Sarona (Templer Colony)

Sarona was founded as an agricultural colony by German Templers and developed in what is now central Tel Aviv, on the site of the Kiryah, the government-office district. It stood near Jaffa and on routes connecting the area with other localities; a contemporary 1934 description called it a German Templer colony bordering Tel Aviv and Jaffa.[1][2] The settlement’s history joins the story of a German Protestant community in Ottoman Palestine with the later development of Tel Aviv and the establishment of Israeli government institutions on the former colony grounds.[1][3]

The Templers were Protestant families originating in southwest Germany, associated with the movement led by Christoph Hoffmann. They sought to live according to their religious ideals in the Holy Land, and regarded themselves as “the new people of Israel.”[4][1] Sarona was one of several Templer communities established in the region: communities were founded in Jaffa in 1869, Sarona in 1871, and Jerusalem in 1873.[4] Sarona is described as the third Templer community in the Holy Land and the first of their settlements based on agriculture.[5]

The colony’s historical significance is visible in successive uses of its land and buildings: first as a farming settlement, then as a British military and administrative site, and later as a center of Israeli government and defense institutions.[3][6] A surviving group of buildings and restored agricultural features now forms an open-air museum and leisure destination.[7][8]

The Templers emerged from a Pietist movement and were expelled from the Lutheran Church in 1858, after which they organized as the independent Tempelgesellschaft, or Temple Society. Their religious aim was described as realizing “the apocalyptic visions of the prophets of Israel” through the establishment of colonies in the Holy Land.[1] The first Templer settlers arrived in Palestine in 1868, and the community’s presence expanded through settlements in Jaffa, Sarona, and Jerusalem.[4]

Christoph Hoffmann founded Sarona in 1871 as an agricultural settlement, after first seeking unsuccessfully to obtain land from the Ottoman government as a free grant. He instead purchased land at the site of what is now the Kiryah.[1] Another account says the founders came from the German colony in Jaffa and that the first families settled at Sarona in early 1872; it reports that the first building’s cornerstone was laid in 1871.[9] The sources thus describe the colony’s establishment in 1871 while also placing the arrival or settlement of its first families in 1872.[1][9]

The settlement was laid out as a carefully ordered street-village, with streets arranged in the shape of a cross. Theodor Sändel, a Templer architect, planned the colony, and its main street was named for Hoffmann; the street is now David Elazar Street.[10] Sarona stood on a kurkar ridge near important transport routes. Government preservation material describes its original site as swampy land by the Ayalon River and identifies Sändel as the planner of the original compound.[11]

The houses were functional in design and generally built of kurkar sandstone with tiled roofs. Most had four levels: a basement, a living floor, a sleeping floor, and an attic. Sändel preferred tiled roofs to flat roofs because flat roofs required continuing maintenance.[11] Individual residential plots were generally about 2.5 dunams, according to a Ynet account.[3]

The name “Sarona” has more than one account of its origin. One version says the founders first considered “Ebenezer” and ultimately chose Sarona in reference to the biblical Sharon region.[3] Another account says the Templers mistakenly believed they were in Sharon, consulted a German translation of the Bible, found the name “Saron,” and called the settlement Deutsche Kolonie Sarona.[7] The available accounts do not resolve the difference.

The early years brought severe hardship. Fever in 1872 killed dozens of residents of the Templer settlements in Jaffa and Sarona, while malaria and the unfamiliar climate caused many deaths, particularly among infants.[10][1] The colony nevertheless grew. By 1890, it had 51 families, or about 270 people, most of whom worked in agriculture.[10] By the end of the nineteenth century, hundreds of settlers lived there.[5]

A community building, inaugurated in June 1872, served as a place for ceremonies and meetings and as a school for the colony’s children. A clock and bells at its top signaled the midday break.[7] Another account describes three bells on the building’s roof: one for emergencies, one for each full hour, and one every 15 minutes. Since residents worked in fields, the bells helped signal when to begin returning home.[5] During preparations to move the building in 2005, workers found its original clock mechanism in the attic.[7]

Sarona’s development was disrupted during the First World War. British troops occupied it in November 1917, and its community house was converted into a field hospital.[12] Templer communities in southern localities were affected by deportations after British forces conquered Palestine; residents were sent to a camp near Cairo, and some were later sent to Germany while others remained until permitted to return in 1920.[4][1] Accounts specifically concerning Sarona describe its residents as evacuated or exiled to Egypt and say the buildings were damaged.[13][8]

The sources differ in how they characterize the transfer of approximately 850 Templers to Egypt in 1918. One account calls them interned in Egypt, while another describes them as deported as enemy nationals to Helwan.[12][14] After the war, residents returned to damaged homes and restored the colony.[8] A resident, Karl Steller, returned in 1921 and experienced years of prosperity under the British Mandate.[13]

By the mid-1920s Sarona had become a farming community with a stronger emphasis on trade, as Jewish immigration and Tel Aviv’s growth changed its surroundings.[12] A 1934 article reproduced in a later scholarly book characterized Sarona as a long-established community of Swabian farmers and claimed that its residents did not sell land to Jews, linking this to rising land prices. Those statements reflect the contemporary article’s framing, rather than independently verified conclusions.[2]

