22 Adar 5698 – February 23 1938
The disturbances of the Arab Revolt that broke out in 1936 convinced both Zionist leaders and members of the British Mandate Administration that a Jewish port had to be opened in Tel Aviv, as a back up for Jaffa port in the event of further Arab rioting there. Jewish dockworkers from Thessaloniki were recruited to build and man the port, diverted from the port in Haifa which they’d arrived from Greece to build just a few years earlier. The new port, dedicated in an impressive ceremony, was one of Israel’s two main ports until new facilities were built in Ashdod in the 1960s.