Demolition workers were busy today tearing down the Herzliah Gymnasium, one of the educational landmarks of pre-state Jewish community of Palestine, which will be replaced with a 14-story office building which will be the tallest in Tel Aviv.
Pioneer residents of Tel Aviv sorrowfully watched the wrecking of the school; where former Prime Minister Moshe Sharett and other Israel leaders received part of their education. The Herzliah Gymnasium had become a symbol of Jewish education and Jewish sovereignty. Many Israel stamps bear a picture of the tower which was the main entrance to the school.
The school was one of the first Tel Aviv structures built outside of Jaffa on the sand dunes which have long since been covered by the asphalt streets and buildings and homes of the major metropolis into which Tel Aviv has grown in its 15 years.
The building was sold to a group of investors headed by Mordechai Meyer, a prominent industrialist and financier who is himself a graduate of the famous school. Only a small monument to be erected in front of the new office building will remind the thousands of graduates of the school that this was the school site.
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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.
