this day. Petah Tikva was also the birthplace of the Labor Zionist Movement, inspired and encouraged by the writings of A. D. Gordon who lived in the town.
The first recorded Arab attack on Jews in what would become Israel took place in Petah Tikva in 1886. Petah Tikva was also the scene of Arab rioting in May 1921, which left four Jews dead.
In the 1930s, the pioneering founders of Kibbutz Yavneh from the Religious Zionist movement immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine, settling near Petah Tikva on land purchased by a Jewish-owned German company. Refining the agricultural skills they learned in Germany, these pioneers began in 1941 to build their kibbutz in its intended location in the south of Israel, operating from Petah Tikva as a base.
In the early 1920s, industry began to develop in the Petah Tikva region. In 1921, Petah Tikva was given the status of a local council by the British authorities, and in 1937 it was recognized as a city. Its first mayor, Shlomo Stampfer, was the son of one of its founders, Yehoshua Stampfer
