Florentin (Hebrew: פלורנטין) is a neighborhood in the southern part of Tel Aviv, Israel, named for Solomon Florentin, a Greek Jew who purchased the land in the late 1920s. The neighborhood is referred to as Tel Aviv’s Soho, due to the gentrification process it experience in recent decades.
Florentin was initially populated primarily by poor Sephardic Jewish immigrants from North Africa. As with much of south Tel Aviv, for many decades it suffered from urban decay and poverty. However, since the early 2000s, the area has attracted many younger residents and artists who were first attracted by its lower rents, and the neighborhood is now also associated with a bohemian, youthful, and yuppie lifestyle. Florentin now has numerous artists’ workshops, cafes, restaurants, markets, and graffiti tours, as the neighborhood moves away from the margins in wealth terms and becomes a center for art and alternative culture.
About Florentin
Florentin’s lifestyle is very different from the Tel Aviv seen by tourists, and is still, to a certain extent, an industrial zone. The mix of garages and abandoned buildings attracted the wave of a bohemian community and the opening of many workshops. Artists were attracted to and used the areas’ crumbling walls as a canvas for murals, which created the unique mix of trendy live-work spaces out of dingy, derelict buildings.
Street art in Florentin often has a strong political message. Much of the graffiti is merely in text form, involving quotes of Hebrew poets, religious passages, and the dialogues taking place between various graffiti artists. Interested? Just hop on one of the local Graffiti tours take place in the neighborhood.
In the neighborhood you will find the Levinsky market as well – a small local marketplace lined with tiny stores selling specialist Turkish, Greek, and Romanian products as well as kosher meats, cheeses, spices, and dried fruits.
At night, Florentin comes to life and transforms from a place of hard work to gritty leisure. Tiny bars sell cheap alcohol and the sidewalks are filled with people eating pizza and falafel. This is one of the most popular locations in the vibrant Tel Aviv nightlife scene, totally contrasting, as it does in so many other ways, with the atmosphere in the northern parts of the city.
Among other things, Tel Aviv is the ultimate hipster destination. With its street art, vegan eating, or booming underground nightlife, The city is the perfect place for Urbanites to cultivate their creativity. While Neve Tzedek has the vintage clothing and boutique stores part of it – if you want in on the true “too-cool-for-school” experience, head to Florentin.