Hosmasa and Mikve Yisrael

Not long ago Mister Handmade in Israel and I spent the day in the nearby city of Holon. The city was founded on sand dunes six kilometres from Tel Aviv in 1935 (the name comes from the Hebrew word holon, meaning "(little) sand") and in the early months of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War was on the front line. Several historic landmarks have been preserved in Holon including the Derech Habitachon ("Security Road") paved during the Israeli War of Independence, water towers, The Pillbox guard post, and Hosmasa, a building used by the Haganah and our first port of call.

Hosmasa was built in 1934 in the International Style, also known as "Bauhaus", and served as a secret training base for Haganah members from Holon and the area. (The Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organisation in the British Mandate of Palestine (1921–48), which became the core of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF)). Hosmasa was built over a well in a sandy and barren area, making it possible to have a training system hidden from the British, and was home to a guard and his family. Training was performed with weapons which were buried in the area and slicks (hiding places for weapons that were illegal during the British Mandate) in the well and the garden surrounding the building. Thousands of trainees came from Tel Aviv and central Israel to participate in the training of firearms, fortifications, radio, first aid, and courses in topography and more. During the War of Independence Hosmasa served as a station on the security road which connected Tel Aviv with the southern settlements and led to Jerusalem and the Negev. Convoys used it to transport supplies and equipment, food, weapons, ammunition and people to far off and besieged settlements.

Today the building houses a display on the Haganah in Holon before and during the War of Independence through photos, documents, objects and interactive presentations. A Davidka mortar, a homemade mortar used during the early stages of the war, above, which was first tested at Hosmasa, can be found in the garden, as well as slicks for hiding weapons and the Hosmasa well, dug deeper to become the neighbourhoods first source of water in the 1930’s and then also used as a slick.

The next place we visited was the restored buildings of the Mikve Yisrael Agricultural School. Mikve Yisrael was founded in 1870 by Charles Netter, one of the founders of the French organisation Alliance Israelite Universelle, a Paris-based international Jewish organisation. He had visited Palestine in 1868 and felt it was an imperative to train Jewish residents of the country how to work the land. The country’s Ottoman Turkish rulers allocated 750 acres to Netter’s project. Baron Edmond James de Rothschild also contributed to the upkeep of the school. Netter gave the agricultural school the name Mikve Yisrael, where mikve means hope, and over the years Mikve Yisrael played an important role in the development of agriculture in the country.

The day we visited we stopped by the Mikve Yisrael synagogue (in the 19th century it was obvious that a Jewish school must have a synagogue), descended deep underground to the cool arched halls of the stone carved wine cellar, visited the reconstructed mechanical workshop in which the Davidka, the first Israeli mortar, was invented in 1948, then walked through the botanical gardens founded by Mikve Yisrael's principal, Eliyahu Krauzer, in 1924. Krauzer had two main goals when creating the gardens. He needed a testing ground for trees from all over the world in an effort to learn which could be adapted in Israel, and also wanted it to be a learning experience for the pupils. Krauzer collected Lebanese cedars, conifers, eucalyptus, strawberries, legumes and spices from different nurseries in Israel and abroad. It was also under Krauzer's leadership that the language of instruction at Mikve Yisrael was changed to Hebrew, after years of education in French. 

The Mikve Yisrael synagogue's main entrance is located directly across from a beautiful garden and a boulevard of palm trees. The trees lead to what was, for many years, the school’s gate. In 1898, Theodor Herzl, the visionary behind modern Zionism and the re-institution of a Jewish homeland, passed through the gate when he visited Mikve, prior to what he hoped would be a fruitful meeting with the powerful German Kaiser Wilhelm II. Unfortunately the German monarch withdrew his initial offer of support for Jewish settlement in the land of Israel. It seems that he did not want to upset his allies, the Ottomans, or the Christians back home in Germany. There is a statue commemorating the meeting here between Herzl and Kaiser Wilhelm II, showing the Kaiser and his horse sliced into two pieces – symbolising how Herzl cut through bureaucracy and red tape to get a Jewish state. Unfortunately we forgot to look for it on the day we visited!

Over the years, Mikve Israel not only educated tens of thousands of children but it also contributed to the underground efforts to establish a Jewish homeland. Teachers and students of the school were active members of the Haganah, which conducted training in the school's wine cellar and storerooms. A slik, bullets and exploding bricks were discovered in the largest underground chamber during restoration. It was here that young men and women were sworn into the Haganah, and their Bible, a gun and a copy of the oath are on display. The room, where all kinds of ceremonies are held today, also features a secret exit that would allow Haganah soldiers to escape during a British raid. The roots growing through the walls of the wine cellar give these underground chambers an air of mystery, which goes with the story of the young people sworn into the ranks of the Haganah here in pre-State days.

