Lottery for building plots in Tel Aviv (1909)

On 11 April 1909, 66 Jewish families gathered on one of the sand dunes to parcel out the land by lottery using seashells. (Photo 3) The lottery was organised by Akiva Aryeh Weiss, president of the building society who collected 120 sea shells on the beach, half of them white and half of them grey. Names were written on the white shells and plot numbers on the grey shells. A boy and girl had the task of drawing the names and numbers. It was a progressive town from the beginning and hard work was undertaken to complete such a huge endeavour. A well was quickly dug and within a year a water system was installed and 66 houses were completed.