Tel Aviv and its History
Althought it is not the official capital of Israel, The White City is the country’s pulse, the center of the Israelian Economy , culture and cuisine. It’s hard to believe that these streets were nothing but sand dunes.
Having risen from empty sand dunes less than a century ago, Tel Aviv could never hope for the ancient beauty of Israel’s capital.
In the second half of the 19th Century, Jewish pioneers began immigrating here from other parts of the world, and their numbers strained the capacity os the small port. By the late 1880s, Jaffa was overcrowded, rife with disease, and stricken with poverty.
A group of Jewish families moved to the empty sands north of Jaffa to found Neve Tzedek . That was followed by “Ahuzat Bayit” (housing estate) an area to the North of Neve Tzedek that became the precursor of Tel Aviv.
The city took the name “Tel Aviv” on 1909.
“AVIV” for Spring symbolizing renewal and “TEL” is a made manmound accumulating layers of civilization built one over the over symbolizing the ancient.
In the 1930’s and 40’s, the city became known as the
“White City”,
because it was the only one in the world dominated by the International Style of “Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe.
By the 1950’s , however, shoddy imitations of this style led to its decline and many of its buildings fell into disrepair.
The Tel Aviv of today is already vastly different from the Tel Aviv of 50 years ago. Gentrification projects in many neighborhoods are changing the area’s face. Each week rises on another building, and new restaurants and shops appear.
“Look around and try to imagine the scene just 90 years ago, when this teeming metropolis was nothing but sand…”
