Jewish History Moment podcast with Ben Bresky
Israel Beat
Seashell Lottery and the Founding of Tel Aviv
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Seashell Lottery and the Founding of Tel Aviv

Meet the pioneers who created the first Modern Hebrew-Speaking City from a barren sand dune.

Israeli’s flourishing metropolis had humble beginnings as a barren sand dune. Learn about the seashell lottery which started the first Hebrew city and the personalities that built it such as Akiva Aryeh Weiss of the Ahuzat Bayit association, Rabbi Yehuda Margusa who settled Jaffa, Jacobus Henricus Kann, the assimilated financier, Yosef Eliyahu Chelouche, the interpreter, Zerah Barnett, the yeshiva student turned entrepreneur, and more.

This mix of men and women, Ashkenazic and Sephardic, joined to build a cosmopolitan, modern, democratic society over 110 years ago, that today is a hub of high-tech innovation.

Seashell lottery apportioning lots for the future city of Tel Aviv, April 11, 1909. Credit: Avraham Soskin
Herzl Street, Tel Aviv with the Herzliya Hebrew High School. Credit: Shemer Historic Preservation in Israel
Sunset over Tel Aviv. Credit: Ben Bresky, 2024

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