Lee & Pearl went to Israel — Part One

Pearl here! It has been way too long since we last visited Israel. Our father's only brother and his family settled there decades ago, so we have cherished relatives there, but we haven't been back in person since 2005.

Remember the photo that we used for the first cover of our very first pattern? The background shot is of the Roman ruin at Bet She'an, and it's a photo that I took during our 2005 trip.

We've made plans to return for years, but life — and the pandemic — interfered, and those plans were always put on hold. But this holiday season, we finally made it back.

On December 30, Lee (Rebecca) and Pearl (Elizabeth) and our families landed at Ben Gurion airport and were greeted with this beautiful sight!

New Year's in Jaffa (Yafo)

We stayed in Israel for two wonderful weeks, renting Airbnb apartments in Tel Aviv. For the first two nights we had a charming rooftop apartment with a huge terrace in the older southern part of the city — Jaffa (Yafo).

The terrace was perfect for watching neighborhood fireworks on New Years' Eve. The apartment was also an easy stroll to the Old Jaffa historic buildings, galleries, artisanal shops and world-famous flea market (shuk) near the shoreline. As an added plus, it was around the corner from what some people call the best hummus in Israel.

Our cousin managed the renovation of one of the buildings in Old Jaffa — which is an amazing feat considering the cramped access and miles of historic preservation red tape that came with her job.

Don't you dream of living or working here?

Fun fact about Israel: the entire country is full of feral cats, most of whom are quite tame and happy to be your friend as long as you pet and — they hope — feed them.

We invested in a bag of kitty treats and made lots of friends.

After two relaxing days in Jaffa, we didn't want to leave — though we'd caught an intriguing glimpse of the modern central city where we'd be staying for the rest of our trip.

Also, there were rumors of a FABRIC DISTRICT tucked somewhere between Jaffa's cobblestones and those shiny towers... more on that further down!

We packed our bags, called a whole bunch of taxis, and moved a few miles north to central Tel Aviv.

Exploring the White City

Did you know that central Tel Aviv has the largest number of Bauhaus / International Style buildings of any city in the world?

Though planning for a new city on the sand dunes north of Jaffa started in 1909, construction of central Tel Aviv only began in the 1930s. The style of the new buildings reflected the modern ideas of the young Jewish architects who had fled from Germany and other central and eastern European countries. This area — called the White City — once boasted 4,000 Bauhaus-style buildings. Though some have been lost to development or decay, many that remain are now receiving welcome renovations.

If you are in Tel Aviv and you like spotting Bauhaus, International Style, Art Deco and Streamline Moderne on your daily walks, we highly recommend brushing up on the styles with a walking tour of the area given by the Bauhaus Center of Tel Aviv.

Our White City Airbnb was tucked into the intersection of a quiet residential street and a busy commercial thoroughfare, one block from the weird and wonderful Dizengoff Center shopping mall, and steps from Falafel Hakosem, another renowned hummus-and-falafel shop.

Dizengoff Center is our favorite type of mall — one that isn't so successful that only chain stores can afford to lease space, but one that still has enough foot traffic that every store is occupied, even if some of the occupants are... odd.

Among the sneaker and clothing stores on the interconnected spiraling levels at Dizengoff, you'll also find stamp collecting stores, trading card shops, anime and other fandom stores, tattoo parlors — and a very busy tattoo parlor supply shop — tabletop game rooms, independent toy stores, a Naot shoe discount shop (so cute and comfortable!), a dog adoption and training venue, a Thai boxing gym, an art supply store, a giant thrift shop, a supermarket and a weekly Food Fair.

The mall also has a few familiar stores that you just can't find in the U.S. anymore.

For explorations beyond the White City and the mall, our Airbnb was also nicely located in between the cultural district museums, theaters and train station to the east, and the ocean-front beaches and boardwalks to the west.

We really couldn't have hoped for a better location or more generous and thoughtful hosts. If you ever visit Tel Aviv, we highly recommend Gavriel and Avishay's Bauhaus-inspired apartment!

If it looks sunny and perfect in these pictures, that's because it was. Every day.

Or at least it was to us. The natives seemed to think it was cold. You could easily tell the locals from the tourists as the locals wore puffer coats, scarves and balaclavas while the tourists wore t-shirts. Maybe when you call it 18.3℃ instead of 65℉ it just feels colder?

Food Markets and Fabric Shopping!

