Beit Ha'Olim, Heritage building on Yefet Street, Jaffa, Israel.
Beit Ha'Olim is a two-storey pale stone building at 34 Yefet Street in Jaffa. Its upper floor has four rectangular windows with vertical metal bars, and a fifth opening stands empty without frame or glass. At street level are two closed metal roller shutters, one marked with the Hebrew word for rent and a phone number.
Beit Ha'Olim was rented by the Va'ad Hatzirim and inaugurated in early September 1920 at 34 Yefet Street, between Ajami and Old Jaffa, near the port where immigrants landed. It was run by Yehuda and Dvora Charkeski. On 1 May 1921 rioters attacked the house; residents fought them off with iron bars, but police broke down the gate and 14 people were killed, including the Charkeskis. The building was abandoned afterwards.
The building is named Beit Ha'Olim, "House of the Immigrants," and also Beit HaHalutz; it housed newcomers who arrived through the nearby Jaffa port. Its managers, Yehuda and Dvora Charkeski, refused a Christian police officer's offer to leave before the 1921 attack and were killed. The events are told in Moshe Shamir's novel "Ad HaSof" and in "HaNeder" by Moshe Granot, the Charkeskis' son-in-law, who was 13 and inside the house during the riots.
Beit Ha'Olim stands at 34 Yefet Street in Jaffa, between Ajami and Old Jaffa, a short walk from the Jaffa port where the immigrants landed. The facade has two closed metal roller shutters at street level, one painted with the Hebrew word for rent, and a narrow barred window between them. The building is not open as a museum; it is seen from the street.
The building's name changed with its fate: after the 1921 riots it was abandoned, and a new immigrant house was built at the southern end of Allenby Street, whose continuation gave Rehov HaAliya its name. The Jaffa building is also called Beit HaHalutz.
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