The September holiday of Rosh Hashana will see Rabin Square carpeted with flowers, a joint event with the city of Brussels. A good time to plan a short break is July 16, when Milan’s La Scala will perform Verdi’s Requiem in Yarkon Park – for free.

Failing this, the magnificent Tel Aviv beach will be recreated in Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna and New York’s Central Park this summer, with beach games, DJs, parties, Israeli food and musicians, free and open to all.

One might question what Israel has got to celebrate at the moment. But although the political debate never stops, life goes on in Tel Aviv, as it always has against 100 years of troubled, turbulent history. While Jerusalem, less than an hour down the road, is sombre and devout, Tel Aviv is a party city for the young.

Security is ever-present but nobody stays behind closed doors in fear; not even politicians. I arrange to meet a friend at the Cafe Tamar on hip Sheinkin Street, on a busy Saturday morning. The cafe is a boho, lefty hangout straight out of the 1950s, all formica and faded political posters.

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• Our Man in... Tel Aviv

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I arrive to find it packed with film crews. A beefy security guard accosts me and asks for ID, as I am carrying a camera and a notebook. He turns out to be the personal bodyguard of a Rafi Eitan, a senior government minister who has chosen this very public place for a meeting.

As the elderly politician emerges from the cafe, my friend tells me that Eitan, a former spy, was in charge of the Mossad operation that captured Eichmann, orchestrator of the Holocaust, in Argentina in 1960. I am awestruck.

But Tel Aviv is full of surprises. It’s so accessible. I wander the alleys of Old Jaffa, poking my nose into galleries. In every one, the artist is there, happy to chat. I meet Frank Meisler, who creates intricate metal sculptures and whose ‘Jerusalem Sphere’ pieces are owned by royals and heads of state worldwide.

I talk to to Ilana Goor, an amazing artist and sculptor who lives in her own museum, creating flocks of bronze birds, jewellery and metal furniture. I call in on Adina Plastelina, the atelier of Adi and Sami, who make exquisite jewellery out of rainbow-coloured plastics and keep unearthing pieces of 3,500 year old pottery as they carefully renovate their studio, a former Turkish bath.

In the city’s new Hashmal Garden area, a cluster of unassuming streets around a scruffy little park, young designers have taken advantage of cheap rents and moved in. You can meet them and buy straight from their studio-shops; handbags from Kisim , featured in the movie Sex And The City, pretty gold and silver rings from Mira Mory and stylish leather and gold accessories from Hagar Satat.

Like the city itself, their optimism, energy and joie de vivre are invigorating.

NEED TO KNOW

bmi offers twice-daily flights from Heathrow to Tel Aviv from £305 return. Stay at the Hotel Montefiore, a restored 1922 mansion with Bauhaus-style furnishings in its 12 luxurious rooms (from $350 per room per night; ) or at the Dan Hotel Tel Aviv, right on the beach with a pool and the best breakfasts in town (from around $360 per room per night including breakfast). Details: Tel Aviv-Jaffa Centennial

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