View source for Akiva Aryeh Weiss

{{Short description|Zionist activist and architect (1868–1947)}}
[[File:Akiva Arie Weiss house.jpg|thumb|right|Akiva Arie Weiss House, ground floor built 1909]]
'''Akiva Arieh Weiss''', also spelled '''Aryeh''' (1868–1947), was a [[Zionism|Zionist]] activist, architect, and city planner in [[State of Palestine|Palestine]]. He is best known as the primary founder of [[Tel Aviv]]. 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 [[Israeli diamond industry|Jewish diamond industry]] and textile industry in Palestine.
==Biography==
Weiss, a jeweler and watchmaker, was born to a Jewish family in [[Grodno|Grodna]] (in present day [[Belarus]]) in 1868, but raised in [[Lodz, Poland|Łódz, Poland]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=עיר מראשיתה|last=Yekutieli Kohen|first=Edna|date=2009|publisher=Orah ḥadashah|pages=2|oclc=432295641}}</ref> Along with his wife and six children, he immigrated from [[Congress Poland|Russian Poland]] to Palestine in 1906.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Kohen|first1=Edna Yekutieli |title=Tel-Aviv Centennial - Akiva Aryeh Weiss (1868-1947)|url=http://www.boeliem.com/content/2008/791.html|website=boeliem.com/index.html|publisher=Boeleim; Complete Reference to Israeli Stamps|access-date=27 October 2014}}</ref>
[[File:Ahuzan Baiyt22.jpg|thumb|Ahuzat Bayit, 1929. Weiss is at center.]]
As [[president (corporate title)|president]] of the then newly established [[building cooperative]] named ''Ahuzat Bayit'', [[Hebrew]] for Building Society, Weiss wrote and presented a prospectus to the group in which he laid out his vision for a new Jewish city.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Tel Aviv : mythography of a city|last=Azaryahu, Maoz|date=2007|publisher=Syracuse Univ. Press|isbn=978-0815631293|pages=50|oclc=836349557}}</ref> [[Arthur Ruppin]]'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."<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Tel Aviv: from dream to city|last=Schlör|first=Joachim|date=1999|publisher=Reaktion Books Ltd|isbn=1861890338|location=London|pages=41|oclc=40798775}}</ref> Weiss would later on tell Ruppin; “Outside Jaffa, on the road to [[Petah Tikva|Petach Tikva]]...we intend to found a modern Jewish urban district. We already have our eye on a particular tract of land.”<ref name=":0" />
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.<ref name="AzaryahuTroen2012">{{cite book |last1= Azaryahu |first1=Maoz |last2=Troen |first2=Selwyn Ilan |title=Tel-Aviv, the First Century: Visions, Designs, Actualities |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=yLQrEPLDkGAC&pg=PA31 |access-date=19 April 2014 |year=2012 |publisher= Indiana University Press |isbn= 9780253223579 |page=31}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Kosharek |first=Noah |url=http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1079400.html |title=Seashell lottery |publisher=[[Haaretz]] |date=20 April 2009 |access-date=23 November 2012 |archive-date=21 November 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221121145822/https://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1079400.html |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=White city, black city architecture and war in Tel Aviv and Jaffa|last=Rotbard, Sharon|date=2015|publisher=Pluto Press|isbn=9780745335117|pages=49|oclc=948973465}}</ref>
Weiss was a founder of the textile industry in [[Mandatory Palestine]], and built the earliest textile [[factory]], the [[Lodzia House]].<ref>{{cite web|last=BarOr|title=43 Nahmani Street, Tel Aviv-Jaffa – Lodzia House |url= http://www.amnon-baror.co.il/projectpt1/%D7%A8%D7%97%D7%95%D7%91-%D7%A0%D7%97%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%99-43-%D7%AA%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%91-%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%95-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%93%D7%96%D7%99%D7%94/?lang=en |website= amnon-baror.co.il/?lang=en |access-date=27 October 2014}}</ref>
One of Weiss' visions which became reality was the establishment of a [[Israeli diamond industry|Jewish diamond industry]] in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]].<ref name="1900to37">[http://www.israelidiamond.co.il/english/news.aspx?boneID=1450 The Early 1900s] {{webarchive |url= https://web.archive.org/web/20061107080722/http://www.israelidiamond.co.il/English/NEWS.aspx?boneid=1450 |date=2006-11-07 }} by Shira Ami</ref>
==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]], the 2nd [[Prime Minister of Israel]] and a man of considerable stature at the time. Sharett's introduction read thus (translated from Hebrew):<blockquote>"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."<ref>{{Cite book|title=ראשיתה של תל אביב תולדות ייסוד העיר ורשימות יומן|trans-title=The beginning of Tel Aviv: The history of the founding of the city and diary entries |author= עקיבא אריה בן יוסף חיים ויס 1868-1947 |publisher=ʻAyanot, Tel-Aviv|year=1956–1957|language=he|oclc=1001810559}}</ref></blockquote>
==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.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Amnon Bar & Co. Architects|title=2 Herzl St., Tel Aviv-Yafo – Akiva Arieh Weiss House|url=http://www.amnon-baror.co.il/projectpt1/%D7%A8%D7%97-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%A6%D7%9C-2-%D7%AA%D7%9C-%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%91-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA-%D7%A2%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%91%D7%90-%D7%90%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94-%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A1/?lang=en|website=amnon-baror.co.il/?lang=en|access-date=27 October 2014}}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:1868 births]]
[[Category:1947 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century jewellers]]
[[Category:Ashkenazi Jews in Mandatory Palestine]]
[[Category:Ashkenazi Jews from Ottoman Palestine]]
[[Category:19th-century Jews from the Russian Empire]]
[[Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the Ottoman Empire]]
[[Category:Mandatory Palestine people of Belarusian-Jewish descent]]
[[Category:Watchmakers (people)]]
[[Category:Businesspeople from Łódź]]
[[Category:Architects from Ottoman Palestine]]
[[Category:Urban planners]]
[[Category:Diamond industry in Israel]]
[[Category:Jewish architects]]
[[Category:Belarusian Zionists]]
[[Category:History of Tel Aviv]]
[[Category:Businesspeople in textiles]]
[[Category:Burials at Trumpeldor Cemetery]]
[[Category:Immigrants to Ottoman Palestine]]
[[Category:Immigrants of the Second Aliyah]]