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Israel > 3. Tel Aviv-Yafo

Tel Aviv Stretched along the beautiful beach strip of the Mediterranean, Tel-Aviv is Israel's largest city and biggest commercial center.
It is a busy metropolis, which inspires its visitors with a unique energetic atmosphere of excitement and fun.

Visible from a distance with its seafront skyscrapers and exclusive hotels, Tel-Aviv presents a lively combination of entertainment venues, shopping malls, exotic markets, nonstop active nightlife,
gorgeous golden beaches and wonderful restaurants of all kinds. It is also the country's greatest cultural center, a home for a variety of museums, galleries, theatres and concert halls. Tel-Aviv Life - A Falalfel lunch By contrast, the ancient port city of JAFFA, is medieval in appearance. This special blend of Mediterranean ambience, seaside resort and modern facade is what makes the city so uniquely appealing.

Jaffa is an ancient city in Israel. It is now part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo in the Tel Aviv District, where the mound of ancient Jaffa in “Old Jaffa” is now part of a park in south-western Tel Aviv. Jaffa is a port city on the Mediterranean Sea and the historic gateway into Israel. It is mentioned twice in the Hebrew Bible, once as the port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for Solomon's Temple ( Chronicles II ) and once as the place from whence the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish (Book of Jonah I:3). It was an important city in the Arab Middle East before Israel was established. During the Crusades it was the County of Jaffa, a stronghold of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

IS one of the most ancient port cities in the world. Some claim that Jaffa was named after Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah, who built it after the Great Flood. A Hebrew etymology indicates that the city is called Jaffa because of its beauty (yofi in Hebrew). The Hellenist tradition links the name to "Iopeia", which is Cassiopeia, the mother of Andromeda. However the Hellenist accounting for the name dates from hundreds of years after the original naming.