Florentin is a neighborhood in the southern part of Tel Aviv, Israel, named for :he:%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94 %D7%A4%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%98%D7%99%D7%9F|Solomon Florentin, a Greek Jew who purchased the land in the late 1920s. Development of the area was spurred by its proximity to the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway. Florentin was initially populated primarily by poor Sephardic Jewishimmigrants from North Africa, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, and Bukhara. As with much of Southern Tel Aviv, for many decades the area has suffered from urban decay and poverty. By the 1960s, the area had declined from a working class area, to becoming a slum, as the original Florentin residents moved out. However, since the 1990s and 2000s, the area has also attracted many younger residents and artists who were first attracted by its lower-rents, and the neighborhood is now also associated with a bohemian life style. Florentin now has numerous artists' workshops, cafes, restaurants, markets and graffiti tours. The area is also an industrial zone and a garment district, where both Jewish and Arab wholesalers buy and sell clothing and furniture.
History
The land was purchased in the 1920s by the Salonika-Palestine Investment Company, founded in 1921 by Jews in Salonika to develop commercial relations with Jewish settlements in Palestine. After World War I, compounding the effects of the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 in which the city's Jewish quarter was destroyed, along with 12,000 homes, leaving over 70,000 homeless people. In 1924, the Salonika-Palestine Company sent an envoy to Palestine to purchase land in Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv's Rehov Herzl, in an area bordering Neveh Tzedek and Ahuzat Bayit that was close to the Jaffa-Jerusalem railroad. Due to Ottoman land laws, building in the area was held up until 1933. Florentin was initially populated primarily by Jewish immigrants from North Africa, Bulgaria, Turkey and Bukhara. For many years, it was a low-income neighbourhood, suffering from urban decay. By the 1960s, the area had declined from working class, to becoming a slum. The original Florentin residents moved out, and it had become a home for the city's poorest residents and a flophouse for illegal workers, mainly from Gaza. By the 1990s, many of the original buildings were semi-derelict. However, since the 1990s and 2000s, with the opening of many artists' workshops, and the decline of the traditional garment and furniture purchasing industries that had once sustained the area, it has become increasingly popular with artists and bohemians, who flocked to the area for its lower-rents. Florentin was the setting for a TV series in the broadcast between 1997-2001 called Florentin. The series helped to raise awareness of the existence of the neighborhood and to establish the previously neglected neighborhood in the Tel Aviv consciousness. In the 2010s, Florentin now has numerous cafes, bars and graffiti tours. Today, the area is still also an industrial zone and a garment district, where both Jewish and Arab wholesalers buy and sell clothing and furniture.
Economy
In 1933, the Jaffa Municipality allowed shops and light industries to be opened on the ground floors of the new residential buildings, providing a source of income for the wave of immigrants settling in Palestine at the time. Today it is a combination of industrial zone, garment district, marketplace and assembly point for foreign workers looking for jobs. An urban renewal campaign sponsored by the Tel Aviv municipality in the 1990s led to a revival of the area, which has become a popular night spot.
The area is known for its vibrant local-art scene. With the arrival of a bohemian community and the opening of many workshops in the 1990s, the mix of garages and abandoned buildings in the area, attracted many artists who used the areas' crumbling walls as a canvas for large works. Street art in Florentin often has strong political message. Local political conflicts between rival political groups have also taken place through graffiti battles on the walls of the neighbourhood. and Palestinian Handala embracing one anotherMuch of the graffiti is merely in text form, involving quotes of Hebrew poets, religious passages, and the dialogues taking place between different graffiti artists. The graffiti has also brought opposition from local residents, and concerns about the declining standards of the graffiti itself as the area becomes more mainstream. Street artists, such as Dede and Klone installation artists such as Sigalit Landau, and many others made the working class neighborhood their home base.
Demography
The population nearly doubled from 3,900 people to 7,000 people, of which today 21% are in the 35–44 age range, 33.7% are between the ages of 25 and 34, and children up to 17 years old make up 7% of the population.
