The
laborers worked barefoot, probably in order to feel the
soil of the land underfoot but also, perhaps, for lack of
shoes (hence, these pioneers were known as "the Barefoot
Gang"). They wore broad-brimmed straw hats and would sing
all day: "We came to the land to build and to be rebuilt
in it." This song was like a prayer. People would come from
Jaffa to watch them . . .
How many discussions and dreams went into the building of
the suburb. They did not want to build it like Neve-Shalom,
where the Jewish settlement was mixed with the Arab. Not
like Neve-Zedek,
hemmed in on all sides and resembling a shtetl in the old
country. Rather, they desired it to be a neighborhood of
gardens, to which a person could come to relax after a day's
toil. . . . Roads and sidewalks would be paved, boulevards
would be laid out and lights would illuminate the streets.
It was decided that the houses would have a rustic appearance
and that stores would be permitted only on the outskirts.
The first five streets were marked out and given names --
Herzl,
Yehuda Halevi, Rothschild Boulevard, Lilienblum and Ahad
Ha'Am.
Tel Aviv was originally called "The Society of House-Builders."
As the community took shape, its residents decided that
it was time to select a more inspiring name.
The inhabitants of the area sought a more suitable name.
. . . Many meetings and discussions were devoted to this
issue. Proposed were Herzliah, New Jaffa, Neve-Jaffa,
Ivriah,
Aviva,
Yefifiah,
and every name was supported by arguments and reason, until
Sheinkin
revealed that a name had already been chosen for this place
by the herald of the Jewish State himself -- Herzl, in his
book Altneuland,
which Nahum
Sokolow had translated as Tel
Aviv. This name was adopted as a good omen and it satisfied
all the factions since it had been the original intention
to associate the settlement with the name of the great dreamer,
but his name had already been "preempted" by the Gymnasia
and other institutions in Jaffa and in Haifa.
