Tel Aviv Street

1910

Photograph of city street.

In 1906, the Ahuzat Bayit (homestead) society was created in Jaffa by members of the Yishuv (the Jewish community of Palestine) as a planned “Hebrew” community, designed in accordance with the latest theories about hygiene and aesthetics. Land was purchased on the outskirts of Jaffa, and in 1909, the new community, today Tel Aviv (“Hill of Spring,” from Ezekiel 3:15), was formally established. Within a year, streets were laid out, water pipes installed, and sixty-six houses built. Many of the buildings were modeled on those in imperial cities in Eastern Europe, such as Odessa and Moscow. The large building seen here at the end of the street was the Herzliya Gymnasium (high school), designed by Joseph Barsky (1876–1943), who took his inspiration from Charles Chipiez’s 1889 imaginary model of the First Temple in Jerusalem.

Credits

ID 838-064, National Photo Collection of Israel, Photography Department Government Press Office / Wikimedia Commons.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

Engage with this Source

You may also like

Painting depicting arches and pews inside of a synagogue.
Tooltip info icon

La Ghriba Djerba, Tunisia

Jules Lellouche painted the interior of this synagogue in Djerba during World War II, when Tunisia was ruled by Vichy France. Though Tunisia’s Jewish community escaped mass deportations and murder in…
View Source
Filigree container in shape of a train car with four wheels and two smoke stacks.
Tooltip info icon

Train-Shaped Besamim Box

In Jewish tradition, the end of the Sabbath (or a festival) is marked by the ceremony of Havdalah, which includes the ritual smelling of spices (besomim). Many Jewish cultures approached the box…
View Source

The Coveted City: Salonika

The city modernizes more and more. One hardly sees those baggy, dark, unsightly breeches of old, the ones that Muslims, Christians, and poor Jews still wore in the middle of the last century. Until…
View Source