Tel Aviv, Israel — Yes, in all of our imaginations of Israel, the first thing we think of is that romantic socialist utopian ideal of the Kibbutz. Where everyone lives together, eats together, and only works for the benefit of the community. You received only the amount of pay and even food as needed, and let’s not forget the best part: your children live separately from you, raised by the community.
Ah, how times have changed. Now all we’re left with is Kibbutz in the City. where we all communally drink together, and, well, that’s about it. Sadly the drinks are not communally doled out, unless you count how everyone equally has to pay 30 shekels for entry, but on the plus side, all the drinks are almost half of what they would cost after that. So if you’re the Heavyweight Drinking Champion of Tel Aviv, this is your place, George Foreman.
Just off of Ibn Gvirol on Kaplan Street, Kibbutz in the City is definitely just that, although their giant garden, complete with tractor, gives you that “just fertilized the garden” feeling. That, “I just milked a cow so I’m gonna dance on a table” celebratory sense of accomplishment. There’s a little bit of everything at this bar: the main room with the giant pick-up bar, a dance floor, a “living room”, another room that looks like the dining area of a Kibbutz with long communal tables and benches, and outdoors with green pastures. And lots and lots of narguila (a.k.a. hookah). It’s one of the biggest bars in the city without a doubt, and it attracts a giant Mean Girls-esque cross-section of the Tel Aviv population: You got your freshmen, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. jocks, Asian nerds, cool Asians, varsity jocks unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings, girls who don’t eat anything, desperate wannabes, burnouts, sexually active band geeks, etc. Except by Asian I mean Jewish, and by black I mean Jewish. And by ROTC I mean the IDF … but you get the picture.
There are few places in Tel Aviv where you can take your entourage of twenty friends and hangers-on without it becoming a big to-do, but Kibbutz in the City is one place that can make it work. Because it’s about community. And what’s more, Kibbutz in the City has really taught me that you can’t have socialism without a social lubricant like alcohol.
1 year ago • Notes