190911 April 1909 · Rothschild Boulevard, Tel Aviv

Founding of Tel Aviv

Families gather on the sand dunes north of Jaffa for the 1909 lottery of plots that founded Tel Aviv — Archival image: Avraham Soskin. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

On 11 April 1909 sixty-six Jewish families from Jaffa gathered on the dunes north of the town and drew lots with seashells for plots in a new garden suburb, Ahuzat Bayit. Renamed Tel Aviv in 1910, after the Hebrew title of Herzl's novel Altneuland, it became the first modern Hebrew-speaking city. Arab Jaffa, its older neighbour, was merged into it in 1950.

Social History
Jewish Heritage
Architecture & Urban History
Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel

Sites

Site 1: Founders' Monument and Fountain, Rothschild BoulevardMonument on the boulevard naming the first families.Map ↗
Site 2: Neve TzedekLow houses and lanes of the 1887 Jewish quarter that came before Tel Aviv.Map ↗