Wouldn't Toronto be considered a "Midwest" hub?
I guess it is a gateway. But that's one compared to JFK, EWR, YUL, YYZ (still close enough to east coast), MIA and IAD.
From where I live, it doesn't make much a difference to me whether they open up PHL-TLV or ORD-TLV, as long as it's successful and offers more capacity and competition into TLV.
For the large community of 08701 PHL could be another decent option, but it would be an uphill struggle to take traffic away from EWR. Does PHL have enough local demand?
@Dan was surprised (as were many of us) that UA decided to start IAD-TLV rather than ORD-TLV. So if ORD-TLV made more sense in many people's minds than IAD-TLV, why wouldn't it make more sense over PHL-TLV?