Large-scale expansion of Tel Aviv was foreseen ##re today following the joint acquisition by the Jewish National Fund and the Tel Aviv municipality of some 4,600 dunams (1,150 acres) of land in the Sarona colony ##ich was founied by Germans in 1870 and which served as a Nazi stronghold in Palestine prior to the outbreak of the war. During the war Sarona became the site of a ##antion camp for German nationals residing in Palestine.The purchase will increase Tel Aviv’s municipal area by nearly one-third. ### Sarons settlers, all Germans, have now returned to Germany or are preparing to immigrate to Australia. Negotiations for the transaction were carried on for over a ##ar with the Colonial Office in London and with the Palestine Government which, since ##e outbreak of the war, acted as legal trustee for the Sarona land as well as of other ##rman property in Palestine.
The price of the land, set by the Palestine Government was $9,000,000. ##e money will be transforred by the government to a reparations fund under the authority of the Allied War Reparations Commission. The Jewish National Fund supplied $6,000,000 toward the purchase price, the largest amount ever invested by the J.N.F. ##n promotion of urban development.
The purchase agreement, signed by Dr. Abraham Granovsky on behalf of the J.N.F., and by Mayor Israel Rokach on behalf of the Tel Aviv municipality, opens the possibilities for the city’s expansion which was previously hindered by Sarona which ##ies to the east and hortheast of Tel Aviv, both of which are natural directions for the growth of the all-Jewish city. Sarona’s position necessitated detours in expantion of the city, caused numerous difficulties in planning for a greater Tel Aviv, ##nd resulted in soaring prices of land in the neighboring area.
AREA MAY BECOME SEAT OF GOVERNMENT OF JEWISH STATE
Since the purchase now permits systemastic development of Tel Aviv and will {SPAN}##ct{/SPAN} as a check on inflated land prices by ensuring national ownership of the area {SPAN}##ital{/SPAN} to the city’s expansion, plans were being mapped today for the immediate use of the land. More than 2,200 dunams were earmarked for housing projects, about 800 lunams were set aside for an industrial center and the remainder will be used as a {SPAN}##ite{/SPAN} for public buildings, apparently in anticipation of the concentration of Jewish state government offices there. Of the 4,600 dunams, the J.N.F.’s share comes to about 2,700 dunams. In all, the former German colony’s land totals 6,200 dunams. The portion which was not acquired by the Jews, consisting mostly of rural land, remains under the custodianship of the Palestine Government.
Sarona was founded before any modern Jewish settlement in Palestine. Until the time of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany, relations between the German settlers in Sarona and Jewish colonists in the neighborhood were friendly. With the growth of Nazi influence in the world, Sarona became a nest of Nazism and served as an organizing center for Arab pre-war disturbances. The chief of Hitler’s experts on the extermination of the Jews in Europe was the Sarona-born Adolf Eichmann.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
