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עמוד:54
of the neighborhood was the author Rabbi Binyamin ( Joshua Radler-Feldmann / Hatalmi ) , and the maskilim of Neveh Zedek and Tel Aviv who came to visit him would say , “ Let’s go to Nahalat Binyamin , ” and this name took hold . A music conservatory , the first of several to be established , was founded in Tel Aviv and directed by Shulamit Ruppin . Ruppin died shortly afterwards , and the conservatory was therefore named after her , and directed by the violinist Moshe Hupenko . On the hot summer nights , the young people of the neighborhood would stretch themselves out on the dunes outside Hupenko’s home . He would play on his violin , and the music could be heard through the open windows . The young Nahum Gutman , son of the author Simhah Ben-Zion , settled in the neighborhood . He would look about him attentively , and years later he would paint pictures of the night concerts and the audience , along with the many sights that the neighborhood had to offer , to which he added his stories about its beginnings . Abraham Suskin , the city’s photographer , who photographed the footprints of the founders in the sand even before its founding , would take pictures of the neighborhood’s inhabitants , and of every new house built there . Another sign that Tel Aviv had become a city : in 1913 a building was constructed on its border with Neveh Zedek , for the new wonder of the twentieth century : the cinema , with its first showing being The Last Days of Pompeii . During the World War The First World War erupted in the summer of 1914 . Turkey was allied with Germany and Austria in their struggle against France , England , and Russia . When the battlefields reached the borders of Eretz Israel , the Turks demanded that the subjects of enemy countries become Ottoman subjects ; those who refused were expelled from the country . The United States government , which had yet to enter the war , sent its ships to the port of Jaffa , to transport the deportees to Egypt , which was under British rule . The American ships also brought money and food for the Jews in Eretz Israel . The Turks conducted surprise searches of the houses in Tel Aviv and seized food , pictures of Herzl , Jewish National Fund stamps , and building materials , which they used to construct a mosque in northern Jaffa , which they named after the city governor Hassan Bek . Meir Dizengoff became the spokesman of the Jewish community , most of whose leaders had gone into exile or had been expelled . Tel Aviv’s inhabitants organized themselves well for this difficult period . They amassed food , issued bank notes guaranteed by the Anglo-Palestine Bank , and kept an eye on the young students in the Gymnasium who had not returned to Russia . Jamal Pasha , the country’s Turkish military governor , and one of the leaders of the Ottoman Empire , apparently sought ways to reach a compromise with England and France , and attempted to use the Jews of Eretz Israel to attain this goal . He visited Tel Aviv , which received him warmly . Meir Dizengoff and his wife Zina , who was no stranger to Paris salons , arranged balls in the evenings for the Turkish , German , and Austrian officers . The polite , gentlemanly officers spoke with the ladies of the city in French , the language of the enemy , and kissed their hands , as was only proper . The events of those days were portrayed , for example , by Asher Barash in his book Ke-Ir Netzurah (“ As a Besieged City” ) , and by Nahum Gutman , who illustrated his books on that period with sketches of Tel Aviv at the time . These sketches by Gutman , like others of Tel Aviv then , were actually drawn from memory many years later . Gutman hardly devoted any attention to Tel Aviv itself , and preferred mainly to paint Jaffa and its surroundings , the Arab men , their wives with veiled faces , and their orange groves . For him , these were mysterious and secretive . At the end of 1917 the British launched an offensive from Egypt through the desert , and reached the gates
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