David Hare begins his tour of Israel on the Mediterranean coast in Tel Aviv. Hare finds the city Western and modern with California-like highways. Tel Aviv is in fact relatively young, founded in 1909 by Jewish settlers from the port of Jaffa seeking to build the first Jewish city of modern times. Jaffa was incorporated into Tel Aviv in the 1950s during a rapid 20th-century expansion that has seen the city reach a population of around 350,000. Tel Aviv is now a major commercial and financial center.