Dancing on Dizengoff

T

here are moments when it’s crystal clear to everyone present that what they’re experiencing has a meaning beyond the actual event itself.

Just such a scene took place last Thursday night at a double hachnassas sefer Torah in central Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square.

For an hour and a half, traffic came to a halt. Café goers videoed. Shoppers clapped along. From balconies and rooftops, people stopped to look at the display of pure Jewish joy in the streets below.

To many participants, it was clear that there was a subtext: that here in the center of Tel Aviv — a secular bastion that had once been home to a bustling religious life — Jewish observance was at home.