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Yes, a lottery using gray and white shells marked the beginning of the first Hebrew city, Tel Aviv.
Akiva Weiss was a man in a hurry. True, he was a watchmaker … but on his first night in Palestine, after disembarking at Jaffa port with his wife and six children in July 1906, he was called to an important meeting.
His neighbor, David Smilansky, proposed to the participants – Jewish residents of Jaffa – to collectively purchase a plot of land, just north of Jaffa, where they would build the first modern Hebrew-speaking city.
The proposal was adopted enthusiastically.
The Jaffa Home-Builders' Association – Ahuzat Bayit – was established, and its head was none other than Akiva Weiss, the new arrival who became the project's guiding spirit.
Three years later, during Passover 1909, Weiss called together on a dune near the seashore some 200 people representing the 60 families who wanted to build homes in the new neighborhood.
The historic occasion: A lottery to distribute plots of land among the city's founders.
To ensure a fair allocation, Weiss took 60 white seashells and 60 gray ones, inscribing the names of the families that had bought land on the white shells and the plot numbers on the gray ones.
A young boy and girl drew out, one by one, a gray shell and a white shell – and the rest is history.
From out of the dune sprang a city that, according to the plans of its founders, would bring a new quality of life to the Land of Israel: "Houses with green gardens and flowerbeds, children's playgrounds, street lights and running water in every home.
In short, a Jewish neighborhood that would take its place without shame among the world's neighborhoods." A progressive vision, to be sure.
Thus, by 1910, with the first 60 houses already standing proudly on the sands, the founding families celebrated Moving Day, and a train of camels made its way north from Jaffa, carrying the Weiss family's belongings to their new home.
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