Yosef Eliyahu Chelouche - Business and Public Activities

Business and Public Activities

His business in the field of construction and the land trades of his father made Chelouche involved in the actual process of building. He started working also as a building contractor, a framework in which he got to build different kinds of buildings in northern Jaffa and later in Tel Aviv, the most significant of them were the Feingold Houses in Yefeh Nof (Bella Vista) neighborhood, the Girls School and the Alliance School in Neve Tzedek, 32 of the first dwellings of Ahuzat Bait neighborhood (later to be Tel Aviv) and the edifice of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium. During the same time he also occupied himself – single-handedly or cooperating with others - in the business of land purchase in the environs of Tel Aviv and also in other parts of the country. Besides his private business, Chelouche dedicated much of his time for public matters. Above all was his concern for the development of the two cities he had spent his life in – Jaffa and Tel Aviv – and for its inhabitants welfare. Along with his wife, Freha Simha Chelouche (née Moyal), he was among the first founders of Tel Aviv. After World War I he was a member of the town's first local council. During the 1920s he was also a member of Jaffa's city council. In his public activities he initiated and conceived many ideas for the improvement and enhancement of the city, ideas which not once were carried out by others.