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The Levant Fair (Hebrew: יריד המזרח; Yarid HaMizrach)[1] was an international trade fair held in Tel Aviv during the 1920s and 1930s. Contents 1 History 1.1 Early years 1.2 New fair grounds (1933-36) 1.3 After closure 1.4 2000s: part of "Namal" entertainment area 1.4.1 Memorials 2 Gallery 3 See also 4 References 5 External links History[edit] Early years[edit] One of the early precursors to the Levant Fair, an exhibition titled the "Exhibition and Fair for the Promotion of Goods Made in Israel", took place in April 1914 and was held at a boys' school in Tel Aviv. Another such show was held in the summer of 1923 in three rooms of the Zionist Club on Rothschild Boulevard. This exhibition's success in turn paved the way for five subsequent exhibitions. The success also improved the area provided by the municipality for entrepreneurs, a desolate, southern part of Tel Aviv with an old bus station. The area is now home to the Administration Building of the Society for the Protection of Nature. There were further exhibitions in 1925, two in 1926, 1929, and one in 1932, with the fair in 1932 being the first to be called the "Levant Fair". A special symbol called the "Flying Camel" was designed for the fair by its chief architect, Aryeh Elhanani. Trees were planted during the fair in honor of the former exhibition, and three such palm trees survive to this day[when?].[2] Henceforth, these exhibitions were referred to as fairs and also became quite successful, attracting tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of Jews, Arabs, English, and tourists. The 1932 fair was visited by nearly 300,000 people. Voice Jerusalem, an Israeli radio station, began regular broadcasts about the fair, in Hebrew, starting in 1936. Visitors to the fair included British High Commissioners for Palestine Herbert Samuel (1920-1925), Herbert Plumer (1925-1928), John Chancellor (1928-1931), and Arthur Wauchope (1932-1937), as well as Arab mayors of Jaffa and Jerusalem. New fair grounds (1933-36)[edit] This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) As the scope of the exhibition expanded, it became necessary to construct a permanent home for the fair and others like it. High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope, who had supported the Yishuv, liked the idea and helped to designate the Yarkon Peninsula, an area north of the city, for the construction of the complex. On 17 August 1933 a cornerstone ceremony was held there, which featured Wauchope, Meir Dizengoff, and other community leaders. The 1934 fair opened at the new constructed exhibition grounds at the north edge of Dizengoff Street next to the Tel Aviv Port on 26 April 1934. The fair was opened by the High Commissioner, Arthur Wauchope. A point of celebration at the fair was a Jubilee for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Tel Aviv. With 600,000 people from thirty countries participating in the fair during its six weeks, the fair was also a major event for the local economy. The fair covered an area of ten hectares, including display booths of the participating countries, landscaping and gardening, new roads, Luna Park, and various sculptures. The fair was of great importance for the local architecture and design of Tel Aviv, with pavilions being built by prominent Jewish architects of the time, including Aryeh Elhanani, Richard Kauffmann, and Arieh Sharon. The fair's emblem, envisioned by Alexander Ezer and designed by Aryeh Elhanani, was a winged camel, nicknamed "The Flying Camel." The plaza at the fair's entrance way was named "Plumer Square" in honor of the High Commissioner Herbert Plumer. The fair's masthead flying camel statue built by architect Aryeh Elhanani in 1932, was located in the plaza and near the mouth of the Yarkon Maccabiah Stadium. A broad amphitheater was also established near the entrance way. The central pavilion of the fair was made in Palestine and designed by architect Richard Kauffmann in the shape of a ship. A sculpture called "The Hebrew Worker", built by Aryeh Elhanani, stands on the site today. Other statues built for the fair include "Rejected Lot's Wife", "Sower Statue", "Statue of Deer", and "Statue of the Woman". The fair also put great emphasis on design elements, such as the flagpoles which filled the fair's roads. Foreign design elements were also included, such as lampposts which were headed by a round plate and placed under incandescent bulbs. The fair also included a Lebanese Pavilion which, according to the then Lebanese President, intended to foster the traditional friendship between the two neighbours. The pavilion was a relief of ancient Baalbek, which can still be seen in Tel Aviv today.