Jaffa neighborhood named after New Testament Heroine
By Ilan Lior
17/1/2011
The Tel Aviv municipality’s committee for names and commemoration on Sunday approved eight new names for city neighborhoods.
The most interesting choice was the one for the area around the Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine and the adjacent Russian Orthodox church in the southern part of the city. It is to be called Tabitha, named after a New Testament woman known for her charity whom, according to the story, Peter raised from the dead. The committee members said that since the area was known as a pilgrimage destination for Christians, they thought it should have a Christian name.
“This is one of the two holiest places in Jaffa for Christians from all over the world,” committee member and geographer Gideon Biger said, the other holy place being the House of Simon the Tanner in Jaffa’s old city. “We thought it proper to give Tel Aviv a Christian-tourism component as well, to try to show that Tel Aviv is cosmopolitan and not just Jewish.”
The names committee also gave the name Glilot to the area west of the Glilot junction and Namir Boulevard, which includes the exclusive Sea and Sun apartment-hotel. Azori Chen, south of Glilot and north of Keren Kayemeth Boulevard, will from now on be called Tzukei Aviv (“Aviv Cliffs”). “New Ramat Aviv” has been dubbed Shirat Hayam (“Song of the Sea” ), and a new neighborhood to be built where Sde Dov airport now stands will be called Nofei Yam (“Seascapes”).
The train station and the luxury Yoo residential towers is now Tzameret Ayalon (“Elite Ayalon” ), while the German Colony opposite the Kirya military headquarters is now Ganei Sarona (“Sarona Gardens”).
East of the Ayalon Freeway, the area around the ORT school is to be called Orot (“Lights”).
The committee’s decisions must still be vetted by the municipal finance committee and the city council.
Committee chairman Haviva Avi-Gai said the new names were the first phase in a wider project of providing names to both old and new neighborhoods. “Tel Aviv has many neighborhoods, and the city should use its authority to name them and not leave their names to change or initiatives of contractors and developers,” he said.
Ahead of the committee’s next meeting, members have been asked to collect suggestions for names for 13 more neighborhoods, including the southern part of what has thus far been called Lev (“the heart of”) Tel Aviv, and including the historic Rothschild, Allenby and Sheinkin streets.
