Tel Aviv Untold

Tel Aviv Untold Fascinating stories of Tel Aviv’s history and architecture

This is May, 1st, 1949. Tel Aviv goes crazy demonstrating with lenin and stalin
01/05/2023

This is May, 1st, 1949. Tel Aviv goes crazy demonstrating with lenin and stalin

Nelly Baruch a.k.a. Borisovna, Balalaika ensemble, and others taking part in a matinee performance 80 years ago at Mogra...
24/03/2023

Nelly Baruch a.k.a. Borisovna, Balalaika ensemble, and others taking part in a matinee performance 80 years ago at Mograbi Cinema at Allenby street. 1943 should have been the year of victory

Tel Aviv is a square though a very open city. Here is another proof of that: a closed box open wide by
22/03/2023

Tel Aviv is a square though a very open city. Here is another proof of that: a closed box open wide by

Joseph Berlin’s eclectic style mixed with local art deco in his private house at Rothschild 64. These pictures were made...
21/03/2023

Joseph Berlin’s eclectic style mixed with local art deco in his private house at Rothschild 64. These pictures were made by an amazingly talented photographer Eugeny Petrushansky .lib who is currently exhibited at .gallery , don’t miss it!

Ci******es and newspapers: they go together well but we can’t buy any of a kind in the street anymore. This is Allenby, ...
20/03/2023

Ci******es and newspapers: they go together well but we can’t buy any of a kind in the street anymore. This is Allenby, 30, Tel Aviv, 1962

This photo by Willem van de Poll, the photographer who documented the Warsaw Ghetto and the Sudetenland, then was appointed the official photographer of the Dutch royal family and still traveled a lot to Israel and loved taking pictures of Tel Aviv of the 1960s

We know Purim’s over but couldn’t help posting this fabulous photo: Purim Parade 1968, the mascots of Saddam Husein (?) ...
19/03/2023

We know Purim’s over but couldn’t help posting this fabulous photo: Purim Parade 1968, the mascots of Saddam Husein (?) and Gamal Abdel Nasser are floating over the crowd. Ibn Gvirol 123, Tel-Aviv

Winston Churchill visited Tel Aviv in 1921 being Secretary of State for the Colonies. The city was still young, and its ...
13/10/2022

Winston Churchill visited Tel Aviv in 1921 being Secretary of State for the Colonies. The city was still young, and its newly planted trees were not yet full grown. Mayor Dizengoff invented a Potyomkin-village-plan

He sent his men to Mikveh Israel, the first Jewish agricultural school, and assigned them to cut their beautiful trees at night and to bring them to Tel Aviv. The trees without roots were simply stuck into the middle of Rothschild Boulevard.

Reportedly, Churchill was amazed at the sight of such lush development having taken place in such a very short time. But he burst into laughter after local children climbed the trees for a look at the respected visitor – and the trees collapsed.

- There’s no luck here for anyone without roots, - he said (yeah, there are many quotes attributed to Churchill that he never said, but who cares!)

In photo, there are Churchill and Dizengoff, and a girl, Tehila Gilutz, who has died recently at the age of 106.

Giving out ice in Tel Aviv. These boys definitely love it1936
06/10/2022

Giving out ice in Tel Aviv. These boys definitely love it

1936

After the boisterous modernist 1930s Tel Aviv’s architectural fame went far beyond the Middle East. The N***s who (by a ...
20/09/2022

After the boisterous modernist 1930s Tel Aviv’s architectural fame went far beyond the Middle East. The N***s who (by a coincidence of course) hated both modernism and Jews, made an antisemitic caricature of Weissenhof Estate. A modernist housing estate built for the 1927 Deutscher Werkbund exhibition in Stuttgart appeared to look exactly like Tel Aviv. Some German photo artist populated it with camels and people in white clothes. Haha, lovely joke… Swiping left you can see the original Stuttgart exhibition

The Italian touch doesn’t always have to be Roman or Palladian. Take a look at the Cymbalista synagogue built by the Swi...
19/09/2022

The Italian touch doesn’t always have to be Roman or Palladian. Take a look at the Cymbalista synagogue built by the Swiss architect Mario Botta in 1998

Professor Anat Helman, who we mentioned earlier, tells another story about Austerity (the policy of food rationing impos...
22/07/2022

Professor Anat Helman, who we mentioned earlier, tells another story about Austerity (the policy of food rationing imposed from 1949 to 1959):

The objection to invasive rationing supervision was widespread among Israelis, and so when inspectors boarded buses, looking for chickens and eggs smuggled from the countryside to the cities, many passengers joined in a collective “hens’ clucking,” thus helping the culprits conceal real chickens.

