A Writer's Guide to Tel Aviv

Beit Ariela is the main library of the Tel Aviv-Yafo network, beside the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The library counts its poetry library among the largest poetry collections in Israel, and poetry discussion evenings meet there. The building also houses the Rambam Library of Judaica and a theatre archive, and the newspaper hall keeps microfilm and bound papers. Registration is free for Tel Aviv residents. Non-residents pay a fee.

The Hebrew Writers Association founded Gnazim in 1951 to hold the papers of modern Hebrew literature. Its manuscripts and letters run from the Haskalah to today, with the papers of Leah Goldberg and Yosef Haim Brenner among them. Visits are Sunday to Thursday, by appointment.

Sourasky is Tel Aviv University's humanities and arts library, with its collections on open shelves and special collections that include rare books and a music library. Entry is free to the public. Borrowing takes a paid library subscription. The nearest campus gates are on Klausner and Klatskin Streets.

Hayim Nahman Bialik's 1924 home is now a municipal house museum and the archive of his manuscripts and speeches. It is one of the culture houses on Bialik Square. The house holds guided tours and literary events, and some archive visits center on rare manuscripts.

The museum's reference art library gives researchers a place to work with art databases and professional journals. Its archives include the Azrieli Architectural Archive and the Israeli Art Documentation Center. The library is open Monday to Thursday.

Sipur Pashut has been open in Neve Tzedek since 2003. Its shelves lean toward original and translated fiction and poetry, with literary theory and an English-books section. Upstairs, the gallery has a couch for reading. The shop holds monthly readings and runs writing workshops and book clubs.

Twin brothers Ilai and Alon-Li Green founded this used and rare bookshop in 2012. Its shelves favor poetry and prose, and it carries signed and rare copies. The brothers also run an auction house, Tre Zouze, for rare books and paper items. The shop opens Sunday to Friday.

HaMigdalor opened in 2010. It stocks books from many independent publishers, imports titles from abroad, and tracks down used and hard-to-find books for customers. Memoirists should look at its workshops in memoir and the personal essay.

Oblomov is a bookshop by day and a culture salon by night. Evenings bring book launches and writing workshops. By day the shelves hold Hebrew and translated fiction, with poetry and art books, and the shop also runs a book club. It opens Sunday to Friday.

Bookhaus sells only English-language books, from a renovated Bauhaus building in north Tel Aviv. Michal Goldschmidt, a former curator at Tate Britain and the Barbican, opened it in 2026. It runs book clubs.

Tola'at Sfarim is a bookstore and café on Rabin Square with its own publishing list, strong in psychoanalysis and psychology. Poetry and fiction fill the shelves too, and there is an English section. It hosts book launches and study days. It opens Sunday to Friday.

The central library's sound-isolated study rooms seat up to six people and have outlets and Wi-Fi. Book online, up to a week ahead and one slot a day; sessions run up to three hours. One room has a bicycle and bar stools in place of a table. The library is open seven days a week.

Two novelists named Tachtit on a Time Out Tel Aviv list of cafés writers love. Shir Pinto said it has been his café since he was ten. It opens daily from early morning into the evening.

Liebling Haus, home of the White City Center, houses the free Liebling Library. Its books are read on site. The building is open every day of the week.

Asif runs a café and deli in its culinary culture center on Lilienblum Street. The center also has a library documenting local food culture and a gallery of changing exhibitions on Israel's food cultures, with an herb farm on the roof. The writer Shai-Li Lipa put it on a Time Out Tel Aviv list of cafés writers love. It closes on Saturdays.

The museum's Studio Café overlooks the Sculpture Garden and serves cakes and light meals. Pastel, a fine-dining restaurant with a terrace and bar, sits at the other end of the garden. Both are next door to Beit Ariela. The museum is closed Sundays and open late on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Lev Café fills the former Mayer family apartment inside Liebling Haus. The room is intimate. It opens daily, so an afternoon in the Liebling Library can end with coffee in the same building.

The Hebrew Writers Association brings together some 500 Hebrew writers and literary scholars at Beit HaSofer, where it holds book launches and reading evenings. It publishes the bimonthly literary magazine Moznaim. It also runs the Gnazim Archive at Beit Ariela, which is open to researchers and journalists.

The Institute works with translators of Hebrew literature. It runs a residency for emerging literary translators, with workshops led by senior translators. Its website keeps a directory of Hebrew writers and their books.

Helicon is a Hebrew-language nonprofit poetry house in Holon, just south of Tel Aviv-Yafo. Its annual poetry school takes poets with no more than one published book. It also runs poetry and prose workshops, some of them online, and publishes the poetry journal Helicon and new collections under Helicon Publishing.

The Porter Institute is a research institute in Tel Aviv University's Shirley and Leslie Porter School of Cultural Studies. It is the editorial home of Poetics Today. In Hebrew it publishes the book series Sifrut, Mashma'ut, Tarbut (Literature, Meaning, Culture) and other books in poetics and literary theory, and it holds events.

The center studies the history and culture of the Jewish people in the Diaspora. It offers postdoctoral fellowships and publishes the journals Michael and Gal Ed. Its archive is open to the public by appointment. Conference recordings are on its YouTube channel.

The Goldreich Institute is Tel Aviv University's home for Yiddish research and events. The university also offers the International Yiddish Summer Program, named for Naomi Prawer Kadar.

Fulbright Israel has run academic exchanges between the United States and Israel since 1956. American academics can apply for Distinguished Scholar awards and postdoctoral fellowships at Israeli institutions. It also runs the Fulbright Specialist Program at Israeli institutions.

Am Oved publishes Hebrew and translated fiction, including new translations of world classics, along with poetry and nonfiction in history and Jewish studies. Its series include Sifriya La'am and Proza Acheret. The press is in Bnei Brak, on Tel Aviv's eastern edge.

Hakibbutz Hameuchad - Sifriat Poalim publishes Hebrew fiction and poetry, both original and in translation. Its nonfiction runs from philosophy and Jewish thought to kibbutz and labor history. It also publishes literary journals. Its offices are in Bnei Brak.

Poetics Today publishes scholars who develop systematic approaches to the study of literature and apply them to literary works, with thematic special issues and book reviews. It is edited at the Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics at Tel Aviv University. Preparing an article for Poetics Today

The Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality gives the Bialik Prize to Hebrew writers and scholars in Israel, in a literary category and a Jewish studies category (Hokhmat Yisrael). It may honor a single book or a body of work. Authors must be Israeli citizens or permanent residents with at least two original books, and the work must first appear in Hebrew.

This award sends an Israeli writer or literary translator with substantial recent published work to the University of Iowa's International Writing Program for a three-month residency. It covers a living allowance, campus lodging and travel. Applicants must be Israeli citizens living in Israel and comfortable speaking English.

The Dan David Prize, headquartered at Tel Aviv University and funded by the Dan David Foundation, recognizes early- and mid-career scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines. Its postdoctoral fellows program takes international and Israeli fellows.

The Brenner Prize is a literary prize sponsored by the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel, which is based at Beit HaSofer in Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv University students can start here for grants and writing resources.

Hamelaha is a screen printing workshop and study center that prints to order on paper and textiles. Artists with screen printing experience can rent stands and equipment in its open workshop. Beginners can take a course or a group workshop. It opens Sunday to Thursday, and Fridays by appointment.