Tel Aviv, as in New Jersey

Marnie Sehayek, a photographer based between Los Angeles and Tel Aviv (sounds nice), published a series of photos Thursday on Vice vertical Broadly, titled “Partying At The ‘Jersey Shore’ Of Tel Aviv.”

“Every city has its own misunderstood version of bros and the girls they date,” she writes. And like the beach bums and clubbangers of New Jersey, Tel Aviv’s “partiers are more complicated than the stereotypes about them.”

In Tel Aviv, Israel… people use loaded words like ars (or the plural arsim) for Jewish bros and frecha (or the plural frechot) for female arsim.



The Arabic word ars means pimp. People use arsim to refer to Mizrahi Jews hailing from predominantly Arab countries. Much like guido, ars is sometimes a derogatory term fraught with class and racial undertones–it’s rare to find someone who self-identifies as an ars. But like the residents of New Jersey, Tel Aviv’s partiers are more complicated than the stereotypes about them. They vary in age and appearance, for instance.

Her images are well worth a look. View them here.

Related: An Ode to Tel Aviv, Long Lost Lover