Tel Aviv Marks 120 Years Since Its Founding as a Jaffa Neighborhood

Tel Aviv, now Israel's bustling metropolis, was founded 120 years ago on the evening of the 12th of Tammuz (Hebrew calendar) as a quiet neighborhood of Jaffa. On that summer evening in 1906, a group of 120 people gathered in a small club in Jaffa to establish the "Ahuzat Bayit" association, which laid the foundation for what would become the largest city in Israel since the destruction of the Second Temple. The architect Akiva Aryeh Weiss led the initiative, envisioning a modern Hebrew city inspired by New York, which he described as the gateway to America, hoping Tel Aviv would become the "New York of Palestine."

The founders were motivated to leave Jaffa due to overcrowding, poor sanitation, and Ottoman restrictions that forced Jewish residents to relocate annually. Tel Aviv was the first city in the region to build water pipes into homes, replacing the common practice of using water cisterns. Since the Ottoman authorities forbade Jews from purchasing land directly, Dutch banker and Zionist Jacobus Kann bought land parcels on behalf of Jewish families. After three years of challenges, including accusations of profiteering published by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda's newspaper "HaTzvi," the neighborhood was established.

On the morning of the 20th of Nisan 1909, 66 families gathered on the sand dunes north of Jaffa for a lottery to allocate land plots. Weiss collected 120 shells, half white with family names and half gray with plot numbers, which children drew to assign plots. This event was captured by photographer Abraham Soskin, immortalizing the moment when the neighborhood began to take shape.

Tel Aviv also played a significant role as a center of Hasidic Judaism for about 40 years, hosting around 20 prominent rebbes from the 1920s to the 1970s. Hasidic prayer houses and study halls were scattered throughout the city, with notable figures such as Rabbi Eliezer Hager of Vizhnitz and Rabbi Israel Friedman of Husyatyn establishing institutions there. By the 1960s and 1970s, many Hasidic leaders moved to Bnei Brak.

From its founding until 1975, Tel Aviv was Israel's largest city, reaching a population peak of nearly 394,400 in 1963. In 1975, Jerusalem surpassed it in population size and has remained the largest city since. The city's origins as a small neighborhood in Jaffa contrast sharply with its current status as a vibrant urban center.