Tel Aviv history

Tel Aviv was founded in 1909, when a small group of Jewish families moved from the overcrowded, insanitary and hostile Arab town of Jaffa to a selected desert spot where the construction of Tel Aviv began.

In a short time, Tel Aviv absorbed tens of thousands of refugees from Europe, Asia, Africa and South America and turned them into free citizens in their own homeland - thousands more new immigrants settle here every year.

The city took its name from the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzl's inspirational Zionist novel Altneuland (Old New Land). The Hebrew title Tel Aviv combined the ideas of antiquity (tel, an ancient site) and radiant newness (aviv, springtime).

Much of the original Tel Aviv, around the popular Rothschild Boulevard, was built in the pre-war Bauhaus or internationalist style. The city now has the world's largest surviving collection of Bauhaus buildings, thousands of them currently being handsomely restored and returned to their original gleaming white colour. The unique urban and historical fabric of Tel Aviv-Jaffa has been recognised by UNESCO, under the name 'The White City', a World Cultural Heritage site.