In April, the Dov Hoz Community Center was inaugurated in a renovated old building in Tel Aviv. Since then, said Nadav Avnery, the center’s director, it has seen nonstop visitors who “pop their head in the door and ask what we do here and when there will be activities for them.” The renewed vitality of the place testifies to the potential for the evolution of buildings in Israel.

The structure was built in 1938 as a Mizrahi “home for young women,” to help house the influx of children during the youth immigration of that period, and then it became a boarding school for girls. In 1999, the building was abandoned, after which it attracted the homeless and drug users, becoming a sore at the center of Tel Aviv on very expensive land. In 2011, the old abandoned building became a symbol in the protest over the cost of living, with social activists taking it over and establishing an independent community center and running programs and other activities out of it.

Despite the activists' positive initiative, which was warmly received by the public, the city of Tel Aviv evicted them, promising to renovate the building. One can interpret this as evidence of the municipality’s warped priorities in that it prefers an abandoned building in the center of the city to a social initiative that, although not legally sanctioned, was nonetheless effective. Would the city have bothered to renovate the building without the protests and the activists’ takeover? Even if so, it is clear that the protests and takeover served as catalysts.

The Dov Hoz Community Center is an educational community complex that also includes a cluster of preschool classes. “There was a process of involving the public that the municipality is proud of,” Avnery told Al-Monitor. “The city involved the public in a comprehensive and approachable way. It held an event at the place before the renovations started, with the participation of hundreds of residents of all ages, and had an online process for brainstorming ideas for its use. There were also focus groups. Based on all this, alongside the city’s formal education needs, the uses of the building were determined.”