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It all started in Tel Aviv's Florentin neighborhood last year during the street protests along Rothschild Boulevard near -not coincidentally- the Bar-Ilan University.   The protesters were, as it worked out, prolific in their output of graffiti - much of it political in content.   Guy Sharett, a Hebrew language instructor in that area was almost immediately inundated with questions from his students as to the meanings of various graffiti they observed on their way to and from classes - the graffiti was obviously in Hebrew script, yet in most instances, entirely elusive as to message content.

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Sharret quickly saw the possibilities, and commenced taking his students, and others, on paid guided tours of the neighborhood.   While much of the graffiti was in the ancient Hebrew language in the strictest sense, many times it was 'derived' from Hebrew in imaginative fashion by the graffiti artists.   On these graffiti tours of the neighborhood, Sharret is able to put it all into context for his students, as he slowly brings the ancient national language of Israel back to life for them with real, present-day uses - and misuses, explaining as he goes along.

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Graffiti in Israel is much more into politics, culture and everyday-life concerns, rather than just tags and artistic expressionism.   Local graffiti is more a living, breathing, changing palette of current events and sentiments : a fast-track inroad into the culture itself - as seen, uncensored, from street level.    And as a result, Sharret is finding that it's not only Israeli students who are signing up for the tours - his recent street walks have included a Chinese university graduate, a poet and financial consultant, an employee of Google from Rhode Island, a resident British instructor, and a political science professor from New York.

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Sharret's graffiti walk-abouts are not waning in popupularity; the inverse is in fact true.   However, one wonders how much longer it will be before the tours become 'institutionalized', and, darkly, how much longer before graffiti is 'planted' along the route in an effort to propagandize these street-level learning adventures.    But for the time being, they are the real thing, and continue to help make a once-archaic language 'come to life' once again.

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