In 1906, Akiva Arieh Weiss, a 38-year-old jeweler and watchmaker, immigrates from Russian Poland in Jaffa together with his wife and six children. His social life is flourishing. He becomes head of the building cooperative Ahuzat Bayit (“Homestead” in Hebrew), the objective of which is to establish a new modern Hebrew city. Life in an old, dirty and congested Jaffa became unbearable for Jews.

As early as in April 1909, when all the red tape related to purchase of 12 hectares in a desert next to Jaffa was over, a famous shell lottery took place. Weiss collected 66 light and 66 dark shells. He wrote the names of housing equity holders on the light shells and the numbers of participants on the dark shells. To ensure that everything was as unbiased as possible, infants pulled out light and dark shells alternately from the two sacks. This remarkable moment was captured in a documentary photo (where Weiss in white pants is standing above the crowd).

Just a year later, the quarter was given a new name (“Tel” for “a small hill” and “Aviv” for “barley ripening, spring”) after the novel by Theodor Herzl, father of the Zionit Organization. Look at the first images of the city and compare them to what you see now. It is amazing how much you can achieve in as little as 100 years if you have such a strong vision!
A modest house of this visionary is still there. Have you noticed the Russian style of the building?

What is now Rothschild Boulevard was designed between two dunes. Even though the place was covered in sand, it was not the most practical construction site for houses. Then, trees were planted there to make a replica of the Champs-Elysées (!). Another Weiss’s dream came true. Being referred to as “the street of the people”, it became the center of social life in the new neighborhood. The best clothes were chosen to go for a Saturday walk there. A stall was built at the very beginning of the Boulevard. It sold gazoz, sparkling water with syrups. The stall is still there. It was both business and dating meeting point. There is also the first gas streetlight ever. Arabs from Jaffa and Bedouins from the neighboring areas came to the Boulevard to see this gas streetlight being lit, which seemed a real miracle.
A new tourism information stall is just a stone’s throw from the old one. You can get more maps and descriptions of the local attractions there.

The first well in Tel Aviv was dug exactly where the very "shell lottery" was held. Later, a water tower was built here with the premises of the settlement council on the ground floor and a holding cell in a basement. Today there is the Founders’ Fountain, on one side of which there are names of the first 66 settlers and on the other a low relief that shows the stages of how the city developed, from snakes and turtles to ports and squares. Find an image of the above-mentioned water tower and take a look at the two buildings to its right. We will come back to them later.

A nondescript house shown at the low relief of the Founder’s Fountain is a holy site for millions of Israelis. This is the house of Meir Dizengoff, Tel Aviv's first mayor, where on May 14, 1948, the establishment of the state of Israel was declared. Dizengoff had lived here since 1910, but in 1931, when his wife Zina passed away, he donated all his property, including the house, to the museum of Tel Aviv. The building was reconstructed, while the mayor himself lives on the third floor. The humbleness and significance of this public figure is reflected in the Meir Dizengoff statue opposite the house.

There are plenty of interesting stories on the declaration of Israel’s independence. For instance, it was vital to choose a place that would be as inconspicuous and as safe as possible before Shabbat began!

We will finish our narration of the neighborhood’s story by its logical continuation. Barely 50 years after the “shell lottery”, construction of one of the tallest buildings began in deserted dunes near Jaffa. It would then become the first skyscraper in the Middle East. Mordechai Meir, an entrepreneur, decided to build a high-rise building in American style. He dedicated it to his father, naming the building Migdal Shalom Meir. The impressiveness of the new building was mind-boggling. A 34-story palace was built in a country that had existed for as little as 17 years and was in the middle of getting used to refrigerators and had no television yet. The building was state-of-the-art, with escalators, a central air conditioning system, ten fast elevators, an underground parking lot and a future underground station below. Between 1965 and 1999 the skyscraper was the tallest building in Israel and one of the tallest structures in Europe. It was also built on a site which is a place of worship for Israel.

This is both the first school where lessons are taught in Hebrew and the first public building in Tel Aviv. Founded in Jaffa in 1905 for 17 students, the pioneering school of two rooms quickly grows in popularity. In 1909, the construction of the magnificent building inspired by Solomon’s Temple began three months after the “shell lottery”. It was designed to become a symbol of the revival of Zionism. To make it visible for anyone arriving to Jaffa on train is one of the reasons why the building is across the street. Later on, this controversial decision marked the end of the school which was awkwardly sprawling in the city center.

The first couple of years, Tel Aviv looked something like a campus. Finding out about the progressive Hebrew high school in Promised Land, many Jews started to send their children to study there. For some it was the only opportunity to get decent education. For example, there were quotas for Jews in schools of the Russian Empire. Half of the students were foreigners, who, as a whole, represented about a quarter of the city’s population.
Lessons were given following the latest secular methodology. Students could go to school without a kippah, lead a discussion with a teacher and even disagree. What is more, boys and girls studied together. In general, the gymnasium was an emblematic forward-looking facility for the city until 1930s.

Later, the center of Tel Aviv was shifted to other neighborhoods. So, in 1959, without excess sentiments, a graduate of this very gymnasium Mordechai Meir pulled down the old building which bothered everyone to erect his gigantic skyscraper.
Since then, the façade of the Herzliya Gymnasium is a symbol of the Israeli social movement for preservation of cultural heritage.