Our Airbnb came equipped with a full kitchen and Lee is an adventurous cook who brought an empty suitcase to fill with fresh Mediterranean spices and dried foods, so some of the first places we visited in central Tel Aviv were the three famous food markets: the large and fun (if touristy) Carmel Market (Shuk HaCarmel), the small and choice Levinsky Market and the lively, bright — and ethnically diverse — HaTikva Market, where everyone's bubbe does their actual shopping.

We'd love to tell you which market was our favorite — but honestly, go to all three (and then visit the Mahane Yehuda Market in Jerusalem as well). Food markets are amazingly fun, and there are restaurants and counter service joints throughout if you just want to savor the sights and smells and have someone else do the cooking!

Here are piles of nuts, seeds, dried fruits and some yummy, fresh-pressed pomegranate juice at Levinksy Market.

Here are the wide aisles full of amazing produce, spices, candies and baked goods at HaTikva Market.

And at the Carmel Market, if you can make it past the t-shirt shops and knick-knacks at the entrance and get through to the heart of the market to find THIS guy, every spice he sells is amazing!

He also includes English on his helpful labels and will hand you a Sharpie to mark up your bagged purchases (which is important when you're buying a little of everything).

As we elbowed our way through the crowds at Carmel Market with our precious cargo of vegetables, fruit and spices, we caught tantalizing glimpses down the side streets of something that looked like our beloved Los Angeles garment district.

Could it be? Could the rumors of an actual FABRIC DISTRICT on Nahalat Binyamin Street next to the Carmel Market be real...?

YES! Jackpot!!!

Look at those vibrant silk blends — that blue-green swirl in the upper right is a Pucci!

Everywhere we looked there were gorgeous Indian block-print cottons, as well as an eye-popping array of embellished and embroidered fabrics and beautiful metallic and embroidered trims.

The district clearly supplies bridal, theater and dance costumers as well as dressmakers and designers, so alongside the shops full of Indian cottons and luxury garment materials, there were shops full of lace, sequined fabrics, shimmering and embellished lycra spandex materials, and even a few shops bursting with trims, ribbons, feathers, fringes and elastics .

I could have happily spent several days here, and filled multiple suitcases. But with only one small duffel bag worth of space to fill, I had to tear myself away from the shops with nothing but photos and marked-up business cards and a promise to come back after thinking deeply about the beautiful choices on display — to make ONE PERFECT PURCHASE before we left Israel.

Eretz Israel Museum and Fabulous Organza Jewelry

While thinking about those fabrics and scanning photos and patterns for inspiration, we took a day to visit the Eretz Israel Museum on the university campus in Tel Aviv.

This sprawling, multidisciplinary museum focuses on the history and culture of Israel and includes archeological exhibits, as well as exhibits of coins, stamps, crafts, traditional cultural and industrial tools, folklore, Jud​aica and popular art.

Unfortunately, my camera malfunctioned and I don't have any pictures from the museum, though I did grab some shots with my phone of these intriguing fabric berry earrings in the museum gift shop. They looked like they were made with one of our favorite sewing and crafting materials — SILK ORGANZA, which of course we sell in our Etsy shop!

I looked up the artist and her work, and among other textiles, she does indeed work with organza. Her name is Galia Sasson, and her atelier is Fungi Wearable Art. And look — she sells on Etsy, as well!

It's time to go back to Nahalat Binyamin Street to buy some fabric...

It didn't take long to find inspiration for a fabric purchase. Lee had recently shared images of this stunningly simple figured purple tafetta Regency era gown from the Designs From Time Historical Costumes page to our Facebook page.

I could use a new Regency dress, so with this silk as inspiration, I browsed my photos from the shops that sold Indian cottons and silkies, and chose THIS beautiful pink-and-gold faux silk with woven-in patterns of light- and dark-metallic gold saltire crosses.

So back to the shops we went — where I also found a block print Indian cotton in coordinating colors for a (perhaps not entirely historically accurate, but adorable) scarf, sleeves, bag or other accessory...

... and a metallic gold and matching green fabric geometric trim that should work beautifully on Regency sleeves, or a later Regency hem.

So that's what I bought!

Thank you, Eli of Hammer Textil — I love these fabrics and I can't wait to go back to Israel to shop some more at your beautiful store! Next time I am bringing a bigger suitcase.

If you've enjoyed exploring Israel with us, be sure to check out our next Israel Trip newsletter, in which we venture out of Tel Aviv to visit the ruins at Caesarea, the cliffs and gardens of Haifa and of course — Jerusalem!

CLICK HERE to continue on to Part Two of Lee & Pearl's adventures in Israel...

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