[where?] Another fair was held in 1936, but because of the riots that began two weeks prior to the opening and shut down the port of Jaffa, it was a small fair, far smaller in scope than its predecessor. Many events were cancelled and many exhibitors cancelled their participation in the exhibition. This fair also caused financial losses for the company that organised it. After closure[edit] This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) After 1936, and for the duration of the Second World War, the Levant Fair ceased operation and fairgrounds were converted into an alternative fairgrounds complex. Urban development of the peninsula at the mouth of the Yarkon led to further expansion of Tel Aviv. Some development continued north, beyond the Yarkon, including the establishment of the Tel Aviv Port, in 1936; the Sde Dov Airport, also in 1936; and the Reading Power Station, in 1938. In 1938 the Maccabiah Stadium was also built nearby, and the Philharmonic Orchestra Hall was built within the area of the former fairgrounds. When the Tel Aviv Port was built near the site in 1936, the port was used to store a temporary Levant Fair,[3] and thus the street leading to the harbour is named "Zion's Gate". In December 1936, the fairgrounds were the location of one of the first concerts of the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra, the future Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Arturo Toscanini. During World War II, the fairgrounds were taken over by the British Army and used for their military training. During the 1947–1949 Palestine war, the fairground structures were used for storage of the IDF. After Israeli independence, the fairgrounds were abandoned and became the site for various workshops and garages. Some of the original buildings were destroyed and others crumbled. The sculptures and works of art from the fair have mostly disappeared from the former fairgrounds, except for the Hebrew Worker statue, which has been restored. Plumer Square is now a parking lot. In 1959, a new exhibition grounds opened at 101, Rokach Ave., beyond the Yarkon River. The grounds were opened by then Mayor Chaim Levanon, along with "Exhibition 50 years of Tel Aviv" and a design plan for a "Fair Middle" by architect Aryeh Elhanani.  ****  Levant fair 7/4/1932   The first Levant Fair opened in Tel Aviv – an international fair with the participation of exhibitors from 24 different countries. This fair was preceded by a series of exhibitions and fairs in Tel Aviv, which had been held since 1923. The fair in 1932 was the first to be called "The Levant Fair” and a special symbol was designed for it – “The Flying Camel” by Arieh El-Hanani. The symbol represented the connection between East and West.   The fair was a big success, and the British Government decided to move the fair to a fixed domain in the Yarkon peninsula area, north of the city. The grand opening of the new complex occurred in 1934 in the presence of the High Commissioner, Arthur Wauchope, and the mayor, Meir Dizengoff. The subsequent fairs were a great success, but then encountered difficulties due to the Arab Revolt in 1936-1939. In the years of the Second World War that came afterwards, the fairs were not held. In 1959 they were once again held, this time at Ganei Ha'Ta'arucha.   The photographs, handbills, maps and documents that are kept in the Central Zionist Archives present this most important commercial activity in the 30's in Palestine. *** Tel Aviv-Yafo (Hebrew: תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ‎, Tel Aviv-Yafo [tel aˈviv ˈjafo]; Arabic: تَلّ أَبِيب - يَافَا‎, Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the Gush Dan metropolitan area of Israel. Located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline and with a population of 460,613, it is the economic and technological center of the country. If East Jerusalem is considered part of Israel, Tel Aviv is the country's second most populous city after Jerusalem; if not, Tel Aviv is the most populous city ahead of West Jerusalem.[a] Tel Aviv is governed by the Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality, headed by Mayor Ron Huldai, and is home to many foreign embassies.[b] It is a beta+ world city and is ranked 41st in the Global Financial Centres Index. Tel Aviv has the third- or fourth-largest economy and the largest economy per capita in the Middle East.[6][7] The city has the 31st highest cost of living in the world.[8] Tel Aviv receives over 2.5 million international visitors annually.[9][10] A "party capital" in the Middle East, it has a lively nightlife and 24-hour culture.