The rise of Nazism in Germany brought a further rupture. The National Library of Israel reports that some Templers established a Nazi Party branch and that a significant number of German settlers joined it. From September 1939, British authorities treated the Templers as “hostile citizens,” citing the German citizenship held by most and the political views of some; families were concentrated in several localities, and a few people were deported to Australia.[4] An Encyclopaedia Judaica account says that by 1934 Nazi Party officials had linked seven German colonies through a network, and that about 350 Palestinian Germans belonged to the party by September 1939. These figures concern the wider Templer community in Palestine, not Sarona residents individually.[1]

Other accounts describe the wartime measures in differing terms and with different timelines. Sarona and other Templer colonies near Jaffa were abandoned after German men were detained by the British at the beginning of the war.[6] The Jerusalem Post reports that 661 Templers were interned in 1939 and deported to Australia in 1941, and that Sarona then served as a barbed-wire-ringed prison camp for Germans for two years before its northern half became a British military base.[14] A Russian-language Israeli government page dates the Templers’ final expulsion by the British to 1943, linking it to nationalist attitudes and reporting that many openly sympathized with Hitler, joined the Nazi Party, or prepared to serve in the Wehrmacht.[8] Other accounts describe detention in the colonies, deportation to Australia, and transfers to Germany during the war.[3][1] These accounts do not establish that all Templers supported Nazism, nor do they provide a Sarona-specific membership count.

The National Library states that the last Templers left in 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel, while Encyclopaedia Judaica reports that scores remained in Israel until they were deported in 1950.[4][1] The latter account also says the Israeli government took over Templer property in 1948 and that it was included in the accounting of the reparations agreement with the Federal Republic of Germany.[1]

After the British withdrawal, the Haganah took control of former British installations in Sarona.[10][3] During the War of Independence, former British military buildings were used by the Haganah; the colony’s winery became a maintenance center for the Air Service that preceded the Israeli Air Force. Ynet reports that 21 light aircraft assembled from parts bought from the British were put together there.[3] A winery cellar also housed Auster–Primus aircraft belonging to the Haganah Air Service, and the winery’s cellars and yard were used to assemble and prepare aircraft for flight.[13]

In 1948, Sarona became an Israeli government compound.[3] On June 7, Prime Minister and Defense Minister David Ben-Gurion circulated a letter declaring that the seat of government would henceforth be called “the Kirya.”[3] The site subsequently housed the Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces General Staff.[3][6]

The Israeli government compensated surviving Templers for nationalized property. The Jerusalem Post and an Israeli embassy account give the settlement date as 1962; the former reports compensation of 54 million deutsche marks.[14][12] A Russian-language government page instead places payments to Templers and their descendants in the 1950s, without giving an amount.[8] The sources therefore differ on the timing of compensation.

Sarona’s preserved buildings became the focus of a later debate over development and conservation. A 2005 Knesset plenum decision, passed unanimously after a debate initiated by MK Gideon Sa’ar, called on the Tel Aviv municipality and Israel Land Administration to halt irreversible actions connected with the South Kirya project. The resolution described the historic Templer colony as having vital historical and architectural importance and as a milestone in the history of settlement and the state.[15]

In a road-widening and preservation project in 2005, five Templer buildings were moved south to make room for Kaplan Street’s expansion to eight lanes. The buildings had kurkar-stone cellars; they were reinforced, cut from their foundations, and shifted on rails at about five meters per hour.[10] Preservation advocates proposed putting Kaplan Street underground to retain the original fabric of the colony, but that proposal was rejected.[10] Accounts give differing totals for buildings slated for preservation or demolition: one describes a decision involving 37 buildings, while another refers to about 35 historic buildings in the southern part of Sarona with 50 houses slated for demolition.[10][3] A later account describes a program to preserve 36 colony houses.[13] The figures may refer to different areas, plans, or stages and are not reconciled in the cited accounts.

Following a major conservation process, the site became a tourism and leisure center described as an open-air museum.[7][8] A Jerusalem Post account describes Ganei Sarona as including 33 original houses and a 4.5-hectare park, with 27 houses used for shops, restaurants, and cafés and six converted to other uses, including a visitor center and two museums.[14] An earlier government project document described plans for a central park of about 40 dunams and identified 37 Templer-colony buildings within the project, 27 of them included in a tender.[11] These numbers relate to different project accounts and stages.

