Aw, Jerusalem. Beneath her shechina soaked skies, she’s so relentlessly unimaginative. Tacky sound’n’light shows mock her old city walls. Ben-Yehuda Mall’s her new city center. Endless faux Jerusalem stone facades backdrop her usual cast of characters. The young dudes with the post-shtetl b&w stick figure look; girl groups retreading the post-Shlomo too many layers over too many layers getup; the ortho-chic, time bound to last decade’s gathered skirt and shawl cliche. Gag me with a shtender!

For a radical change of scenery, bus west to the gritty, sweat soaked streets of south Tel Aviv. Exit at the Central Bus Station, and welcome to Neve Shaanan. Citrus groves long ago, this neighborhood’s dilapidated international-style architecture now shields crowds of minimal-income foreign laborers, refugees, and illegals from Africa, Asia and eastern Europe, and their parasitic moneychangers, check cashers and SIM card sellers. Word is the “Russian Mafia” has set up shop here for its prostitution and human trafficking network. Legitimate and risky business types alongside assorted hanger-outers saturate this safe haven from the furious up-scaling sweeping Tel Aviv-Yafo. Did the freewheelin’ streets make them easy targets for terrorists? From 2002 – 2006, bombers killed 37 and injured more than 200 people in Neve Shaanan.

My camera and I were oft greeted with suspicious glances and evasion. But also with smiles and warm welcomes, and for the asking, workshop tours, coffee and conversation, and tastes at world-food stands. Over a couple of days, I was tossed out of a lotto shop, invited into a music store for new tunes, solicited, cursed, serenaded, and detained for an accident witness statement. Whether all of Neve Shaanan’s newcomers will be absorbed into the great Israeli peoplehood experiment is tbd. For now, an energetic and enterprising spirit fuels hope to move up and out of this low-rent district. Though when speculators finish tidying up nearby Neve Tzedek and Florentine, folks may be outted before they’re ready.