[11][12] Tel Aviv has been called The World's Vegan Food Capital, as it possesses the highest per capita population of vegans in the world, with many vegan eateries throughout the city.[13] Tel Aviv is home to Tel Aviv University, the largest university in the country with more than 30,000 students. The city was founded in 1909 by the Yishuv (Jewish residents) 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. It was at first called 'Ahuzat Bayit' (lit. "House Estate" or "Homestead"),[14][15] the name of the association which established the neighbourhood. Its name was changed the following year to 'Tel Aviv', after the biblical name Tel Abib adopted by Nahum Sokolow as the title for his Hebrew translation of Theodor Herzl's 1902 novel Altneuland ("Old New Land"). Other Jewish suburbs of Jaffa established before Tel Aviv eventually became part of Tel Aviv, the oldest among them being Neve Tzedek (est. 1886).[16][dubious – discuss] Tel Aviv was given "township" status within the Jaffa Municipality in 1921, and became independent from Jaffa in 1934.[17][18] After the 1947–1949 Palestine war Tel Aviv began the municipal annexation of parts of Jaffa, fully unified with Jaffa under the name "Tel Aviv" in April 1950, and was renamed to "Tel Aviv-Yafo" in August 1950.[19] Immigration by mostly Jewish refugees meant that the growth of Tel Aviv soon outpaced that of Jaffa, which had a majority Arab population at the time.[20] Tel Aviv and Jaffa were later merged into a single municipality in 1950, two years after the Israeli Declaration of Independence, which was proclaimed in the city. Tel Aviv's White City, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003, comprises the world's largest concentration of International Style buildings, including Bauhaus and other related modernist architectural styles.[21][22] Contents 1 Etymology and origins 2 History 2.1 Jaffa 2.2 1904–1917: Foundation in the Late Ottoman Period 2.3 British administration 1917–34: Townships within the Jaffa Municipality 2.4 1934 municipal independence from Jaffa 2.5 State of Israel 2.5.1 Independence 2.5.2 Growth in the 1950s and 1960s 2.5.3 1970s and 1980s population and urban decline 2.5.4 1990s to present 2.5.5 Arab–Israeli conflict 3 Geography 3.1 Climate 4 Local government 4.1 List of Mayors of Tel Aviv 4.1.1 Mandatory Palestine (1920–1948) 4.1.2 State of Israel (1948–present) 4.2 City council 5 Education 6 Demographics 6.1 Religion 6.2 Neighborhoods 7 Cityscape 7.1 Architecture 7.1.1 International Style and Bauhaus 7.2 High-rise construction and towers 8 Economy 9 Culture and contemporary life 9.1 Entertainment and performing arts 9.2 Tourism and recreation 9.3 Nightlife 9.4 Fashion 9.5 LGBT culture 9.6 Cuisine 9.7 Museums 9.8 Sports 9.9 Media 10 Environment and urban restoration 11 Transportation 11.1 Bus and taxi 11.2 Rail 11.3 Light rail 11.4 Metro 11.5 Roads 11.6 Air 11.7 Cycling 12 Health care 13 Foreign relations 14 Future 15 People born in Tel Aviv 16 Explanatory notes 17 References 18 General bibliography 19 External links Etymology and origins Tel Aviv is named after Theodor Herzl's 1902 novel, Altneuland ("Old New Land"), for which the title of the Hebrew edition was "Tel Aviv" Tel Aviv is the Hebrew title of Theodor Herzl's Altneuland ("Old New Land"), translated from German by Nahum Sokolow. Sokolow had adopted the name of a Mesopotamian site near the city of Babylon mentioned in Ezekiel: "Then I came to them of the captivity at Tel Aviv, that lived by the river Chebar, and to where they lived; and I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days."[23] The name was chosen in 1910 from several suggestions, including "Herzliya". It was found fitting as it embraced the idea of a renaissance in the ancient Jewish homeland. Aviv is Hebrew for "spring", symbolizing renewal, and tel is an artificial mound created over centuries through the accumulation of successive layers of civilization built one over the other and symbolizing the ancient. Although founded in 1909 as a small settlement on the sand dunes north of Jaffa, Tel Aviv was envisaged as a future city from the start. Its founders hoped that in contrast to what they perceived as the squalid and unsanitary conditions of neighbouring Arab towns, Tel Aviv was to be a clean and modern city, inspired by the European cities of Warsaw and Odessa.