Florentin, Tel Aviv

Florentin פלורנטין‎
Neighborhood
A street cafe in Florentin
Etymology: Named after Solomon Florentin
Coordinates: 32°3′27.33″N 34°46′17.61″E / 32.0575917°N 34.7715583°E / 32.0575917; 34.7715583

Florentin (Hebrew: פלורנטין) is a neighborhood in the southern part of Tel Aviv, Israel, named for Solomon Florentin [he],^[1] 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 Jewish immigrants from North Africa, Bulgaria, Turkey, Greece, and Bukhara. As with much of south Tel Aviv, for many decades it suffered from urban decay and poverty. By the 1960s, the area had declined from a working-class area to a slum, as the original residents moved out. However, since the 1990s and 2000s, the area has attracted many younger residents and artists who were first attracted by its lower rents, and the neighborhood is now also associated with a bohemian lifestyle. Florentin now has numerous artists' workshops, cafes, restaurants, markets, and graffiti tours.^[2][3] The area is also an industrial zone and a garment district, where both Jewish and Arab wholesalers buy and sell clothing and furniture.^[4]