Collection of both printed and handwritten papers documenting the establishment of the first homes in Tel Aviv by a group of sixty-six founding families. These include a letter of mutual guarantorship signed by some forty founding individuals; deeds of purchase of lots; and papers documenting the expansion of the city in its early years (Allenby St., Levinsky Market), and more. Tel Aviv and additional places, first and second decades of the 20th century (one document from the 1920s; most documents from years 1909-10). Hebrew and additional languages.
1-10. Ten original contracts for the purchase of lots in Ahuzat Bayit (original name for Tel Aviv, also known as "Kerem Jabali"), 1909-10:
Five home building contracts and five rental contracts instituted between the founders of Ahuzat Bayit and the Dutch Jewish banker Jacobus Henricus Kann, registered as Ahuzat Bayit's official landowner. The contracts were signed in the process of purchasing lots in Ahuzat Bayit. In order to circumvent an Ottoman law which prohibited the sale of land to non-Ottoman subjects, these contracts were drawn up as construction and rental contracts, and not as purchase agreements.
Printed contracts, filled in by hand, in the names of the following individuals: Akiva Arieh Weiss, managing director of Ahuzat Bayit; Yehuda Leib Matmon-Cohen, founder of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium; the farmer Dov Berger; the businessman Yaakov Elhanan Litwinsky; Yaakov Matalon; David Livni Weisbord, founder of Tel Aviv's Great Synagogue; and the businessmen Yitzhak Hayutman and Matityahu Winokur. Most of these contracts bear the signatures of the abovementioned founding fathers of Tel Aviv, as well as the signature of Zalman David Levontin, manager of the Anglo-Palestine Bank.
11-20. Ten official documents of the "Ahuzat Bayit" / "Tel Aviv" Association for the establishment of a Jewish city, all signed by the association's members who participated in the so-called "Seashell Lottery" and thus came to be recognized as the founding fathers of Tel Aviv:
• Two signed forms: Confirmation from two of the founders regarding the building of houses in Tel Aviv. January 1910. Signed by the founders Yisrael Yehuda Adler (house on Ahad Ha'am St. N0. 26) and Yitzhak Arieh Eliovson (house at the corner of Herzl St. and Rothschild Blvd).
• Handwritten letter dated May 23, 1910: Notice to Zalman David Levontin regarding the sale of lots situated behind the newly established Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium, hand signed by Meir Dizengoff, Ben Zion Mossensohn, and David Izmozhik. Written on the official stationery of the Ahuzat Bayit Association. The name of the association, "Ahuzat Bayit, " originally printed in the corner of the sheet, is erased, and the name "Tel Aviv" appears handwritten in its place; this may represent the very first actual instance of the name "Tel Aviv" appearing at the top of an official document (the Association made the decision to officially change its name only two days earlier, on May 21, 1910). In the bottom margin is an official inked stamp; here too, "Ahuzat Bayit" is erased, and replaced with "Tel Aviv."
• Handwritten letter addressed to the Anglo-Palestine Bank, dated November 24, 1910: Guarantor's declaration on behalf of the member Matityahu Winokur (house built on Yehuda HaLevi St. No. 31) and all the other members of the association. Bearing the hand signatures of some 40 founding members, some of whose names do not appear on the original guarantorship document, referred to as the "Founders' Pact" and signed by all the families widely regarded as the founders of Tel Aviv.
• And more.
21-40. Additional documents and letters pertaining to the founding of Tel Aviv and its expansion in the early years.
Including: Notice regarding the sale of a plot of land, handwritten by Ahuzat Bayit's managing director, Akiva Arieh Weiss (1909); request to remit payment for the construction of a house to Avraham Hayim Chelouche (official form, hand signed by the founder Simcha Alter Gutman, 1909); documents pertaining to the establishment of new neighborhoods and areas, including a "commercial center" (known today as the Levinsky Market); a "new company" (today Allenby St.); a "center for craftsmen's workshops"; handwritten contract pertaining to the sale of the home of the founder Moshe Cohen to Raphael Mihakashwili (1912); and more.

Size and condition vary. Overall good to fair condition. Stains, creases. Tears, including several open tears, with several documents torn in half. Several documents with punch holes.

Also enclosed: Eleven letters addressed to the Anglo-Palestine Company, dated 1905-10, apparently dealing with land purchases and the establishment of other settlements (Rosh Pina, Ein Ganim, Qastina; two letters from the Odessa Committee).

Tel Aviv's Sixty-Six Founding Families
The idea of establishing a new Jewish city on the sands of Jaffa was first conceived in 1906 by a group of five individuals: the architect Akiva Arieh Weiss; the eventual mayor, Meir Dizengoff; the author David Smilansky; Yehezkel Danin; and Yitzhak Hayutman. Each of the five would claim "fatherhood" of the original idea. Together, these five people – widely regarded as "the founders of Tel Aviv par excellence" – established a collective association known as "Ahuzat Bayit, " and issued a promotional pamphlet that laid out their vision: "Just as the City of New York signifies the main gateway to America, so is it incumbent upon us to create an exemplary city, one that, someday in the future, shall be the New York of the Land of Israel."
The members of the association, numbering sixty families, gathered on a desolate sand dune north of Jaffa on April 11, 1909, and conducted a lottery as a means of assigning lots within the confines of the area envisioned as the site of the future city. The lottery was administered according to a novel idea devised by the association's managing director, Akiva Arieh Weiss; the names of the participants were written on white seashells in one pile, while the numbers of the lots were scrawled on gray seashells in a second pile, and individual shells were then selected at random by a child. The event is referred to in the annals of the Jewish Yishuv as the "Seashell Lottery."
The participants in the lottery all signed a paper – the so-called "Founders' Pact, " essentially a letter of mutual guarantorship – and the individuals listed in this document would come to be viewed as the "60 Founders of Tel Aviv." The names of these 60 founders are inscribed on a stone monument erected in the middle of Rothschild Boulevard, the site where the original lottery had taken place, on the occasion of Tel Aviv's 40th anniversary.
Six more families – who, for various reasons, were not included among the signatories of the Founders' Pact – would eventually be added to the list of founders, and thus today it is widely accepted that the City of Tel Aviv was established by sixty-six founding families.
In the beginning, the founders were unable to have their homes and plots of land listed in their own names, because Ottoman law prohibited, for the most part, the sale of land to non-Ottoman subjects. To circumvent this prohibition, the land was registered under the name of the Jewish banker Jacobus Kann, who as a Dutch subject, was more readily able to purchase the parcel of land in question; Kann was thus listed by the authorities as the official landowner.
The construction of the houses in Ahuzat Bayit began in 1909 along four streets – Yehuda HaLevi, Lilienblum, Rothschild, and Ahad Ha'am – divided by one main avenue, namely Herzl Street, which led to the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium. The first homes were completed in January 1910. In May of the same year, it was decided to change the name of the nascent city to "Tel Aviv."