Young Israeli musicians and artists have discovered Berlin as a cool place to live and work – By Robert Rigney

They are used to neighborhoods in which different cultures mix. But what young Israelis aren’t used to is cheap living and an anything-goes mentality. That is why they love Berlin.

An Israeli flag hangs over the dance floor, Eastern melodies and Hebrew pop pound from the loudspeakers: its Meschugge night in Berlin. DJ Aviv Netter is manning the turntables at the biggest and latest Israeli party in the city, whose nightlife is fast becoming infused by young Israeli DJs and musicians and their spicy, Middle Eastern-Mediterranean shakshuka sounds.

“I want to show the non-kosher side of Israel,” says Netter, who is hip, young, gay and in love with Berlin, where he has been living for the last four years.

It takes about three hours to fly from Tel Aviv to Berlin and there are five flights a day from Israel to the German capital. For the past two years, numerous young Israelis – particularly artists and musicians – have been arriving in Berlin in droves. One comes, then friends come, then more friends – like a rolling snowball.

A lot of them have ended up in north Neukölln, an up-and-coming new neighborhood bordering Kreuzberg, where the rents are cheap and a plethora of new bars have sprung up over the past couple of years catering to a young, international clientele. For many young Germans, Neukölln, with its high percentage of Arabs and Turks and stories of violent street gangs, sounds ominous. But not for Israelis.

“It’s like Israel,” said Tal Kirshboim, bass player in the four-piece Greek-Israeli bouzouki band Mr. Mostash. “The whole mixture, the Arabs, the Eastern feel of it reminds me of Israel.”

“We mix right in,” added drummer Ariel Armoni. “No one feels at home because there are many foreigners. Even the Germans in Neukölln don’t feel at home because everything is so strange. And yet they mix somehow. It’s nice.”

Band members knew of each other in Israel but only met face-to-face in Berlin. Gigs in underground Neukölln venues quickly followed. A Greek female singer joined the band two years ago and soon Mr. Mostash was playing concerts in trendy bars like Kaffee Burger and, last summer, in Israel.

“The music scene in Israel is interesting,” said bouzouki player Liad Vanounou. “There are many, many, many good musicians but it’s a very small community and there are not very many people in Israel. Here you can play four, five, six times a month. In Israel, it’s once a month if you’re lucky.”

“Also, the main difference is that people here go out to have fun, to hang out,” said Ariel. “I think the Israeli audience takes the music much more seriously. And they won’t start to move their feet unless the music is the best that they have heard in their lives.”

“The Israeli audience is also afraid to dance,” added Liad. “Because it’s too hot, you know.”

What attracts young Israelis to Berlin can be narrowed down to two things: cheap rents and the famous anything-goes mentality of this city where fashion has few if any rules and mix-and-match is the order of the day. “It’s cool,” said Liad. “There are no rules and no one really gives a damn. You want to look like this, no problem. And nothing is weird, you know.”

Gad Hinkis, an Iroquois-coiffed Israeli musician who plays in the electro swing-band Dirty Honkers and lives in a shared apartment with several other Israelis in Friedrichshain, agrees.

“In Israel if I was just doing something weird with my hair or anything else, people just look and say, ‘what a freak.’ Here, it is different.”

“There is no such thing as weird,” added Liad.

“It’s the land of freaks,” quipped Gad. 

Both Liad and Gad are friends with Gabriel S. Moses, a young Israeli comic book artist living in Berlin, who has recently had a graphic novel set in Israel’s subcultural milieu published by German publishers Archiv der Jugendkulturen Verlag to much critical acclaim. He lives in a shared apartment on Frankfurterallee and describes the allure of Berlin as, “Free coffee and cheaper than a movie.” In contrast to Israel, says Gabriel, you can live in Berlin as an artist and not have to struggle to make ends meet.

War is another factor.

“Even when there isn’t a war, everywhere there’s war,” said Gabriel of Israel. “You go to the supermarket, you stand in line: there’s a war. You walk down the street, someone walks by you: there’s a war. You try to make ends meet, you try to make a living: there’s a war.  It’s just a constant feeling of being oppressed as an individual.”

Berlin at the moment is exerting its magnetic attraction around the world. Americans, French, Italians, Spanish are flocking into the city like never before. That Israelis are now making Berlin their home may on the face of it seem surprising owing to Germany’s history. But as Gabriel says, “That whole thing about Germany as being Nazi-ville is history. Berlin is now just a cool place to live and work.”