[24] The marketing pamphlets advocating for its establishment stated:[24] In this city we will build the streets so they have roads and sidewalks and electric lights. Every house will have water from wells that will flow through pipes as in every modern European city, and also sewerage pipes will be installed for the health of the city and its residents. — Akiva Arieh Weiss, 1906 History See also: Timeline of Tel Aviv and Jaffa Jaffa Ancient port of Jaffa where, according to the Bible, Jonah set sail into the Mediterranean Sea before being swallowed by a fish[25] The walled city of Jaffa was the only urban centre in the general area where now Tel Aviv is located in early modern times. Jaffa was an important port city in the region for millennia. Archaeological evidence shows signs of human settlement there starting in roughly 7,500 BC.[26] The city was established around 1,800 BC at the latest. Its natural harbour has been used since the Bronze Age. By the time Tel Aviv was founded as a separate city during Ottoman rule of the region, Jaffa had been ruled by the Canaanites, Egyptians, Philistines, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Phoenicians, Ptolemies, Seleucids, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, the early Islamic caliphates, Crusaders, Ayyubids, and Mamluks before coming under Ottoman rule in 1515. It had been fought over numerous times. The city is mentioned in ancient Egyptian documents, as well as the Hebrew Bible. Other ancient sites in Tel Aviv include: Tell Qasile, Tel Gerisa, Abattoir Hill. Tel Hashash and Tell Qudadi. During the First Aliyah in the 1880s, when Jewish immigrants began arriving in the region in significant numbers, new neighborhoods were founded outside Jaffa on the current territory of Tel Aviv. The first was Neve Tzedek, founded in 1887 by Mizrahi Jews due to overcrowding in Jaffa and built on lands owned by Aharon Chelouche.[16] Other neighborhoods were Neve Shalom (1890), Yafa Nof (1896), Achva (1899), Ohel Moshe (1904), Kerem HaTeimanim (1906), and others. Once Tel Aviv received city status in the 1920s, those neighborhoods joined the newly formed municipality, now becoming separated from Jaffa. 1904–1917: Foundation in the Late Ottoman Period Lottery for the first lots, April 1909 Nahlat Binyamin, 1913 The Second Aliyah led to further expansion. In 1906, a group of Jews, among them residents of Jaffa, followed the initiative of Akiva Aryeh Weiss and banded together to form the Ahuzat Bayit (lit. "homestead") society. One of the society's goals was to form a "Hebrew urban centre in a healthy environment, planned according to the rules of aesthetics and modern hygiene."[27] The urban planning for the new city was influenced by the garden city movement.[28] The first 60 plots were purchased in Kerem Djebali near Jaffa by Jacobus Kann, a Dutch citizen, who registered them in his name to circumvent the Turkish prohibition on Jewish land acquisition.[29] Meir Dizengoff, later Tel Aviv's first mayor, also joined the Ahuzat Bayit society.[30][31] His vision for Tel Aviv involved peaceful co-existence with Arabs.[32][unreliable source] On 11 April 1909, 66 Jewish families gathered on a desolate sand dune to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. This gathering is considered the official date of the establishment of Tel Aviv. The lottery was organised by Akiva Aryeh Weiss, president of the building society.[33][34] Weiss collected 120 sea shells on the beach, half of them white and half of them grey. The members' names were written on the white shells and the plot numbers on the grey shells. A boy drew names from one box of shells and a girl drew plot numbers from the second box. A photographer, Abraham Soskin, documented the event. The first water well was later dug at this site, located on what is today Rothschild Boulevard, across from Dizengoff House.[35] Within a year, Herzl, Ahad Ha'am, Yehuda Halevi, Lilienblum, and Rothschild streets were built; a water system was installed; and 66 houses (including some on six subdivided plots) were completed.[28] At the end of Herzl Street, a plot was allocated for a new building for the Herzliya Hebrew High School, founded in Jaffa in 1906.[28] The cornerstone for the building was laid on 28 July 1909. The town was originally named Ahuzat Bayit. On 21 May 1910, the name Tel Aviv was adopted.[28] The flag and city arms of Tel Aviv (see above) contain under the red Star of David 2 words from the biblical book of Jeremiah: "I (God) will build You up again and you will be rebuilt." (Jer 31:4) Tel Aviv was planned as an independent Hebrew city with wide streets and boulevards, running water for each house, and street lights.[36] By 1914, Tel Aviv had grown to more than 1 square kilometre (247 acres).[28] In 1915 a census of Tel Aviv was conducted, recording a population 2,679.[37] However, growth halted in 1917 when the Ottoman authorities expelled the residents of Jaffa and Tel Aviv as a wartime measure.