Tel Aviv On The Hudson

Westchester celebrates Tel Aviv at 100 on May 17 with art, food, shopping and a fundraiser for Hemda.

Westchester celebrates Tel Aviv at 100 on May 17 with art, food, shopping and a fundraiser for Hemda.

by Merri Rosenberg
Special To The Jewish Week

It may take a little imagination to summon the sounds of the sea and the heat of the Mediterranean sun in the midst of leafy suburbia, but on May 17, Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains will be transformed into a replica of Tel Aviv in honor of that city’s centennial.

“Following close on the heels of last year’s wildly successful county-wide Israel at 60 celebration, we are looking forward to celebrating the 100th anniversary of the city of Tel Aviv,” said Ron Burton, president-elect of the Westchester Jewish Conference, in an e-mail message. “It won’t quite be Dizengoff Street, but there will be inflatable games to entertain the young, while vendors, speakers and interactive exhibits will keep the young-at-heart engaged for an afternoon

of Mediterranean mirth.”

Sponsored by the Israel Action Committee of the Five Synagogues of White Plains, and the Tel Aviv Foundation, and co-sponsored by the Westchester Jewish Conference, the event has been designed to attract a large swath of Westchester’s Jewish community by capturing Tel Aviv’s unique vibrancy and modernity.

“I love Tel Aviv,” said Rabbi Gordon Tucker, senior rabbi of Temple Israel Center in White Plains. “Tel Aviv, for those of us who have had the good fortune to spend quality time there, is one of the really great stories in modern Jewish history. It’s a city built by Jews for Jews, done entirely on a vision of the future. It is worth celebrating this modern miracle.”

Unlike Jerusalem, beloved and burdened with its sacred history, Tel Aviv offers an alternative experience of Israel.

“Tel Aviv hopefully represents all of Jews, religious, non-religious, Ashkenazis, Sephardic,” said Eric Mandel, co-chair of the Israel Action Committee of the Five Synagogues of White Plains.

Among the activities planned for Sunday’s celebration include the premiere of a special multimedia exhibit about Tel Aviv; glatt kosher Israeli food; vendors selling wine, fashion, art and jewelry; a musical performance by Pharaoh’s Daughter; the display of a community-wide art project about Tel Aviv produced by students at local day schools and synagogue after-school programs, and a speech by Admiral Abraham Ben Shoshan, former commander-in-chief of the Israeli navy who also served as military attaché to the Israeli embassy in Washington and is the head of the Tel Aviv Foundation.

Some of the children’s events include various hands-on stations where young visitors can learn about the Israeli artist, Agam, renowned for his kinetic works of art, and make one of their own; design mosaics; participate in a Habonim-like theater experience; sing; build a model of Tel Aviv, and sign up for both the Israel Day Parade and the summer’s Maccabi Games.

“Think of it as a children’s museum,” said Abby Reiken, the family educator at Temple Israel Center. “There will be content knowledge with experiential activities.”

Still, there is more to the event than a festive birthday party for Tel Aviv.
This celebration actually started as a relatively low-key fundraising event for Hemda, the Center for Science Education in Tel Aviv. Hemda is a magnet science high school in Tel Aviv, similar to New York City’s own Stuyvesant or Bronx Science high schools.

“The focus is still on Hemda, but we want to turn this into a community event,” said Mark Selinger, who serves on the board of the Tel Aviv Foundation and is the Westchester co-chair. “Hemda is a funnel into the technological units of the IDF, which is the passport into the high-tech community.”
Towards that end, “we want to raise money for scholarships, to provide upward mobility for poor kids in Israel,” said Mandel.

What makes the Hemda project so compelling, said Rabbi Tucker, is that “it is enormously important for the country and for science, in closing the economic gap in society.”

Westchester Celebrates Tel Aviv 100 Sunday, May 17, from 3 to 7 p.m. at Congregation Kol Ami, 252 Soundview Ave., White Plains. Admission is $10 adult, $5 child (no charge for children under 5), with a fee of $25 for a family. For more information, please contact 212-447-6070 or www.telavivfoundation.org.