Tel Aviv

Tel Aviv was established in 1909 by a group of Jewish families from the ancient port city of Jaffa. The city of Tel Aviv originally began where Jaffa ended, but in 1950 the two cities were united into one single municipal entity. Tel Aviv-Jaffa is now the center of Israel's high-tech industry and youth culture.

Capital of Industry

The high-tech industry has been the engine of Israel's rapid economic development in recent years, even in the face of a global economic crisis. Nicknamed "The Startup Nation", Israel has the largest number of startup firms per capita of any country and the second largest concentration of high-tech companies (after Silicon Valley). As a city that encourages innovation and creativity, Tel Aviv is the heart of Israel's high-tech and information-based industries. 

Tel Aviv is also the country's financial center, as it is the home of Israel's only stock exchange and nearly 40% of the country's finance and banking institutions.

Youth Culture

Nightlife thrives in Tel Aviv due to the city's high percentage of residents between the ages of 18 and 34. Tel Aviv has the highest percentage of young people of any city in Israel, and the city's infrastructure (with green, eco-friendly bikes available for rent across the city), culture and atmosphere reflect this.

Tel Aviv is a city that never sleeps and neither do the people who inhabit it. It is vibrant, full of life, and provides an endless amount of activities and places to explore. Everyday you will see people sipping coffee at boutique cafes, eating their way through delicious street food stands and dancing the night away at bars and nightclubs. For these reasons, the New York Times has described Tel Aviv as the 'capital of Mediterranean cool.' Lonely Planet ranked it as a top ten city for nightlife, and National Geographic named it one of the top ten beach cities.

Arts and Culture

Tel Aviv is home to hundreds of art galleries and private boutiques, showcasing a unique array of paintings, sculptures, crafts and other works by Israeli artists. The city's art scene encompasses everything from tiny, one-room galleries hidden in narrow, backstreet alleys to large outdoor festivals such as Nachlat Binyamin's Friday Market, to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, one of the largest museums in Israel. As a thriving center for music, the Israeli National Opera is also located in Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv is home to Israel's oldest School for Performing Arts as well as the National Theater of Israel. However the city is also full of smaller theater companies that have earned local and international acclaim, such as Gesher, The Cameri, and even smaller, experimental groups such as the Tel Aviv Improv Company. Jaffa is the location of the award-winning Nalaga'at Theater, home to the Deaf-blind Acting Ensemble. Tel Aviv is also the home the Suzanne Dellal Center, the oldest and largest institution in Israel to put on dance performances, promote local dance culture and showcase artists from across the world on its stages. The Center gets over half a million visitors a year and is one of Tel Aviv's most popular tourist attractions.

Arts at TAU

To celebrate young creators and give them a platform to showcase their art, TAU film students organize the International Student Film Festival – the largest student film festival in the world – every two years. With its large cadre of young and motivated filmmakers and as the set location for major Israeli film productions, Tel Aviv has found itself at the center of Israel's film culture and industry and hosts multiple international film festivals a year.

Tel Aviv University is also the only university in Israel with a School of Music, training musicians as well as vocal performers. The school holds over 200 concerts a year on the TAU campus and is invited to tour around the world, performing in Zurich, Madrid and Berlin, among other places.