Tel Aviv: Frivolity and Sharing the Burden

עמוד:59

newspaper , as well as his Tel Aviv Scenes poems and , later , his collection of poetry Kokhavim Ba-Hutz ( Stars Outside ) , imbued with the atmosphere of Tel Aviv , and which moved the young people of Eretz Israel . Almost all of the country’s inhabitants were drawn to the Adeloyada processions , held in imitation of the spirit of carnivals throughout the world . During these celebrations Baruch Agadati , an innovative dancer , painter , bohemian , and bonvivant , would select a beauty queen . The Purim balls that he held were a major attraction , drawing large crowds . In 1934 and 1936 international fairs , under the title of Yarid Hamizrach ( the Levant Fair ) , were held at exhibition grounds built for this purpose in the north of the city , near the Yarkon River . Countries from across the Middle East , and indeed from all over the world , participated in the fair . The Fair included an amusement park , with breathtaking displays of electricity and light , daredevil motorcyclists , magicians , and illusionists , the likes of which the city’s enthusiastic residents and their children had never seen . In 1936 Bronislaw Huberman , one of the world’s leading violinists , founded a philharmonic orchestra , comprised of Jewish musicians who had been deported from Germany and Poland . The orchestra held its first performances in an auditorium at the Levant Fair , under the baton of the greatest conductor of that time , Arturo Toscanini . Within a short time of its founding , the orchestra had gained the reputation of being one of the best in the world . Tel Aviv had trouble in finding an architectural style befitting the city . The owners of the buildings constructed in the 1920 s seemed to want a sort of hybrid entity , one that reflected the houses they knew from former homes in Poland or Russia , neoclassical elements , and various ancient styles ; at times they even added influences from their new Levantine surroundings . In the mid-1920 s , Patrick Geddes , a Scotsman and one of the founders of the science of urban planning , was invited to draw up a master plan for Tel Aviv . He planned a sort of garden city in the as yet unbuilt area from Allenby Street to the Yarkon River , in which four parallel streets , from south to north , were to be paved , with a square in their center ( the future Zina Dizengoff Square ) . The city planned by Geddes was to have a population of some 100 , 000 . His plan for the northern part of the city remained almost unchanged until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 , but nothing remained of his concept of Tel Aviv as a garden city . In the early 1930 s young architects arrived in the city , followed by refugees from Germany , who had studied in modern schools and were influenced by the new European trends . They disdained the design of the buildings from the 1920 s and the Arab buildings in Jaffa . A broad land spread out before them , in which new neighborhoods and new settlements would be built . The young architects decided to build in the new European styles , the Bauhaus and International Styles - two- or three-story square or rectangular buildings , with clean straight lines , and painted in white , and intended to provide comfortable housing . Ze’ev Rechter , who had studied in France , built houses on Rothschild Boulevard , houses that stood on pillars , thereby adding another story to the city , in which , by Mandatory law , buildings were limited to only three stories . Thus Tel Aviv , for the most part , was transformed into a city in the “ new style , ” a “ White City , ” that seventy years later would be recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site , even though , due to neglect , many of its houses had lost their original character . The major breakthrough occurred in Tel Aviv after 1936 , in the wake of the Arab Revolt . Jaffa and Tel Aviv were separated into two cities that were distant from and hostile to each other . The Arab general strike closed the port of Jaffa , and a jetty was quickly built in Tel Aviv for the offloading of cargoes ; in time it would become the major port for the country’s Jews . Dizengoff inaugurated the port , but died a few months later , at the end of the summer of 1936 , after having served as mayor for twenty-five years . In the years that followed Tel Aviv continued to grow and expand . Not only was it the country’s most

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