Did you know the full name of the city which is Tel Aviv – Jaffa? And why is it so? Tel Aviv has celebrated his 100th anniversary and Jaffa, a legendary city, has seen the great flood from Bible. The legends say that Noah here built his Ark.
The city’s modern story starts in 1909 when it became as a new district of Jaffa, where Jews lived.
On April 11, 1909 the so-called shells lottery took place on the sand dunes. Akiva Weiss took 60 white and gray shells. On one side of each shell he inscribed the numbers, and on the other he wrote the names of people who were there on those dunes. He divided the shells into two caps and a boy, the son of an apothecary, pulled one from each cap. This day was the day of the foundation of Tel Aviv.
Just in a year the first houses were appeared according to the new plan of the city.
In May 1910 all the people met and discussed how to call their city. And mostly they voted for Tel Aviv. Soon the quarter grew and was the headquarters to host the Jews.
The future inhabitants of Tel Aviv gathered from various countries. The Jews from Russia and Poland returned to their homeland, the German Jews tried to escape Hitler’s repressions. And Tel Aviv started transforming.
In the 30th of the XX century, the architects from German school called "Bauhaus" built many 2-3-storeyed concrete houses on the streets, strictly perpendicular or parallel to the coast. The main objective was to create a low-cost construction of mass housing. These houses are now an architectural monument. Their white beauty made Tel Aviv a part of the UNESCO list of cultural property under the name "White City."
In 1948 Tel Aviv took important role of the capital of independent State of Israel. But it was the capital only during the war. When peace has come, Jerusalem became the capital.
In 1950, there was one more important event for Tel Aviv – together with Jaffa it turned into a new administrative entity, known as Tel Aviv-Jaffa. The process continued and other small cities, located in the surrounding area, joined together.
Sometimes even the inhabitants of these cities do not know if this street belongs to Bat Yam, or is it more of Jaffa (sometimes the boundaries between the cities are right down the street, so the house the same street may be under the jurisdiction of different municipalities).
Tel Aviv is a colorful mixture of modern skyscrapers and small buildings of the first half of the twentieth century. Rich areas on the North of the city sometimes intersect with poor neighborhoods.
Hotels and night clubs on the waterfront of the Mediterranean Sea stand closely to HI-TEC objects.
Tel Aviv is often compared with Manhattan and Ibiza at the same time. If desired, you can find a piece of Paris and a fragment of Casablanca.