[28] A report published in The New York Times by United States Consul Garrels in Alexandria, Egypt described the Jaffa deportation of early April 1917. The orders of evacuation were aimed chiefly at the Jewish population.[38] Jews were free to return to their homes in Tel Aviv at the end of the following year when, with the end of World War I and the defeat of the Ottomans, the British took control of Palestine. The town had rapidly become an attraction to immigrants, with a local activist writing:[39] The immigrants were attracted to Tel Aviv because they found in it all the comforts they were used to in Europe: electric light, water, a little cleanliness, cinema, opera, theatre, and also more or less advanced schools... busy streets, full restaurants, cafes open until 2 a.m., singing, music, and dancing. British administration 1917–34: Townships within the Jaffa Municipality 1930 Survey of Palestine map, showing urban boundaries of Jaffa[c] and the Tel Aviv township[d] within the Jaffa Municipality[e][17][18] Master plan for the Tel Aviv township, 1925 A master plan for the Tel Aviv township was created by Patrick Geddes, 1925, based on the garden city movement.[40] The plan consisted of four main features: a hierarchical system of streets laid out in a grid, large blocks consisting of small-scale domestic dwellings, the organization of these blocks around central open spaces, and the concentration of cultural institutions to form a civic center.[41] Tel Aviv, along with the rest of the Jaffa municipality, was conquered by the British imperial army in late 1917 during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I and became part of British-administered Mandatory Palestine until 1948. Tel Aviv, established as suburb of Jaffa, received "township" or local council status within the Jaffa Municipality in 1921.[42][17][18] According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, the Tel Aviv township had a population of 15,185 inhabitants, consisting of 15,065 Jews, 78 Muslims and 42 Christians.[43] Increasing in the 1931 census to 46,101, in 12,545 houses.[44] With increasing Jewish immigration during the British administration, friction between Arabs and Jews in Palestine increased. On 1 May 1921, the Jaffa riots resulted in the deaths of 48 Arabs and 47 Jews and injuries to 146 Jews and 73 Arabs.[45] In the wake of this violence, many Jews left Jaffa for Tel Aviv. The population of Tel Aviv increased from 2,000 in 1920 to around 34,000 by 1925.[21][46] Tel Aviv began to develop as a commercial center.[47] In 1923, Tel Aviv was the first town to be wired to electricity in Palestine, followed by Jaffa later in the same year. The opening ceremony of the Jaffa Electric Company powerhouse, on 10 June 1923, celebrated the lighting of the two main streets of Tel Aviv.[48] In 1925, the Scottish biologist, sociologist, philanthropist and pioneering town planner Patrick Geddes drew up a master plan for Tel Aviv which was adopted by the city council led by Meir Dizengoff. Geddes's plan for developing the northern part of the district was based on Ebenezer Howard's garden city movement.[40] While most of the northern area of Tel Aviv was built according to this plan, the influx of European refugees in the 1930s necessitated the construction of taller apartment buildings on a larger footprint in the city.[49] Ben Gurion House was built in 1930–31, part of a new workers' housing development. At the same time, Jewish cultural life was given a boost by the establishment of the Ohel Theatre and the decision of Habima Theatre to make Tel Aviv its permanent base in 1931.[28] 1934 municipal independence from Jaffa Tel Aviv bus station during the Mandate era Shadal Street in 1926 Magen David Square in 1936 Tel Aviv was granted the status of an independent municipality separate from Jaffa in 1934.[17][18] The Jewish population rose dramatically during the Fifth Aliyah after the Nazis came to power in Germany.[28] By 1937 the Jewish population of Tel Aviv had risen to 150,000, compared to Jaffa's mainly Arab 69,000 residents. Within two years, it had reached 160,000, which was over a third of Palestine's total Jewish population.[28] Many new Jewish immigrants to Palestine disembarked in Jaffa, and remained in Tel Aviv, turning the city into a center of urban life. Friction during the 1936–39 Arab revolt led to the opening of a local Jewish port, Tel Aviv Port, independent of Jaffa, in 1938. It closed on 25 October 1965. Lydda Airport (later Ben Gurion Airport) and Sde Dov Airport opened between 1937 and 1938.