The Tel Aviv Farmers’ Market

by Mel Rosenberg - מל רוזנברג

After fruitful careers as a scientist and inventor I've gone back to what I love most - writing children's books Read More

Joined Oct 2013
Published Books 1560

Tel Aviv doesn’t have farmers.

But it does have a farmers’ market.

Most people have never seen a real farmer before, so here is one.

Two, actually.

Amiel is a farmer. Roni is a farmer’s daughter. Seriously.

Amiel and Roni, a farmer and his daughter

Amiel grows Japanese apples and Canadian raspberries. In Israel.

Amiel is always smiling.

Amiel holds a Japanese apple at the Tel-Aviv farmer

Amiel’s partner, Golani never ever smiles. He collects the money (quite a lot) for Amiel’s fruit. He never smiles. You had better pay the full amount.

Talia is a farmer, originally from the US. Together with her fiance, Ori, she grows colorful tomatoes, and sweet little peppers. We give her some money. She gives us a huge bag of delicious bab tomatoes, sweet pepper, and surprises (today’s surprise – limes). She is a friend. And, unlike Golani, she never stops smiling.

Talia grows colorful tomatoes, and sweet little peppers

Talia also sells pumpkins. I don’t know why. Israelis don’t celebrate Hallowe’en. But Talia doesn’t give up. I guess she is an optimistic (actually, I know she is).

Next to the veggie stand, I smell something. Is it an open sewer? No, it is Atalia selling ripe cheese.

Somewhat surprised, we said, “Cheese?”. She smiled. So we had to take her picture.

She gave us a slice to taste. It was really good. So we put her in the book.

Down the aisle, the smell of the cheese was replaced by something enticing. Incence.

Ayelet sells incence at the farmer’s market. She is not a farmer, but she has a cousin who knows someone who once was.

She said that her incence is high quality. I bought some for my sixties class.

I asked Ayelet whether her products can get you stoned. So she tried to sell me some of these as well.

She’s spiritual enough, but deep down, an entrepreneur as well.

Next door to her are two very happy people. They make yummy (I tasted it) liquor from passiflora (passion fruit).

They are very passionate about what they do. They also keep drinking the samples that they pour for customers to sample. No wonder they are smiling.

Revi and Yaniv sell delicious tehina and olive oil from their moshav (agricaultural settlement) near Ashkelon. I don’t know about the oil, but Revi’s smile and the tehina are both world class.

But a word of caution. My eye caught some false advertising on his t-shirt. No way he is a real basketball player.