Category:Beit Carmi, Tel Aviv-Yafo

English: The Beit Carmi (בית כרמי, Carmi House) on Rechov Eli‛eser Kaplan 32 (i.e. Eli‛eser Kaplan Street; originally Meerestrasse) in Sarona, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel. The cornerstone of the building was laid in 1871, three years after the Templers arrived from Germany (Kingdom of Württemberg) and the USA (state of Maine). The building was dedicated in early 1873 and housed the local school.The building was built in 1871-73 as the municipality of Sarona, founded by Templers (members of a pietist Protestant group) and until 1885 inhabited only by fellow Templers. The municipality (Gemeindehaus, i.e. communal house, in German or Beit haVa‛ad בית הוועד, i.e. committee house, in Hebrew) also housed the local school. In 1943, Irgun fighters carried out a terror bomb attack near the building, lightly wounding six residents, one of them Gotthilf Wagner, the mayor of Sarona who had once been member of the Palestine branch of the Nazi party. When the British relinquished their various facilities in Sarona in 1947 and cleared the place, the Jewish civil defense (Notrim), which the British had entrusted with the defense from terrorism in Tel Aviv (many Notrim served at the same time in the Haganah). The building was renamed for squad commander Carmi Rabinowitz, who was killed in action. In July 1948, after the founding of the state, the building became a post office. During restoration work in 2005, the clockwork of the old carillon clock, made in 1877, that adorned the wall dormer on the longside façade was rediscovered. In 2006, the clockwork was displayed at the Eretz Israel Museum as part of an exhibition on the Templers. A descendant of the Templers who was visiting the museum recognised the signature of the manufacturer, the Perrot Turmuhren in Calw, Germany. After contacts with the firm, a new clock was made to replace the old one, and the original clockwork, now repaired, is displayed at Sarona's visitors' center.