A thriving Mediterranean city of about 415,000 people, Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 on land purchased by the Jewish National Fund just north of Jaffa. Today, Tel Aviv has an almost exclusively Jewish population. Constructed in the 1930s, the so-called “White City” contains more than 4,000 buildings in the then-fashionable Bauhaus style. The main artery of the district is Rothschild Boulevard, which is lined with palm trees. Many of Tel Aviv’s principal boutique hotels are in this neighborhood. Built up the side of a low hill overlooking the Mediterranean, the 4,000-year-old Israeli city of Jaffa has suddenly acquired a new and youthful persona, with a rapidly expanding roster of restaurants, cafés, galleries, boutiques and hotels.

“Along Tel Aviv’s seafront promenade, the Middle East and its intractable problems seem strangely far away."