Nahariya
Nahariyya
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City (from 1961) | |
Hebrew transcription(s) | |
• ISO 259 | Nahariyya |
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Coordinates: 33°00′21″N 35°05′56″E / 33.00583°N 35.09889°E | |
Country | ![]() |
District | Northern |
Sub-district | Acre |
Founded | 1400 BCE (Khirbet Kabarsa) 1935 (Modern city) |
Government | |
• Mayor | Ronen Marelly |
Area | |
• Total | 10,233 dunams (10.233 km2 or 3.951 sq mi) |
Population (2023)[1] | |
• Total | 63,947 |
• Density | 6,200/km2 (16,000/sq mi) |
Nahariya (Hebrew: נַהֲרִיָּה) is the northernmost coastal city in Israel. As of 2022, the city had a population of 63,947.[1]
The city was founded in 1935 by Jewish immigrants fleeing Nazi Germany.[2][3]
Etymology
[edit]Nahariya takes its name from the stream of Ga'aton (river is נהר nahar in Hebrew), which bisects it.[4]
History
[edit]Bronze Age
[edit]The ruins of a 3,400-year-old Bronze Age citadel were found in the coastal city of Nahariya near the beach on Balfour Street,[5] at a site known to archaeologists as Khirbet Kabarsa.[6] The citadel was an administrative center serving the mariners who sailed along the Mediterranean coast. There is evidence of commercial and cultural relations with Cyprus and the rest of the Mediterranean region. The fortress was destroyed four times by conflagration and rebuilt each time.[citation needed]
Byzantine period
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1f/Byzantine_mosaic_floor.jpg/220px-Byzantine_mosaic_floor.jpg)
A church from the Byzantine period, dedicated to St. Lazarus, was excavated in the 1970s.[7] It was destroyed by fire, probably at the time of the Persian invasion in 614.[7]
British Mandate of Palestine
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/VIEW_OF_NAHARIA_NEAR_THE_LEBANESE_BORDER._%D7%94%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%91_%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94%2C_%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%93_%D7%92%D7%91%D7%95%D7%9C_%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9F.D20-098.jpg/220px-VIEW_OF_NAHARIA_NEAR_THE_LEBANESE_BORDER._%D7%94%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%91_%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94%2C_%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%93_%D7%92%D7%91%D7%95%D7%9C_%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%9F.D20-098.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94_-_%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C_%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9D-JNF034841.jpeg/220px-%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94_-_%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%93%D7%9C_%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%9D-JNF034841.jpeg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e4/%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94_-_%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%94-JNF021094.jpeg/220px-%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%94_-_%D7%9E%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%94-JNF021094.jpeg)
In 1934, work began to found Nahariya as an agricultural village by a company limited by shares and headed by the agronomist Dr. Selig Eugen Soskin (1873–1959), the civil engineer Joseph Loewy (1885–1949), the financial expert Heinrich Cohn (1895–1976) and the engineer Simon Reich (1883–1941). The company acquired an area of land by purchase from the Arab landowner family Toueini. After ameliorisation and parcelling, the plots were offered to new German Jewish immigrants who had escaped from Nazi persecution. The first residents, two German immigrant couples, permanently settled in Nahariya on February 10, 1935, which is now considered the official founding date of Nahariya. During the same year each couple had one child, the first children born in Nahariya. By the end of 1935 approximately 40 pioneers had settled in Nahariya. Settlement continued in 1936 and four more children were born there that year. While the first settlers lived in huts, the settlement was rapidly developed as houses were built and trees and gardens planted. The residents also took to raising chickens.[2]
After an accumulation of economic and climatic problems the residents soon realized that agriculture was impractical and chose to focus on tourism and the food industry. Nahariya was turned into a European-style resort town, taking advantage of the natural surroundings and beaches, and new inns were opened. Two prominent food manufacturers also set up shop: the Strauss company was founded as a commercial dairy by German immigrants in Nahariya, and the Soglowek family, which settled in Nahariya in 1937, opened a prominent butcher shop, and developed the "Nahariya sausage". During the British Mandate of Palestine, many British officers coming from Khartoum stopped in Nahariya.[citation needed]
During the Israeli wars
[edit]During the 2006 Lebanon War in July–August 2006, Nahariya sustained a barrage of several hundreds of Katyusha rockets launched by Hezbollah from southern Lebanon. As a result, the city suffered multiple civilian casualties and 5 fatalities. Significant damage was also inflicted on property and physical infrastructure. Nahariya's economy suffered a major blow, as two-thirds of the city's population had to evacuate, with the rest spending weeks in bomb shelters.[8]
During the Israel-Hamas war and the Israel–Lebanon border conflict during the war, there were many siren alerts throughout the city, due to bombardments and drone infiltrations, mainly from Hezbollah.[9]
Economy
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/62/Arena_mall_%28Nahariya%29.jpg/220px-Arena_mall_%28Nahariya%29.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6d/Gaaton_IMG_1339.jpg/220px-Gaaton_IMG_1339.jpg)
Nahariya is home to some of Israel's leading entrepreneurs: the Strauss, Soglowek and Wertheimer families. Successful private sector industrial enterprises founded in Nahariya are the Strauss dairy company, Soglowek meat processing company, and Iscar—the high-precision metalworks and tool-making giant, which was purchased by Berkshire Hathaway for US$5 billion.[10]
Demographics
[edit]Following Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 many ex South Lebanon Army soldiers and officers who fled from Lebanon settled in Nahariya with their families.[11]
Schools and public institutions
[edit]According to the CBS, Nahariya has 22 schools with 7,541 students, which are divided into 15 elementary schools with 4,074 students, and 7 middle and high schools with 3,467 students. In 2001, high school (12th grade) matriculation rate in the city was 56.5%.