The available population data distinguish Sarona from the wider Templer community. A 1945–1946 Survey of Palestine lists Sarona as a local council in the Lydda District, classifies its community as “Templar,” and gives its population in 1944 as 150. The Survey separately records 1925 as the year Sarona’s local council was established.[16]

For the Templer settlements collectively, the National Library gives a population of about 850 in 1878, 1,300 in 1884, and approximately 2,000 on the eve of the First World War, the community’s peak population in Palestine.[4] These totals are not Sarona-specific. Sarona itself had 51 families, or roughly 270 people, in 1890, and hundreds of settlers by the end of the nineteenth century.[10][5]

The colony’s population and institutional life were affected by disease, wartime displacement, and the eventual departure of the Templers. Fever killed dozens of residents in the Templer settlements of Jaffa and Sarona in 1872, while malaria and the unfamiliar climate caused deaths among settlers, especially infants.[10][1] World War I brought evacuation and exile to Egypt, with residents later returning to damaged homes.[13][8] The Second World War brought internment and deportations that affected the wider Templer community.[1][3] The National Library says the last Templers left in 1948, while Encyclopaedia Judaica reports that scores remained until 1950.[4][1]

Agriculture shaped Sarona’s early economy. Residents cultivated fields and vineyards, with grape growing for export a leading activity; the vineyards supported a winery, and the settlement also had a distillery and wine press.[3] By the end of the nineteenth century, residents were also cultivating citrus and exporting oranges under the Jaffa name.[8] An Israeli government diplomatic account credits them as the first to market oranges under the Jaffa label.[12]

The agricultural settlement developed a range of services and workshops. Sarona had a pharmacy, barber, carpenter’s workshop, grocery, and café, alongside its wine-related facilities.[3] The National Library describes businesses across the Templer communities collectively, including small factories making iron goods and tools, a press house, hotels, a newspaper, and a bank. It also notes the importance of roads connecting the settlements; these broader activities should not be treated as a list specific to Sarona alone.[4]

Water supply and irrigation were important elements of the colony’s infrastructure. In 1880, a wind turbine operated a chain pump that lifted water from 24 meters into a barrel, from which pipes carried water to taps at house entrances. By 1904, a central system serving homes and farms drew water from a 52-meter well using a gas-engine pump.[17] In 1910, farmers had 15 orchards irrigated from local wells using kerosene engines rather than the central installation.[17]

A 1901 postcard sent by a Sarona resident to her brother in Haifa’s German Colony depicted a farm building and a wind-powered water-pumping installation. Research cited in the same account dates Templer use of such a mechanism for irrigating orchards at farmer Lipman’s farm to 1885. A pumping station later discovered inside the Israel Broadcasting Authority complex contained a Deutz engine and a sign identifying “General Agent Gebruder Wagner Jaffa Palestina.”[17] Between the world wars, a concrete water tower was built to improve water pressure on upper floors.[17]

The colony’s built form combined agricultural buildings and homes with shared institutions. Its community building served as a school and meeting place, while the winery and farm structures supported production.[7][3] The surviving site preserves this built environment within a restored commercial and leisure complex.[7][8] The preservation of the compound was not simply a matter of retaining individual façades: the proposal to put Kaplan Street underground was advanced to keep the colony’s original fabric, but was rejected during the road-widening process.[10]

Sarona’s preserved colony area is now an open-air museum and a center for tourism, leisure, and entertainment. The restored site includes former colony houses, commercial premises, landscaped grounds, and a visitor center.[7][8] A National Library account describes the wider complex as a gentrified Tel Aviv neighborhood and a locus of leisure and entertainment.[4]

The Kiryah, the former colony’s best-known institutional successor, occupies the Sarona site and contains government offices and the central headquarters of the Israel Defense Forces.[3][6] The transition from settlement to state compound is reflected in the reuse of former British military and administrative buildings for the Israeli government, Defense Ministry, and General Staff.[3]

Ganei Sarona combines historic houses with contemporary commercial and cultural uses. One account reports that 27 of the 33 original houses in the complex became shops, restaurants, and cafés, while six were adapted for other purposes, including a visitor center and two museums.[14] The surviving Templer buildings thus remain part of an active urban district as well as a preserved historic environment.[7][8]

Accounts of the Templers’ political affiliations and wartime treatment require careful distinction between community-wide claims and Sarona-specific evidence. Sources report Nazi Party organization and substantial support among German settlers in Palestine, but do not establish that all Templers supported Nazism or provide a reliable membership count for Sarona itself.[4][1] They also differ on the precise sequence and dates of internment, deportation, and expulsion during the Second World War, including whether removal to Australia occurred in 1941 or a final expulsion took place in 1943.[14][8]

Accounts variously describe the 1918 transfer of approximately 850 Templers to Egypt as internment or deportation.[12][14] Sources also place compensation in either the 1950s or 1962.[14][8] The origin of the name Sarona is explained either as a deliberate reference to the biblical Sharon region or as the result of a geographical mistake.[3][7] Preservation totals likewise differ among accounts of the 2005 plans and later development stages.[10][3]

A 1945 Survey of Palestine reports that on May 13, 1945, telegraph poles were damaged by explosives and an attempt was made to attack the Police Mobile Force camp at Sarona with locally made mortars; it says mortar fire recurred on May 15. The Survey places these incidents in a passage it calls a renewed outbreak of “Jewish terrorism.”[16] A separate contemporary 1934 article characterized Sarona’s farmers and their land sales in terms that are reproduced in a later scholarly work; those claims are best understood as the article’s own framing rather than as independently established conclusions.[2]