No visit to Tel Aviv would be complete without visiting at least one market, or “shuk” as it is known locally. This gives visitors a chance to experience a slice of Israeli culture and to enjoy a ‘taste’ of its lifestyle.
As my literati friend, Henrietta David so eloquently put it: “Reminds me of Alice through the Looking Glass – an adventure into alluring enclaves of delightful tumult and colourful chaos.”
She’s right – particularly the “tumult”. This is the Middle East!
Shuk HaPishpeshim
“Wow, I have to have this,” bellowed an excited visitor from Johannesburg,
whose accent was unmistakable. She was clutching an old ornate clock piece and beaming as if she had found the long-lost Holy Grail. Her husband seemed less enthusiastic: “Doll, have you thought how we are going to schlep it back home.”
Tel Aviv Flea Market
“You haven’t done too badly yourself,” she replied eyeing his bulging shopping bag.
Jonathan and Heidi were amongst thousands of animated foreign tourists and local Israelis searching for bargains.
Next to Jaffa’s picturesque Old City and its iconic Ottoman Clock Tower, Shuk HaPishpeshim is a treasure trove of antiques, handmade arts and crafts and secondhand items. Literally translated as “The Flea Market”, it occupies a portside neighborhood of alleyways and outdoor verandas and has been operating for over a century across the same sprawling streets. It is open six days a week, from Sunday to Friday, and recently a number of trendy furniture and clothing shops have cropped up alongside vendors selling traditional Arabic pottery and ceramic items. Restaurants and coffee shops line the streets for weary shoppers to refresh and watch the crowds go by. The writer again caught up with Jonathan and Heidi seated at one. Jonathan was tucking into a Shakshuka (dish of eggs poached in a sauce of tomatoes, chili peppers, and onions) and Heidi a salad. Both beaming, they were clearly settled on how they were going to “schlep” their acquisitions back to ‘Joburg’.
Tel Aviv – Flea Market
At a guess, they looked ready to continue their shopping spree!
My parting advice to the couple – “Come back at night.” An evening visit in summer is a guaranteed “jol” (South African parlance for fun) of music, beer, and great cuisine. There are plenty of pubs and restaurants around the small alleys, and plenty of young people.
Shuk Levinski
Levinski Market – Tel Aviv
Like its range of culinary delights, Shuk Levinski is ‘far-reaching’ covering a wide area across Levinsky Street between HaAliyah and Herzl Streets. The shuk is noted for its dried fruits and nuts stores, bakeries, delicatessens, restaurants “and mystique,” says local resident Shachar Bebe, “because of its ethnic history.”
She reveals that during the 1930s, the area was home to a small group of Jews from Saloniki, Greece and “a fellow, David Florentin, considered the leader of the group, earned him the nickname ‘David Palestina’ because of his pioneering activities in developing the city. They were followed by many other working-class immigrants to this southern Tel Aviv neighborhood that took on the Greek family name – Florentin.”
Levinski Market – Tel Aviv
Before long, a range of spice shops and eateries opened across the neighborhood, specializing in Balkan cuisine – and that’s how this marketplace came to be what it is today. “Legend even has it that many of our favourite spice-blends were first concocted here during the early days of the State by the mix of immigrants,” says Shahar.
Following independence in 1948, an influx of Iranian immigrants to downtown Tel Aviv introduced Persian cuisine with its special herbs and spices adding literally and figuratively to the ‘Spice of Life’ in the area. And as the population grew, so did the market place, developing from its nuts and spice stalls into a bustling, commercial marketplace with luxury stores and gourmet restaurants.
Shuk Ha’aliyah
Also in the Florentin quarter and named after the street it’s on, Shuk Ha’aliyah is one of the few places in Israel where you can still see craftspeople at work making the items they sell – metal workers and furniture craftsmen manufacturing items for the city’s finest stores or for discerning clients who might want to commission a copy of an item in those same stores. The shuk is also famous for its Balkan cheeses, pickled vegetables and spices, and some interesting restaurants with menus ranging from “no-frills Jewish soul food to Persian delights,” remarked one local resident.
Beyond the merchandise there is also history ‘packed’ into this shuk being named Ha’Aliyah – ‘Aliyah’ meaning immigration to Israel, with a play of the word ‘aliyah” meaning in Hebrew – “high” or “exalted”.
Some people have remarked that they have left this shuk feeling, ‘high’!
Shuk HaNamal
Port Market – Tel Aviv
“Could not ask for a better setting for a market,” said one Ramat Aviv resident buying a delicious herring sandwich prepared on the spot at Sherry Herring, one of the many on-the-spot eateries at Shuk HaNamal. “Fresh sea air, fresh food, this is my favorite market.”
Port Market Tel Aviv
Located in a spacious Tel Aviv Port hangar, the stalls in Shuk Hanamal (Hebrew for The Port Market) colourfully display an array of local fresh produce and cooked food. On offer are a wide selection of organic vegetables; a butcher, a fishmonger; a kosher charcuterie and stalls selling fresh pasta; breads, cakes, oils, wines and much more.
Fully covered, Shuk HaNamal is open six days a week, from Monday to Saturday. The coffee and pastry stalls have made this shuk popular for fans ready to start or end their morning walks on the boardwalk alongside the deep blue of the Mediterranean. Situated among the trendy shops, bars and restaurants, Shuk HaNamal hosts an organic food market on Fridays in the lot nearby with seasonal produce, baked goods and “even real sugar cane juice to sweeten your day,” remarked one early morning cyclist.
Shuk HaCarmel
The Carmel Market, known in Israel as “Shuk Ha’Carmel” is the city’s largest and most well-known marketplace. Here above the din of vendors loudly presenting their merchandise, you can find almost anything imaginable for the lowest prices in the city, from different kinds of bread and pastry to delicious olives, dried fruits and exotic spices to clothing and footwear.