Nahariya Hospital, located on the outskirts of Nahariya, three kilometers (1.9 miles) from the city center, serves half a million residents of the western Galilee, from Karmiel to the coast. During the 2006 Lebanon War, the hospital was hit by rocket fire that destroyed an outer wall and eight rooms.[8]
Notable people
[edit]- Gai Assulin (born 1991), football player
- Dalia Dorner (born 1934), former Justice of the Supreme Court of Israel
- Yael Shelbia (born 2001), social media model
- Selig Soskin (1873–1959), agronomist and early member of the Zionist movement
- Ofra Strauss (born 1960), business magnate and industrialist
- Joaquin Szuchman (born 1995), Israeli-Argentinian basketball player in the Israel Basketball Premier League
- Viktor Tsyhankov (born 1997), Ukrainian professional footballer
- Stef Wertheimer (born 1926), German-born Israeli entrepreneur, industrialist, and politician
Twin towns – sister cities
[edit]Bielefeld, Germany
Issy-les-Moulineaux, France
Kecskemét, Hungary
Lefkada, Greece
Liberec, Czech Republic
Miami Beach, United States
Tempelhof-Schöneberg (Berlin), Germany
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Regional Statistics". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
- ^ a b Klaus Kreppel: Nahariya’s Early Years 1934–1949 Archived 2013-01-15 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Greene, Roberta R.; Hantman, Shira; Seltenreich, Yair; ʻAbbāsī, Muṣṭafá (2018). Living in Mandatory Palestine: personal narratives of resilience of the Galilee during the Mandate period 1918-1948. New York, NY: Routledge. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-138-06898-8.
- ^ Efraim Orni and Shaked Gilboa (2007). "Nahariyyah". In Fred Skolnik (ed.). Encyclopedia Judaica. Vol. 14 (2 ed.). Keter Publishing House. p. 737.
- ^ "3,400-Year-Old Citadel Found in Basement : Discovery News". Archived from the original on 2016-01-09. Retrieved 2016-01-11.
- ^ Raphael Frankel and Israel Finkelstein, The Northwest Corner of Eretz-Israel in the Baraita ‘Boundaries of Eretz-Israel’, p. 43 (note 11) (Hebrew). (See: Finkelstein, Israel (1983). "'The Northwest Corner of Eretz-Israel' in the Baraita 'Boundaries of Eretz-Israel'". Cathedra: For the History of Eretz Israel and Its Yishuv. 27 (27): 39–46. JSTOR 23398920.).
- ^ a b Asher Ovadiah and Carla Gomez de Silva (1981). "Supplementum to the Corpus of the Byzantine Churches in the Holy Land, Part I". Levant. 13: 200–261. doi:10.1179/lev.1981.13.1.200.
- ^ a b Watch (Organization), Human Rights; Goldstein, Eric (November 30, 2007). "Civilians Under Assault: Hezbollah's Rocket Attacks on Israel in the 2006 War". Human Rights Watch – via Google Books.
- ^ "Alerts in Nahariya, Israel's National Emergency Portal".
- ^ "Nahariya". Archived from the original on 2013-05-27. Retrieved 2011-10-03.
- ^ Shachmon, Ori; Mack, Merav (2019). "The Lebanese in Israel – Language, Religion and Identity". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft. 169 (2): 343–366. doi:10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.169.2.0343. ISSN 0341-0137. JSTOR 10.13173/zeitdeutmorggese.169.2.0343. S2CID 211647029.
- ^ "דוחמבקרהעירייה 2012" (PDF). nahariya.muni.il (in Hebrew). Nahariya. April 2013. p. 25-26. Retrieved 2020-02-24.
External links
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Wikivoyage-Logo-v3-icon.svg/40px-Wikivoyage-Logo-v3-icon.svg.png)
- Official website Archived 2018-05-13 at the Wayback Machine (in Hebrew)