![Akiva Arie Weiss house](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Akiva_Arie_Weiss_house.jpg)
Akiva Arieh Weiss, also spelled Aryeh (1868-1947), was a
Zionist
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
activist, architect, and city planner in Palestine. He is best known as the primary founder of
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
. He had been the initiator of the project to create the "first Hebrew city" in Palestine and presided over its establishment. He also helped establish the
Jewish diamond industry and textile industry in Palestine.
Biography
Weiss, a jeweler and watchmaker, was born to a Jewish family in
Hrodna
Grodno (russian: Гродно, pl, Grodno; lt, Gardinas) or Hrodna ( be, Гродна ), is a city in western Belarus. The city is located on the Neman River, 300 km (186 mi) from Minsk, about 15 km (9 mi) from the Polish b ...
(in present day Belarus) in 1868, but raised in Lodz, Poland. Along with his wife and six children, he immigrated from
Russian Poland
Congress Poland, Congress Kingdom of Poland, or Russian Poland, formally known as the Kingdom of Poland, was a polity created in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna as a semi-autonomous Polish state, a successor to Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw. It w ...
to Palestine in 1906.
![Ahuzan Baiyt22](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Ahuzan_Baiyt22.jpg)
As
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
of the then newly established
building cooperative
A building co-operative is a co-operative housing corporation where individuals or families work together to directly construct their own homes in a cooperative fashion.
Members of this type of co-operative purchase building materials in bulk an ...
named simply ''Ahuzat Bayit'',
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...
for Building Society, Weiss wrote and presented a prospectus to the group in which he laid out his vision for a new Jewish city.
Arthur Ruppin
Arthur Ruppin (1 March 1876 – 1 January 1943) was a German Zionist proponent of pseudoscientific race theory and one of the founders of the city of Tel Aviv.Todd Samuel Presner, ’German Jewish Studies in the Digital Age:Remarks on Discipline ...
's memoirs recount that Weiss demanded the creation of "a Hebrew urban centre in a healthy environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics and modern hygiene."
Weiss would later on tell Ruppin; “Outside Jaffa, on the road to
Petach Tikva
Petah Tikva ( he, פֶּתַח תִּקְוָה, , ), also known as ''Em HaMoshavot'' (), is a city in the Central District of Israel, east of Tel Aviv. It was founded in 1878, mainly by Haredi Jews of the Old Yishuv, and became a permanent set ...
...we intend to found a modern Jewish urban district. We already have our eye on a particular tract of land.”
Currently scholarship also suggests that he likely presided over the 1909 real estate lottery (and is the leading figure in
Abraham Soskin's famous photograph of the event) in which 66 Jewish families drew numbers written on seashells to determine the allocation of lots in the about-to-be established city of Tel Aviv.
Weiss was a founder of the textile industry in
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
, and built the earliest textile
factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...
, the
Lodzia House
Lodzia House ( he, בית לודז'יה), also known as HaBayit Ha'adom ('the Red House'), is an historic building located at 43 Nahmani Street in Tel Aviv, Israel.
History
The building was erected in 1924 by Akiva Aryeh Weiss, one of the foun ...
.
One of Weiss' visions which became reality was the establishment of a
Jewish diamond industry in
Palestine
__NOTOC__
Palestine may refer to:
* State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia
* Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia
* Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East ...
.
[The Early 1900s](_blank)
by Shira Ami
Legacy
In 1956, Weiss’s children put together a posthumous collection of his works, essays and letters. The book featured an introduction by
Moshe Sharett
Moshe Sharett ( he, משה שרת, born Moshe Chertok (Hebrew: ) 15 October 1894 – 7 July 1965) was a Russian-born Israeli politician who served as Israel's second prime minister from 1954 to 1955. A member of Mapai, Sharett's term was b ...
, the 2nd
Prime Minister of Israel
The prime minister of Israel ( he, רֹאשׁ הַמֶּמְשָׁלָה, Rosh HaMemshala, Head of the Government, Hebrew acronym: he2, רה״מ; ar, رئيس الحكومة, ''Ra'īs al-Ḥukūma'') is the head of government and chief exec ...
and a man of considerable stature at the time. Sharett's introduction read thus (translated from Hebrew):
"It is not always those who start things that are remembered. Sometimes they are forgotten, and those who continue and finish the work are those who ultimately win praise. This is what happened with Tel Aviv. The "first founder" was forgotten. There are no pictures of him in the mayor's office and no streets named after him….The people who have put together this book have done a good thing by making this book. Let this collection serve as a memorial to this modest and noble man who was full of ideas and actions, and whose ideas have and will came to life."
House
The cornerstone of Weiss's Tel Aviv house at #2 Herzl Street was laid in 1909. Originally a single-story structure, the upper floor was added in the 1920s. The house was restored between 1996 and 2011.
References
{{Authority control
1868 births
1947 deaths
Jewellers
Ashkenazi Jews in Mandatory Palestine
Ashkenazi Jews in Ottoman Palestine
Jews from the Russian Empire
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the Ottoman Empire
Mandatory Palestine people of Belarusian-Jewish descent
Israeli watchmakers (people)
Businesspeople from Łódź
Architects in Ottoman Palestine
Israeli urban planners
Diamond industry in Israel
Jewish architects
Belarusian Zionists
History of Tel Aviv
Businesspeople in textiles
Burials at Trumpeldor Cemetery