Herzl Street
Herzl Street is a main street in Israel's cities.
Fifty-two streets in Israel bear the name of Benjamin Ze'ev Herzl. The streets named after him are found not only in large cities like Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Be'er Sheva, but also in medium and small cities.
This is how honor was paid to the man considered the originator of the Zionist idea of the return of the Jewish people to their land after 2,000 years of exile. The man who is etched in the historical heritage of modern Jews. The man who envisioned Jews running an independent state.
Even in the city of Bnei Brak, a city whose residents are part of the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) sector, a sector whose leaders and pathfinders are not fond of the idea of Zionism that Herzl bequeathed—even in their city, they compromised on a small street that honors his memory.
If one were to judge by the bustling traffic on the streets named after him, this is significant commemoration.
And if we add "Mount Herzl," which is sacred to the glory of our independence, and the city of Herzliya, and the city of Tel Aviv which got its name from the book Herzl wrote, and Herzliya Gymnasium, and a museum, and forests named after him, and a ship named Herzl, and hotels, and banknotes on which his picture is imprinted, and Hebrew songs written about him, and squares and museums, and first names and surnames of citizens who proudly bear one of his three names—Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl...
...All of these can attest that this is a commemoration on a staggering scale. Commemoration on which the narrative of the Jewish people in Israel and the entire world is based, among other things.
Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl on the balcony of the hotel in the city of Basel, Switzerland, in 1901. One of the most iconic images in Zionist heritage.
Herzl is the most veteran and widespread in the national pantheon.
But at the top of the list of the great figures of the nation commemorated in the streets of cities and towns, he has a serious competitor: Ze'ev Jabotinsky, who surpasses him with 55 streets named after him.
Jabotinsky was a member of the right-wing stream in the Zionist movement and was one of the sharpest and most prominent opponents of the socialist hegemony, which led the Hebrew Yishuv, established the State of Israel, and ruled it for about three decades.
Jabotinsky has another achievement: a street named after him crosses three cities in one continuous stretch—Ramat Gan, Bnei Brak, and Petah Tikva, and it is probably the longest street in the country.
David Ben-Gurion, who is considered the architect and founder of the State of Israel, the man who brought the Israelis their Declaration of Independence and was the first Prime Minister—is ranked third on the list, with 48 streets, followed by Chaim Weizmann, the first President of the state, with 47 streets. Closing out the top five is: the national poet, Haim Nahman Bialik, who is commemorated in the names of 43 cities and towns in Israel.
The rest of the places in the top ten on the list are: 6th place – Prime Minister Menachem Begin, 42 streets. 7th place – Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, 35 streets. 8th-9th place – Prime Minister Levi Eshkol along with Haim Arlosoroff, 31 streets each. And in 10th place: Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who, less than a decade after his assassination, was already commemorated in 30 towns in Israel.
Herzl Street at the corner of Jabotinsky Street.
Historical bits
In Israel, commemoration is an important tool in the creation and preservation of a historical narrative.
It is part of a grand story told to future generations. A story that was necessary to resurrect a nation that seemed to have been buried in the depths of history for two thousand years.
Herzl knew this.
As a journalist and author, he understood the value of a written word and a photograph, and their meaning in the historical heritage. That is probably why he dedicated his time to writing books, publishing articles, and giving himself over to photographers who posed him in the right way, one that would immortalize him in the heritage he worked to create.
And he was right. These photos and his books have accompanied the Zionist story for more than one hundred and twenty years.
Those who came after him continued the story and added a worthy backdrop that found practical expression—another town that was established in the Land of Israel, another building, another site, and another street.
Each of these received a name that suited the consolidating narrative, and each name was etched onto signs, and every sign was seen by passersby and those who lived in the city or on the street. And everyone who lived at an address named after a historical figure would mention the name every time they needed to give an address or receive a letter in the mail.
Thus, commemoration in streets becomes a form of "consciousness engineering" that fixes the names in the collective consciousness.
For years, the names were determined by committees that belonged to the ruling hegemony in the Hebrew Yishuv—first under the British Mandate, and later in the first decades of the independent state.
This was a secular hegemony of immigrants from European countries. They dictated the names of the figures worthy of being displayed on street and institutional signs, those who would be part of the complex historical story of the nation's revival in its land.
The hegemony was generous with its partners—a minority of Mizrahi Jews and national-religious people—and praised figures such as: Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Uziel, "Hafez Haim," the Rambam, Yehuda Halevi, Shlomo Ibn Gabirol, Sir Moses Montefiore, Don Isaac Abarbanel, and others.
The hegemony pushed the people of the Zionist right, their great rivals, into unrealistic places.
In their lifetime, the people of the right were excluded from public positions in the institutions of the Hebrew Yishuv and later in the establishment of the state. They were not involved in establishing towns, and their part in Israel's history was minimized and not considered significant.
Consequently, there was no one to commemorate, and the camp received crumbs of commemoration: a few streets named after the underground organizations Etzel and Lehi, streets named after the "Olei HaGardom," and activists associated with them like David Raziel.
Jabotinsky was the ultimate commemorated figure of the political right-wing camp for over three decades.
With the rise of the right to power in 1977, its leaders were able to act to position their people closer to the stage of history. The most available figure was Jabotinsky, who was well-known and famous.
Immediately after the elections they won, his name was commemorated in a new town built beyond the Green Line—Givat Ze'ev, and two years later his name was given to the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood in Jerusalem, which would later become one of the city's largest neighborhoods.
In the 21st century, the national pantheon is taking on new shades, and figures who were not born in Europe and did not undergo a proper "Zionist training" are also entering it.
The most prominent of all is Rabbi Ovadia Yosef—who, immediately after his death, already has his name on street signs in small and medium-sized cities, from Tel Aviv to Sderot.
Similarly, Rabbi Moshe Nissim, and Rabbi Abuchatzira ("the Baba Sali"), Ariel Sharon, the poet Uri Zvi Greenberg, and many others.
And with all due respect to the great figures of the nation, they are by no means the most commemorated in Israeli street names. None of them even comes close to the names of the trees of the "Seven Species."
"Olive" or "Olives" Street is on signs of 124 streets in Israeli towns. "Vine" – on 105, "Fig" on 95, "Pomegranate" – 89, "Date" – 70, and "Palm" – 65.
And yet, there is a striking difference:
The great figures of the nation are commemorated on larger, and usually busier, streets. In contrast, the names of the trees are mostly displayed on small streets, sometimes alleys. The trees are also chosen to be on street signs in small towns with a suburban and rural character, and they blend in with the dominant greenery in the environment.
This is part of The Israeli Story 1948-2025 project.
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