Tel Aviv celebrates its 112th anniversary.

On April 11, 1909, during Chol HaMoed Passover, the famous "seashell lottery" took place to allocate plots for the first homes of the first modern Jewish city in Eretz Yisrael*, initiating construction for 66 families.

The idea of founding a town was first proposed three years earlier at a meeting of Jewish residents in Jaffa. Dissatisfaction with rising housing costs, overcrowding, and other social issues prompted two recent immigrants, Akiva Aryeh Weiss and David Smilansky, to propose establishing a fully independent town near Jaffa, rather than another suburb.

Initially met with skepticism, the concept gradually gained support and ultimately succeeded, leading to the formation of the "Ahuzat Bayit" housing society.

However, it took three years to navigate the bureaucracy of the Zionist leadership, the Anglo-Palestine Company (the future Bank Leumi), and the Ottoman government, as well as to purchase the land at an exorbitant price and overcome numerous other obstacles before construction could begin.

Shortly before its launch, the project faced cancellation twice: first, when Ottoman authorities unexpectedly established a military barracks on the site, and later, when several Arab families pitched their tents there and refused to leave. Both issues were resolved financially.

Finally, in the spring of 1909, this high-stakes project transitioned from a plan into reality, and construction of the first modern Jewish city began on what were then desolate sand dunes.

The city received its current name a year later, in May 1910. The first residents wished to honor Theodor Herzl, but since the first street and the first school had already been named after him, they considered "Tel Aviv"—the title Nahum Sokolow used for his Hebrew translation of Herzl's utopian novel *Altneuland*. Among options like Ivriya, Neve Yaffo, Aviva, and Yaffa al-Hadasha, the name we know today was chosen by majority vote.

Although the city grew rapidly, the First World War posed a severe threat, largely due to the Ottoman authorities' hostility and suspicion toward the Jewish population of the Yishuv**. During the war, many Tel Aviv residents were deported, and the city’s leadership, encabezada by Meir Dizengoff, faced mortal danger under frequent accusations of treason and espionage. Although they narrowly escaped execution or deportation several times, all remaining residents were eventually evacuated toward the end of the war under the pretext of an impending maritime invasion, leaving the city temporarily deserted.

Nevertheless, the challenges of the war and postwar periods could not halt the rapid expansion of the city. Thanks to the bold vision of two immigrants from the Russian Empire, it was destined to become the centerpiece of the future Jewish State and a symbol of Zionism. Conceptually representing this legacy, it was in Tel Aviv, inside one of the original homes built in 1909, that the independence of the State of Israel was declared nearly forty years later, marking a new chapter in Jewish history.

* This refers specifically to a city with an entirely Jewish population, rather than an agricultural settlement (which existed earlier) or a mixed historic city such as Jerusalem, Haifa, or Hebron.

** Yishuv (literally "settlement") is a general term denoting the Jewish community and its institutions in Eretz Yisrael prior to the establishment of the State of Israel.