Levant Fair

EXPO Tel Aviv 1932
the logo of the Flying Camel at the main entrance that was the sign of the fair
Overview
BIE-class	Universal exposition
Name	Levant Fair
Area	10 hectares (25 acres)
Participant(s)
Countries	30
Location
Country	Israel
City	Tel Aviv
Venue	Tel Aviv Port
Coordinates	Coordinates: 32°5′53.60″N 34°46′32.08″E / 32.0982222°N 34.7755778°E / 32.0982222; 34.7755778
Timeline
Opening	17 August 1933 (1933-08-17)
Closure	26 April 1934 (1934-04-26)
Universal expositions
Previous	International Exposition

The Levant Fair (Hebrew: יריד המזרח) was an international trade fair held in Tel Aviv during the 1920s and 1930s.

One of the early precursors to the Levant Fair, an exhibition titled the "Exhibition and Fair for the Promotion of Goods Made in Israel", took place in April 1914 and was held at a boys' school in Tel Aviv. Another such show was held in the summer of 1923 in three rooms of the Zionist Club on Rothschild Boulevard. This exhibition's success in turn paved the way for five subsequent exhibitions. The success also improved the area provided by the municipality for entrepreneurs, a desolate, southern part of Tel Aviv with an old bus station. The area is now home to the Administration Building of the Society for the Protection of Nature.

There were further exhibitions in 1925, two in 1926, 1929, and one in 1932, with the fair in 1932 being the first to be called the "Levant Fair". A special symbol called the "Flying Camel" was designed for the fair by its chief architect, Aryeh Elhanani. Trees were planted during the fair in honor of the former exhibition, and three such palm trees survive to this day.

Henceforth, these exhibitions were referred to as fairs and also became quite successful, attracting tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of Jews, Arabs, English, and tourists. The 1932 fair was visited by nearly 300,000 people. Voice Jerusalem, an Israeli radio station, began regular broadcasts about the fair, in Hebrew, starting in 1936.

Some very distinguished people have visited the fair, including British High Commissioners for Palestine Herbert Samuel (1920-1925), Herbert Plumer (1925-1928), John Chancellor (1928-1931), and Arthur Wauchope (1932-1937), as well as Arab mayors of Jaffa and Jerusalem.

As the scope of the exhibition expanded, it became necessary to construct a permanent home for the fair and others like it. High Commissioner Arthur Wauchope, who had supported the Yishuv, liked the idea and helped to designate the Yarkon Peninsula, an area north of the city, for the construction of the complex. On 17 August 1933 a cornerstone ceremony was held there, which featured Wauchope, Meir Dizengoff, and other community leaders.