The building in which the current museum is located was built in 1900 by a Jewish entrepreneur who settled in Jaffa in the new, only developing outside the city walls, Manshie. After his death, the house was acquired by an Arab family and was used interchangeably for residential, industrial and commercial purposes. After the Jewish pogrom perpetrated by the Arabs in Jaffa in 1929, the attic of the building was rented by a Jewish family who fled from Jaffa. During the great Arab uprising in 1936, the British decided to raze some of the most explosive areas in Jaffa, relocating its Arab inhabitants to homes in Manshia. Arabs settled in this building, and the Jewish family living in the attic was no longer able to live in it. The British destroyed a large part of Jaffa, finally crushing the Arab uprising in 1939, and the Manshia region became the most hostile to both the British and the Jews of Tel Aviv. In the first months of the war of independence, the front line between the Jews of Tel Aviv and the Arabs of Jaffa passed between the Neve Tzedek quarter and Menasha quarter. The building, which later became a museum, was part of the Arabs' fortification line. During Passover in 1948, Ezel launched a campaign to eliminate this Jaffa resistance enclave, during which 41 soldiers were killed and 82 wounded. Next to the museum building was the last Arab outpost, which fell into the hands of Irgun, which paved the way for the surrender of the Manshia region and all of Jaffa. For many years the entire territory of Manshia and Jaffa lay in ruins. In the late 1970s, when it was decided to clear the rubble of the ruined area, members of the former Etzel organization turned to the municipality of Tel Aviv with a request to create a memorial complex that would perpetuate the memory of their comrades who died in battle. The museum was named the museum of Amihai [Gidi] Faglin ”, which was a military officer of Irgun, and, more simply, the museum became known as“ Beit Gidi ”. Architects Amnon Niv, Amnon Schwartz and Danny Schwartz restored a part of the stone building and integrated it in 1983 into a modern structure. Translated with Google Translate
One of the most interesting pages in the history of Tel Aviv and Jaffa is the relationship of cities throughout the twentieth century. Jaffa has been a large port city for centuries, and Tel Aviv was only conceived in 1909. The first railway in Palestine was built between Jaffa and Jerusalem when Tel Aviv was not yet there. The Manshia quarter - at the junction of Jaffa and Tel Aviv - ceased to exist during the war for the Independence of Israel. Jaffa became part of the booming Tel Aviv, but retained its identity. All these stories will be told by the route from Mitham aTahan - the old railway station, across the Manshia embankment to ancient Jaffa to the top of the hill of Abrashi Park, where today the most beautiful and most famous view of Tel Aviv and Jaffa opens. Translated with Google Translate
