecture. Tel Aviv is home to the world's largest collection of “>yet another excuse for a street party. (Having lived in one of these historic specimens, I can tell you that they're highly overrated and often downright ugly. But there's also something cozy about hanging out on your balcony with someone else's balcony as your ceiling. It's very communal, in the way that Tel Aviv needed to be during the dark 1930s and '40s.)

“>to explore. And if you want some true grit, the run-down Central Bus Station area is just a 10-minute walk east.

18. Allenby Street. Once the shining Main Street of Tel Aviv, Allenby has “>Drinkpoint and bums displaying their festering leg wounds to passerby. You'll come out the other end dazed and deflated, but with a tad more street cred.

17. Shuk HaCarmel. Allenby's buzzing central market is draped in canvas and filled with all the 99-cent wonders, ironic T-shirts and ripe produce you can stuff in your knapsack. The shuk is also a great place to hone your bartering skills and “Don't fuck with me just 'cause I'm a foreigner” face.

“>Los Angeles has some of this volatility; Tel Aviv has more. As local photographer David Havrony wrote in a recent “>drop the American bullshitery, the people of Tel Aviv will take you in as one of their own. And once that happens, it's pretty impossible to say your goodbyes.

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