Israel Rokach, who served as the fourth mayor of Tel Aviv from 1952 to 1936, was known to always maintain good relations with the journalistic sector, even when they attacked him from time to time throughout his 16 years of rule in the city.
Therefore, when journalists approached him in the early 50s and asked him to help them obtain suitable housing in Tel Aviv, the mayor enlisted on several conditions: first, he determined, the residence would not be in the city center but in its suburbs; There will be no housing solution for each journalist individually, but for a group in a condominium; And the determination of eligibility will be made by a housing committee that will be composed according to a party key.
Soon an area was located for the construction of the journalists' housing, in an area formerly called "Zabalawi lands" and turned into the Yad Eliyahu neighborhood. The building that was erected was a block with three entrances and three floors, two apartments on each floor - and a total of 18 apartments (today, 21 Margolin Street). The apartments were three-room "standard" and cost 1,900 liras.
Towards the end of May 1953, the journalists entered their new apartments. Among them were Shalom Rosenfeld and Shmuel Schnitzer (later editors of Maariv), Habib Canaan (history researcher and journalist at Haaretz), Shabtai Portnoy (Yedioth Ahronoth), Emanuel Katz (Herut newspaper) and others, a total of 18 journalists' families. Some suffered from financing difficulties and moved into apartments, even though construction was not completed.
In the 60s, two more designated "blocks" for journalists were built at Yad Eliyahu on Palmach and Yitzhak Sadeh streets.
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