[32][unreliable source] Many German Jewish architects trained at the Bauhaus, the Modernist school of architecture in Germany, and left Germany during the 1930s. Some, like Arieh Sharon, came to Palestine and adapted the architectural outlook of the Bauhaus and similar schools to the local conditions there, creating what is recognized as the largest concentration of buildings in the International Style in the world.[21][32][unreliable source] Tel Aviv's White City emerged in the 1930s, and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003.[50] During World War II, Tel Aviv was hit by Italian airstrikes on 9 September 1940, which killed 137 people in the city.[51] During the Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Jewish Irgun and Lehi guerrillas launched repeated attacks against British military, police, and government targets in the city. In 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing, the British carried out Operation Shark, in which the entire city was searched for Jewish militants and most of the residents questioned, during which the entire city was placed under curfew. During the March 1947 martial law in Mandatory Palestine, Tel Aviv was placed under martial law by the British authorities for 15 days, with the residents kept under curfew for all but three hours a day as British forces scoured the city for militants. In spite of this, Jewish guerrilla attacks continued in Tel Aviv and other areas under martial law in Palestine. According to the 1947 UN Partition Plan for dividing Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, Tel Aviv, by then a city of 230,000, was to be included in the proposed Jewish state. Jaffa with, as of 1945, a population of 101,580 people—53,930 Muslims, 30,820 Jews and 16,800 Christians—was designated as part of the Arab state. Civil War broke out in the country and in particular between the neighbouring cities of Tel Aviv and Jaffa, which had been assigned to the Jewish and Arab states respectively. After several months of siege, on 13 May 1948, Jaffa fell and the Arab population fled en masse. Tel Aviv 1943 1:20,000   Tel Aviv 1945 1:250,000   Tel Aviv, Allenby Street, 1940   Tel Aviv port 1939   Dizengoff Square in the 1940s State of Israel Crowd outside Dizengoff House (now Independence Hall) to witness the proclamation and signing of Israel's Declaration of Independence in 1948 Independence When Israel declared Independence on 14 May 1948, the population of Tel Aviv was over 200,000.[52] Tel Aviv was the temporary government center of the State of Israel until the government moved to Jerusalem in December 1949. Due to the international dispute over the status of Jerusalem, most embassies remained in or near Tel Aviv.[53] Growth in the 1950s and 1960s The boundaries of Tel Aviv and Jaffa became a matter of contention between the Tel Aviv municipality and the Israeli government in 1948.[19] The former wished to incorporate only the northern Jewish suburbs of Jaffa, while the latter wanted a more complete unification.[19] The issue also had international sensitivity, since the main part of Jaffa was in the Arab portion of the United Nations Partition Plan, whereas Tel Aviv was not, and no armistice agreements had yet been signed.[19] On 10 December 1948, the government announced the annexation to Tel Aviv of Jaffa's Jewish suburbs, the Palestinian neighborhood of Abu Kabir, the Arab village of Salama and some of its agricultural land, and the Jewish 'Hatikva' slum.[19] On 25 February 1949, the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Shaykh Muwannis was also annexed to Tel Aviv.[19] On 18 May 1949, Manshiya and part of Jaffa's central zone were added, for the first time including land that had been in the Arab portion of the UN partition plan.[19] The government voted on the unification of Tel Aviv and Jaffa on 4 October 1949, but the decision was not implemented until 24 April 1950 due to the opposition of Tel Aviv mayor Israel Rokach.[19] The name of the unified city was Tel Aviv until 19 August 1950, when it was renamed Tel Aviv-Yafo in order to preserve the historical name Jaffa.[19] Tel Aviv thus grew to 42 square kilometers (16.2 sq mi). In 1949, a memorial to the 60 founders of Tel Aviv was constructed.[54] In the 1960s, some of the older buildings were demolished, making way for the country's first high-rises. The historic Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium was controversially demolished, to make way for the Shalom Meir Tower, which was completed in 1965, and remained Israel's tallest building until 1999. Tel Aviv's population peaked in the early 1960s at 390,000, representing 16 percent of the country's total.[55]      ebay5565