Shopping in Tel Aviv

The Tel Aviv shopping scene is the most varied in the country. It's Israel's fashion capital, with boutiques galore, and you'll find styles quite different from what you might see back home in terms of design and color.

The real pleasure of shopping in Tel Aviv is access to the exciting creations of its cadre of young designers that have made waves around the world. The historic Dizengoff Street, in the 1930s so famous a place to see-and-be-seen that it gave rise to its own Hebrew word for a stroll down the boulevard (which roughly translated, would be "Dizengoffing"), is once again being resurrected after several down-at-the-heels years. The part of Dizengoff north of its intersection with Arlozoroff Street is where you'll find the shops of many of Israel's best-known designers.

Israel is also famous for its footwear, most notably Naot sandals, to be found in many shoe stores throughout the country, but also beautiful and unusual leather designs with a European flair.

If it's crafts and jewelry you're shopping for, Neveh Tzedek is the place to go, especially along the main drag of Shabazi Street. Crafts and jewelry also star in the Tuesday and Friday Nahalat Benyamin Pedestrian Mall, where prices can be lower than at regular stores and you can almost always meet the artist who made them. As for Judaica, Jerusalem and Safed are of course much more famous than Tel Aviv, but there are still a number of stores here that are fun to browse on Ben-Yehuda, and Dizengoff streets.

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