Tel Aviv in Hebrew means Spring Hill.

In 1906, Akiva Aryeh Weiss from Łódź became an architect and president of a construction cooperative called Akhuzat Bayita and began working on designing a new Jewish city. It was supposed to be the first Hebrew city in two thousand years, born out of a longing for a place where Jews from many countries could feel free and safe. In 1908, 5 hectares of dunes northeast of Jaffa were purchased.

Tel Aviv was founded on April 11, 1909. On that day, several dozen families gathered on the sand dunes on the beach outside Yafo to allocate plots of land for a new neighborhood they called Ahuzat Bayit, later known as Tel Aviv. Weiss presided over the so-called shell lottery. It involved drawing shells containing plot numbers. 66 Jewish families took part in it.

The city was founded by the Yishuv (Jewish residents) and initially given the Hebrew name Ahuzat Bayit (‘House Estate’ or ‘Homestead’), the namesake of the Jewish association that established the neighborhood as a modern housing estate on the outskirts of the ancient port city of Jaffa, then part of the Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem within the Ottoman Empire. On May 21, 1910, the new settlement was officially named Tel Aviv, which means “Spring Hill.” This name was selected in 1910 from several proposals. Weiss suggested it. This is how the emigrant from Łódź became a permanent part of Israel’s history.

Other Jewish suburbs of Jaffa had been established before Tel Aviv, the oldest among them being Neve Tzedek. Tel Aviv was given township status within the Jaffa Municipality in 1921 and became independent from Jaffa in 1934.

Although founded as a small settlement on the sand dunes north of Jaffa, Tel Aviv was envisaged as a future city. Its founders hoped that in contrast to what they perceived as the squalid and unsanitary conditions of neighboring Arab towns, Tel Aviv was to be a clean and modern city inspired by the European cities of Warsaw and Odesa. The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment stated:

“In this city, we will build the streets so they have roads, sidewalks, and electric lights. Every house will have water from wells that will flow through pipes, as in every modern European city and sewerage pipes will be installed for the health of the city and its residents.” — Akiva Arieh Weiss, 1906