Purim Celebrations at Tel Aviv Port

In this post, you can find our experience of Purim celebrations at Tel Aviv port. We visited both the 2015 Air Carnaval and the 2017 celebrations.

You can find annual Purim celebrations all over Israel. Several times we (my daughter and me) visited those celebrations in Tel Aviv port (official site, only in Hebrew), at the promenade. And in this post, I’m going to tell you about it.

Map of the area:

Purim Air Carnival at Tel Aviv Port (2015)

First of all, this Purim event was hosted from 11 till 17. For me, 11 seems like a problematic time. If you have toddlers that are still sleeping at noon then you either can’t go or go for a short period of time. And even if your kids aren’t sleeping and noon, most kids wake up early. This means that parents will have to figure something else (maybe additional attraction) for the morning. And lastly, these are the hottest hours during the day. But, the organizers of this event weren’t the only ones. In fact, one of the reasons I choose this event is because it started at 11. All other events started at 12 or even 13. Yep, Israelis like to sleep late 😉

So we arrived early and played at the playgrounds in the promenade and around 11 went to check out what was on:

People started gathering, but still, nothing operating.

First Hebrew Carousel

One of the first things that started operating was the carousel. In 1932, there was an operating carousel in Tel Aviv port. And after 82 years it was returned almost to the same spot.

The design was made to fit that period. Old style horses and of course Susita. Susita is probably the most famous car that was produced in Israel. The fist model called Sabra was manufactured in 1958. And a year later Susita was born (1960’s car on a 1930’s carousel?). By the way, there was a competition who offers the best name to the Israeli car and Susita was proposed by six different people. This car was produced for little more than a decade and then the firm went bankrupt. Since then there is no car manufacturing in Israel.

Though I didn’t find any evidence in the net, to me it looks that Susita is a combination of two words “sus” and “ta” which means “horse” and “compartment”, lit. horse with compartment (but there could also be other variations, for example, see ancient city Susita next Sea of Galilee).

Here we’re at one of the fair play station games:

And here is a member of the Spanish group “CAL Y CANTO” holding a flying figure:

A look at these figures:

Peter Pan at Flying Trapeze

One of the main attractions was: Flying trapeze. There were several shows during the day. And in between, it was open to the public. Anybody (starting from the age of 5) could try it out and check how the promenade looks from 12 m height.

The show called Peter Pan and here is:
you guessed it, Tinkerbell (p.s. she forgot to shave 😉 ).

Peter Pan (played by a girl) fighting the pirates and Tinkerbell with a beard was hiding behind her:

From there they continued with a series of jumps and here are some of them:

Then we saw Brazilian style small Purim carnival parade:

If I’m not mistaken the next show called “Airtime”:
If I put it delicately, they still need more practice. Too many goofs for one show, with the worst part where the actress fell with her head down on concrete. She finished the show standing on her legs.

Tightrope Walking

And the last show that we saw that day, was tightrope walking:

Well actually, there was not only walking. There was bicycle riding, sitting, jumping and others.

And even climbing a ladder:

Walking with closed eyes:

And the last stunt is something I haven’t seen previously. With two long straps he tied his shoes to the rope and then let go:

After about five 360 forward spins he stopped and here he shows that now he will start spinning backward:

During one of the backward spins:
You probably shouldn’t eat for a half day before a stunt like this 🙂

To sum up, thumbs up for the Purim at Air organizers, overall it was a good experience. But, there are still things that should be improved. The official site contained only general description. You didn’t know where (it’s a pretty big compound and walking from one show to another could take you ten minutes) and when each show started. I’ve noticed that somebody from the organizing team had maps with timetables, so I asked for one. But, for some reason, these brochures were put in a corner and few people got them. Later on, each time I looked at this map, I got asked by a few people where I got it.

Purim 2017 at Tel Aviv Port

The Air Carnaval described above took place in 2015. In 2016 we went to Adloyada in Petah Tikva. And in 2017 we returned to check what Tel Aviv has to offer.

One semi improvement is this stand which makes it clear what and where each event is taking place:
Why semi improvement? Because they still didn’t update the website. So you can’t know in advance what is going to be there and when. I had to guess the starting hour. Luckily I guessed 10 am (rarely events in Israel start before 10) and I was right.

The first show was held by this performer:
It was about 40 min show where volunteers sang songs and showed their costumes. Mostly aimed at younger children.

In the background, you can see this big inflatable attraction. It was for older kids (if I remember correctly, starting from 7 years old), thus we didn’t go there. But in the end, the age didn’t matter since for most of the time (we were there) this attraction was closed. Putting this just next to the sea isn’t a great idea. The winds were strong and I saw as the whole attraction fell on the side. Luckily nobody wasn’t hurt.

Drumming Session

Then we went to see these two drummers:
As you can see one of them is with her back to us. She called it a 360 drumming event.

Drumming with volunteers dancers:

The balloon procession:

Well, not sure I can call it a procession. There were teenagers walking around with three big balloons.

There were several more activities like jumping on individual trampolines, drumming on big balls, hula hoops and various gaming stands.

Stilts Show

The most impressive show we saw that day was the last one. It was by this Spanish group on stilts:

These were not standard stilts, they had some springs in the stilts, so they were able to perform jumps and various acrobatic stunts.


Jumping above a volunteer:

And in the end they performed rope jumping:

And even more complex rope jumping:

When we headed back there was a group of tourists from the far east. And when they saw this couple dressed as Japanese they started laughing. Then they took their picture and one of them even asked to take a picture together with them:

As you can see the 2017 Purim event was aimed mostly for younger children and it was quite nice. But, since it changes from year to year and almost no information is available beforehand it’s hard to know what to expect in following years.

That’s it for today. Hope you enjoyed this post and see you in future travels!

For additional POI nearby check out Tel Aviv – Jaffa page or browse attractions map.

Additional Resources

Here are several resources that I created to help travelers:

• Trip Planner with Attractions and Itineraries is the page that will help you create your perfect travel route.
• What is the Best Time to visit Israel? To answer this question, we will consider the weather, prices, holidays, festivals, and more.
• Information and Tips for Tourists to Israel will answer the most common questions tourists have about Israel (including safety, passports, weather, currency, tipping, electricity, and much more).
• Israel National Parks and Nature Reserves include a complete list, top ten, map, tickets (Israel Pass, Matmon, combo), and campsites.
• If you are looking for things to do, here are the pages for Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Sea Of Galilee, Akko (Acre), Eilat, Nazareth, Safed (Tzfat), and Makhtesh Ramon.