Zeev Heller built this beautiful house in 1933 for Zadok Ehrlich, the country’s first metal tycoon. In 2014, seven new f...
08/07/2022

Zeev Heller built this beautiful house in 1933 for Zadok Ehrlich, the country’s first metal tycoon. In 2014, seven new flats were added to the building by

Ehrlich House, 79 Herzl Street by Ze'ev Haller, 1933

"I am quite astonished that the finality of my answer in the first cable was not understood".Arturo Toscanini, one of th...
04/07/2022

"I am quite astonished that the finality of my answer in the first cable was not understood".

Arturo Toscanini, one of the greatest conductors of all time, was a keen supporter of the Salzburg Festival. Until 1938. When the N***s invaded Austria, Toscanini claimed he would never come there again. Then the Festival kept begging him, and Toscanini raised an eyebrow as quoted above.

Indeed, Toscanini was a vehement anti-Fascist. But besides, had he agreed, how would Toscanini have looked his friends in the eye? Two years earlier, he had visited Tel Aviv. Toscanini conducted the first opening season concerts of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, now known as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Needless to say, it was a triumph.

We’re starting a new feature in Tel Aviv Untold. It’s called Third Generation Telavivian. We are going to post stories a...
29/06/2022

We’re starting a new feature in Tel Aviv Untold. It’s called Third Generation Telavivian. We are going to post stories about hereditary citizens of Tel Aviv and their honorable grandfathers and great-grandfathers. This is our friend Amir Reifer, the owner of HOC, and his father Meir. In the photographs, there are Meir’s parents Ionel and Iosefina with his grandfather Tuvia and Meir himself. One of them was taken in a rotisserie on Dizengoff around 1963. In the early 1960s, little Meir would usually be brought to this café by grandfather Tuvia, and they would eat a whole roasted chicken together. By the way, does anyone remember the name of the chicken place on Dizengoff?

Tuvia, Ionel and Iosefina made their aliyah in 1950. At first they lived in Haifa and finally moved to Tel Aviv in 1960. They settled on HaHalutzim street in Florentin and lived there for 7 years. They moved up north to Mossinzon street in May 1967, a month before the Six-Day War.

We are happy to announce an open call for other third, fourth, or fifth generation telavivians. Please PM us if you are willing to be photographed with your old family photos.

On the site of the current Migdalor building (Allenby 29) there once was another Migdalor. The architects of both Migdal...
22/06/2022

On the site of the current Migdalor building (Allenby 29) there once was another Migdalor. The architects of both Migdalors were named Arieh. Which Migdalor do you like more – Arieh Sharon’s Migdalor (1934) or Arieh El-Hanani’s (1977) Migdalor?

In fact, there are two streets in Tel Aviv named after Bialik. One is actually Bialik street (the one with the wild rang...
06/06/2022

In fact, there are two streets in Tel Aviv named after Bialik. One is actually Bialik street (the one with the wild range of houses from eclectic to Bauhaus). The other one is Chen Boulevard. Chen (ן״ח) is the acronym of Bialik's given names - Chaim Nahman (חיים נחמן).

If you’ve ever walked around the Old Port area (we bet you have!), you have probably noticed this Hebrew Worker statue. ...
02/06/2022

If you’ve ever walked around the Old Port area (we bet you have!), you have probably noticed this Hebrew Worker statue. It was designed for the famed Levantine Fair in 1934 (the one with the Flying Camel we wrote about earlier). The avant-garde Worker still stands on its site. It was designed by Arieh El-Hanani (born as Arieh Sapozhnikov in Poltava), a long-time pioneer of Tel Aviv aesthetic, who not only designed the Worker and the official logo of the Israeli Defense Forces but also projected the entire Migdalor tower, that white giant at 29 Allenby (by the way, we are posting something about it next time)

Have you seen our last post about Tel Aviv Zoo? Photo by Micha Bar-Am, 1974
19/05/2022

Have you seen our last post about Tel Aviv Zoo? Photo by Micha Bar-Am, 1974

Until 1980 the Tel Aviv zoo was located in the very center of the city, at 65 Hayarkon (just around the corner from wher...
16/05/2022

Until 1980 the Tel Aviv zoo was located in the very center of the city, at 65 Hayarkon (just around the corner from where the US Consulate is now). István Irsai from Hungary (who changed his name to פסח ער-שי upon his aliyah) designed this beautiful poster for the Tel Aviv Zoo.

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