Israel Levitt was born in Poland in 1925 and grew up in Jerusalem. After serving as an officer in the military, Levitt studied architecture at the Technion, Haifa, Israel, qualifying in 1950, with honours, before opening his own practice in Jerusalem. He subsequently enrolled at the AA’s Department of Tropical Architecture, in 1955, graduating with a Diploma in Tropical Architecture. After finishing at the AA, Levitt returned to Israel, where he continued his architectural practice, gaining a series of large-scale commissions by the late 1960s. He appears to have actively worked for the establishment of Israel settlements in the West Bank immediately following the Six Days War of 1967, voluntarily drawing up plans in April 1968 for a neighbourhood in Hebron he termed ‘Jewish Hebron.’ Whilst this proposal was rejected by the Israeli Ministry of Housing, Levitt and his business partner, David Cassuto, were involved in the development of the residential neighbourhood of Ramat Eshkol, the first Jewish settlement built in East Jerusalem, beyond the Green Line. Additionally, Levitt appears to have been closely engaged with the planning of Kiryat Arba and responsible for the master plan for the development of Ofra, ‘the mother of all settlements’, on the West Bank - on a site now officially acknowledged by Israel to have been privately owned Palestinian land. The initial development plan Levitt drew up for the Ofra settlers in 1975-76 appears to have prepared on a pro bono basis, prior to approval of the settlement by the Israeli government, and he was then subsequently employed on a formal basis by the Settlement Department. Designs for a model home for Ofra and for a synagogue survive within Ofra’s archive but were not adopted.

 Sources

• Architectural Association Student Register 1945-1972, AA Archives
• Architectural Association Diploma Roll Book, 1924-1963, AA Archives
• Department of Tropical Architecture, student listing, Otto Koenigsberger Collection, Box OK27, AA Archives
• Architectural Association Membership Lists, 1961, 1974, 1979
• Israel Levitt, Ofra Building Committee, Folder 46, box 4, Ofra Archives
• Shoked, N. In the land of the patriarchs: design and contestation in West Bank Settlements. University of Texas Press, 2023.