The Party Is Over for Allenby 58

Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Crossposted from Haaretz
The life cycle of the building at 58 Allenby Street in Tel Aviv, with its glory days and its bleaker days, is a microcosm of trends and fashions that have affected the city from the 1930s to today.
As a movie theater built in 1937, it integrated well into the inhabitants’ leisure lives and became an architectural icon on what was once Tel Aviv’s main drag for shopping and entertainment.
In the 1980s, it was abandoned as part of the movie theaters’ migration to large shopping centers and for a short time it screened pornographic films. In the 1990s the Allenby Cinema became a pioneering club that entirely turned around the nightlife scene and attracted the best DJs from all over the world.
Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