In the mechanical workshop in the school grounds, an underground weapons factory was established. David Leibovitz, a teacher at the school, was instrumental in developing new weapons for the Haganah. Grenades were produced, with the letters USA added, so that the British would assume that they were manufactured overseas. Leibovitz's most famous and important creation was the Davidka, the homemade Jewish mortar. Named after its builder, only a few of these weapons were produced.

Though not that many of the founders original goals were achieved at Mikve Yisrael, the school continued to develop Jewish settlement in Palestine and took part in the most dramatic chapters of Israel’s history. It acted as a base for the Haganah and became a home for waves of new immigrant children, particularly those who ran away from Western Europe just before the start of the Holocaust. To this day, though Mikve Yisrael was originally established as a secular school, the school educates Orthodox and non-Orthodox boys and girls. There are over 1,500 students at Mikve Yisrael and it is considered excellent in its region.

Tel Aviv's First City Hall

Beit Ha’Ir, Tel Aviv's first City Hall, was built in 1925 at the northern end of Bialik Street. Israel's national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik, had decided to move to the Holy Land in 1924 and was in fact already so famous that as soon as he decided to immigrate and purchase a plot in Tel Aviv, the tiny road next to his unbuilt house was re-named Bialik Street. It became a rather grand little street and was once the venue for parades, concerts, dancing and loud demonstrations against the British.

Around the same time that Bialik was making his home on the street named in his honour, Tel Aviv's first mayor, Meir Dizengoff, was looking around for a new municipal building (the Tel Aviv municipality was initially located on Rothschild Boulevard). Dizengoff was shown sketches for all kinds of magnificent buildings, but they were way beyond the city’s budget. Fortunately, an American Jewish family, the Skura family, had just finished the construction of a large building, originally intended as a hotel, next to Bialik's new home. The hotel had opened for business in 1925 but was deemed unprofitable due to the lack of tourists. In 1928 it was rented out to the city of Tel Aviv and stayed as the City Hall for over 40 years.

A new city hall was designed in the 1950s by architect Menachem Cohen, in the Brutalist style. It is located on Ibn Gabirol Street. In 1965 the City Hall moved there. The old Skura building, Beit Ha’Ir, was closed, and deserted for four decades, until it was meticulously restored and converted into a museum for the history of Tel Aviv, opening in 2009. 

The museum chronicles the development of the city of Tel Aviv through photographs and video clips. In the virtual information centre, housed on the lowest level of the building, computers with a time-line application allow visitors to select and view the events of any decade. Upon selection of a decade, the headlines for the decade appear on the screen. Selecting a headline brings up video clips which show the events around the headline.

Covering the walls are wonderful photographs of Tel Aviv from its founding in 1909 and through the following decades of the city’s development. These are pictures from family albums, culled from tens of thousands sent in by people who live, or lived, in the city. Also on display is a fabulous collection of colourful tiles taken from floors in Tel Aviv’s earliest houses. 

Take the lift – or winding stairs – up to the Dizengoff Room, restored exactly as it was when used as the official office of Tel Aviv’s first mayor. The office is in a lovely room, with a great view of the city. Various artifacts from Dizengoff's office are on display, including the original map of Tel Aviv hanging on a wall. Alongside the reconstructed office is a permanent exhibit about Dizengoff's work, which reflects the exceptional relationship that existed between the city’s first mayor and its residents.

A reading room on the top level of the building provides information about the city, and is designed to serve researchers, artists, students and schoolchildren. The renovated roof terrace offers a spectacular view of the city’s rooftops, whilst the entrance level has been kept for temporary art exhibits, the exhibit "My Shirt is Breathing" showing when we visited.

The architecture of the building alone is worth a visit but the museum was fascinating and proved a really great way to learn the history of Tel Aviv. The time-line application is really a highlight, so allow plenty of time if you decide to visit.

Tel Aviv hosts a collection of 4,000 Bauhaus buildings, for which it is called "The White City." These buildings, including Beit Ha’Ir, Bialik Square and its surrounding buildings,  have been declared a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO. Further down the street from Beit Ha’Ir is the Bialik House, which was unfortunately closed on the day we visited, and another museum, the home of the Israeli artist, Reuven Rubin. His house was built in 1930 and showcases his work on four different floors, his studio being on the third floor. There are also several beautifully restored private homes. Bialik Street, filled with historical buildings in the Bauhaus and the Eclectic architectural styles, is definitely worth a visit.