The modern Israeli city known as Tel Aviv has known its share of wars and troubles, even though it is just over one century old. It’s name goes back more than 20 centuries, however, and it’s the very essence of what it means to survive, rebuild - and rise from the rubble of what was.
Where does the name come from? In the Hebrew Bible it first shows up in chapter 3 of Ezekiel’s prophetic visions, as he describes the area where the Judean exiles are resettled, on the banks of the rivers of Babylon.
It’s an old Akkadiam name for ‘that which rises from rubble’ - often alluding to settlements that were drowned by the seasonal flooding - and rebuilt, again. Tel-Abib may mean: “The place that was an ancient city site reduced to a mound (tel) by flood, decay, and long erosion, or the “hill of corn.” In the Mesopotamian conquest it may be a rendering of Akkad. Til-abubi, “mound of the flood.”
The modern Hebrew city was founded in 1909 by the new Jewish residents as a modern housing estate on the outskirts of the mainly Arabic ancient port city of Jaffa, populated for centuries, and at the time part of the Ottoman Empire. The new city was at first called Ahuzat Bayit (lit. 'House Estate' or 'Homestead'). Its name was changed the following year to Tel Aviv, after the biblical name Tel Abib adopted by the author Nahum Sokolow as the title for his Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl's 1902 novel Altneuland ("Old New Land").
Ezekiel’s Tel Aviv was the first central town where Jewish exiles built a new home, and it would last for centuries. Modern day Tel Aviv, just over a century old, hopes for longevity, safety and prosperity - echoing and even eclipsing Herzl’s utopian dreams.
On this day, as war ravages Israeli and Palestinian lives and threatens so many people, everywhere, with violence and hate, we are reminded of the hope to rise from rubble - again and again, to rebuild our broken homes and dreams. In Gaza - that will need so much reconstruction, and in Israel, with whatever lies ahead — the flood of fury will need our patient faith in each other and in layers of love to rise from the rubble and to hope in humanity, again, and again, and again.
Thank you for joining me @belowthebiblebelt929 for this continued journey to make sense of our past so that we can have a better future. Hope and healing, peace and protection - Shabbat Shalom.
Tel Aviv means Rise from Rubble