TEL AVIV — The world’s biggest Hebrew-speaking city, Tel Aviv, is get-ting ready to uncork a panoply of projects and festivities to mark its 100th anniversary in 2009.

Tel Aviv’s beachfront today [Sheldon Kirshner photo]

“We’re planning to use centennial events to promote Tel Aviv,” said Eytan Schwartz, a member of the Centennial Year Administration. “We hope they will be to Israel what the summer Olympic Games were to China.”

In an interview, Schwartz said that Tel Aviv, population 400,000 excluding its suburbs, will be promoted as a liberal, outgoing, tolerant and multicultural city.

Tel Aviv will also be showcased as a Jewish destination, he added. “This is where Zionism and modern Hebrew took root,” he noted.

Planned as a garden suburb of Jaffa, with wide streets and  boulevards, Tel Aviv was founded by the members of the Ahuzat Bayit Society.

In 1908, when the modern Zionist movement was still in its infancy, the group bought five hec-tares of undeveloped land along the beachfront northeast of Jaffa, which was primarily inhabited by Muslim and Christian Arabs.

One of the founding fathers, Meir Dizengoff, would be Tel Aviv’s first mayor. After his death, a major street was named in his honour.

On April 11, 1909, the purchasers  gathered on the sand dunes along the Mediterranean Sea to divide their acquisition into 60 plots.

The following year, they decided that the city of their dreams would be called Tel Aviv, or Spring Hill.

Growing by leaps and bounds, Tel Aviv attained municipal status in the early 1930s.

On the eve of Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948, its population was 230,000.

Due to the Arab blockade of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv was Israel’s first capital. In 1949, Tel Aviv and Jaffa were amalgamated. Today, more than 90 per cent of its population is Jewish.

Tel Aviv’s centennial year will officially start on April 11, Schwartz said.

Schools are preparing special programs to mark the occasion. Field trips and subsidized class visits to museums, theatres and exhibitions will reinforce students’ acquaintance with the city.

Residents will be invited to contribute family photographs to exhibitions, and 1,000 billboards celebrating Tel Aviv’s  passage from village to metropolis will be festooned around the city.

A history museum will be inaugurated at the site of the old city hall. Its  first exhibit will focus on artistic representations of Tel Aviv.

A marathon race from Tel Aviv to Jaffa is in the works, as is a bicycle race. Three new walk-ing paths exploring Tel Aviv’s Bauhaus architecture heritage are being built.

The port of Jaffa and the Trumpeldor Street cemetery, the city’s first, will be renovated.

And in a tribute to Dizengoff, a statue of him riding a horse will be unveiled on Rothschild Boulevard, the city’s first important thoroughfare.

Tel Aviv’s annual book fair will return to its original home in the heart of the city, at Rabin Square, and the Eretz Israel Museum will present an exhibition of antiques and artifacts excavated by archeologists in Tel Aviv and Jaffa.

The Turkish-era train station near Neve Tzedek – the first Jewish neighbourhood in what is now Tel Aviv – will be fully restored.

Nearby, opposite Jaffa’s clock tower, the Turkish government is building a cultural centre, to be known as the Saraya.

Amid this flurry of activity, the Habima National Theatre, a fixture in the city for decades, is being completely renovated and expanded.

Schwartz can hardly contain his excitement.

“The centennial is a wonderful opportunity for people to say, ‘Hey, let’s spend two or three more days in Tel Aviv.’”