HaCarmel Market – Tel Aviv
It is renowned for the best place to buy the freshest produce, whether fruit and vegetables, fish, poultry, cheese, and flowers. The easiest way to enter the market is where Allenby, King George and Sheinkin Streets converge.
Easy to find, you will probably hear the spot before seeing it, as there are usually musicians performing at the entrance.
The market is open all week, except Shabbat (Saturday), with Tuesdays and Fridays being the most popular days as artists and vendors sell arts and crafts including handcrafted jewelry, colorful wooden toys, boxes, and glassware mostly sold by the artists themselves along the market’s neighboring Nahalat Binyamin Street. (see below)
Many of today’s famed jewelers and artists started out with stalls at this open-air market.
HaCarmel Market – Tel Aviv
“There is something here for everyone,” said Henrietta again. “It’s why I never pass through here without buying – for me that’s a ‘Mission Impossible”,” she says laughing. “I love the crowds; it’s a great cultural experience but you need to bargain because you can really pick-up stuff at low prices.” After all, says Henrietta, “bargaining is the soul of the Middle Eastern market experience.” She boasts she never settles until “either I or the shopkeeper is too exhausted to continue” and there is usually a crowd of shoppers queuing up behind me for ‘battle’. The final price for Henrietta “is more like a truce.” Loving the market’s atmosphere, “even if folk don’t intend to buy, I would still recommend visiting – just for the experience.”
Bunny Chow – HaCarmel Market – Tel Aviv
What may be also appealing to South Africans – or at least those from Durban – there is a great curry takeaway called , the curry fast food made famous in Durban by the Indian community, which is curry in a cut-out loaf of bread. Some speculate that Indian workers did not have time for long lunches and hence came up with an ingenious solution – hollow out a loaf of bread and fill it with your favourite curry – whether meat, chicken or vegetarian. Who needs a knife and fork? You break off the bread and use it to scoop up the curry.
Now, because of Emily Salgado who hails not from Durban but London, you can now enjoy a yummy curry at the Carmel.
Pearl of Tel Aviv
Nachalat Binyamin Market -Tel Aviv
If you’re in mall-mood and it’s either a Tuesday or a Friday then it’s time to take a stroll along the colorful and lively Nachlat Binyamin, the “Pearl in the heart of Tel Aviv.” Inspired by the Montmartre of Paris, this unique Arts and Crafts pedestrian mall should be on every tourist to Tel Aviv ‘To Do List’.
Israeli Arts & Crafts at Nahalat Benjamin
Located in the Yemenite quarter in one of the city’s first neighbourhoods, Nachlat Binyamin – adjacent to the Carmel Market – it is a vivid open air bazaar of art and handicrafts, street performances, pantomime and musicians. Twice a week – on Tuesdays and Fridays – tourists and Israelis wander among the stands, sit at the trendy outdoor cafes and enjoy the spirited atmosphere that Tel Aviv exudes as part of its daily charm.
What began in the 1980s as a local impromptu street fair of 20 artisans selling handcrafted jewelry, ceramics, sculpture and paintings, today, the fair has grown to welcome thousands of visitors each week to view and purchase the handcrafted work of hundreds of Israeli artisans and designers.
Street performers appearing near the coffee shops and restaurants, add a carnival feeling to already colorful and cultural atmosphere.
http://en.shuktlv.co.il/category/nahalat-binyamin
Bezalel market (Photo: Jonathan Saul)
If one is not averse to rummaging through huge heaps of clothes on the quest for that “elusive gem” or “killer deal”, then Bazalel Market in the heart of Tel Aviv off King George Street is a bargain-hunters’ delight.
Cheap swimwear, children’s clothes, inexpensive designer jeans, kitchen utensils, party dresses, multi-colored leggings and a whole host of beauty products is literally “all up for grabs,” says local resident Elad Dvir.
Although there’s no guarantee that the items you find will be of high quality, certain stalls are known to bring in bulging bags full of branded clothing which may mean, says, Elad, “a designer T-shirt may be just one pile, or one heap of T-shirts away.” Appearing like a biblical sage, one bearded store owner bellowed, “Seek and ye shall find.” Clearly people do – noting the bulging bags they carry leaving the market.
UpMarket Shuk
Sarona Market – Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv’s newest shuk is Sarona Market in the heart of Tel Aviv, originally a German Templer Colony.
It is the largest indoor culinary market in Israel and is open seven days a week.
Combining the old world with the new, Sarona Market is more a gourmet and consumer product market that offers imported cheeses from across the globe; premium balsamic vinegar from Italy; fresh seafood from the Atlantic Ocean; French champagne and spices from the Far East along with the best local produce – fruit and vegetables from Emek Hefer and the Arava; lamb and veal from the Golan Heights; fresh fish from the Mediterranean; local wines and boutique beer; assorted chocolates and hand-made pastries.
Sarona Market – Tel Aviv
Established to be “the heartbeat of Israeli culinary art”, the Sarona Market comprises 91 shops of all categories, stalls, pubs and restaurants. “This can stand anywhere in the world,” noted my companion Michael Witkin from Grand Rapids in the USA. “There is very little Israel about it.”
So true, but with products and cuisines from the four corners of the world, it does shape up to the old Biblical and Zionist adage of: “the centrality of Israel.”
Each of Tel Aviv’s markets is a world unto itself, not only offering differing fare, but reflecting the locals who reside, shop, sell and buy there. Have fun with your market-hopping, and enjoy the chance not only to make unusual purchases but also to get to know a different side of Tel Aviv. You never know, you may well walk away with more than you ‘bargained’ for!
