It Looks Better in French
Ashkelon?s French Resort in 1963. Image by GPO
Crosspsted from Haaretz
Ashkelon?s French Resort in 1963. Image by GPO
June 1970 marked a new era for Ashkelon, with the dedication of the French Resort on its southern beach, at the far end of Ben-Gurion Boulevard. The resort took on mythical proportions, symbolizing the luxury, hedonism and glamour of foreign locales at a time when most Israelis still vacationed at retreats operated by the Histadrut labor federation. The mainly French vacationers who went there found themselves in a unique architectural setting that allowed them to be part of an independent community with private accommodations.
Forty years later, few signs remain of the permissive aura that surrounded it. Today the complex is home to elderly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and is showing its age.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
