Bill of sale, handwritten on official stationery, for a plot of land adjacent to the "Achuzat Bayit" neighborhood on Herzl Street. Tel-Aviv, 1910.
The bill establishes the sale of a plot to one of the founders of the "Achuzat Bayit" neighborhood, Chaim Zvi Treves. Treves planned to build a shopping center for the new Jewish neighborhood, but as "Achuzat Bayit" was built as a shop-free garden town, he decided to purchase a plot of land in the edge of the neighborhood, on the other side of the railroad track. On this plot, he built house no. 22 of Herzl Street, which served as the first shopping center of Tel-Aviv.
The bill starts by noting the borderlines and size of the plot, then detailing conditions under which Treves could run the shopping center – keeping the building two meters at least away from the adjacent house, not being allowed to open windows in the direction of the houses of the neighborhood, not being allowed to sell alcoholic drinks and additional conditions. The bill is stamped with a (faded) stamp reading "'Tel-Aviv' Jaffa Committee" (Hebrew) and hand-signed by three of the founders of "Achuzat Bayit": Meir Dizengoff, Avraham Gershon Chanoch and David Izmozhik (the first two signed a second time to approve a correction made to the bill). Beneath the signatures is an Ottoman revenue stamp, on which the date and place are handwritten (in English).
[2] leaves (two written pages), 26 cm. Good-fair condition. Fold lines. Stains. Small tears along edges and fold lines. Filing holes to margins of both leaves and two small holes to center of first leaf, slightly affecting text.