Rechovot

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Rechovot
Rechovot coat of arms
Basic data
hebrew : רחובות
arabic : رحوفوت
State : IsraelIsrael Israel
District : Central
Founded : 1890
Coordinates : 31 ° 54 ′  N , 34 ° 48 ′  E Coordinates: 31 ° 53 ′ 42 "  N , 34 ° 48 ′ 30"  E
Height : 25  m
Area : 23.041  km²
 
Residents : 141,579 (as of 2018)
Population density : 6,145 inhabitants per km²
 
Community code : 8400
Time zone : UTC + 2
Postal code : 76100
 
Community type: city
Mayor : Rahamim Malul
Website :
Rechovot (Israel)
Rechovot
Rechovot

Rechovot ( Hebrew רחובות, Modern Hebrew pronunciation: [ reˈxovot ], Arabic رحوفوت, other spellings: Rehovot, Rechowot ) is a city in Israel . It is located about 20 kilometers south of Tel Aviv and has 141,579 inhabitants (2018). The name means "streets" or "wide spaces" and is derived from the Bible (( Gen 26,22  LUT ) also quoted in the city arms), where it describes the wide space next to a well dug by Isaac. The current mayor is Rahamim Malul .

location

The city is located on the edge of the Judean hill country Schefela in the central district of Israel. Neighboring towns are Givʿat Brenner and Kirjat Ekron in the south, and Sitriah and Ramleh in the east, Nes Ziona and Netzer Sereni in the north and Ge'aliah in the west.

history

Rechovot was founded on March 6, 1890 by Polish and Russian Jews in an area only sparsely populated by Arabs . In 1908, immigrants from Yemen settled here . The first settlers planted vineyards, fruit, almond and citrus plantations .

In 1913, Jewish immigrants from Europe, together with activists from Shomer , demanded the dismissal of Palestinian workers in Rechovot. This was followed by clashes in which a European immigrant and a native Palestinian were killed. The heads of the Palestinian villages in the area reported to the governor that the Jewish immigrants "murder, pillage and rape Muslim women and girls." The Shomer threatened to leave the settlement if the Arabs were not released. The management of the settlement terminated the contract with the Shomer, and one Shomer Shomer, a prominent settler, said the Shomer's behavior was detrimental to the settlement's reputation, as he "whips unarmed and innocent people out of a whip," and that the "Brutality ... and inhumanity" of the Shomer are not necessary. In the course of the British advance on the Palestine Front , the British Military Railways built the Palestinian main line Sinai – Lod in 1918, on which the then civil Palestine Railways (PR) set up the Rechovot station in 1920 .

In 1932 an agricultural research facility was relocated from Tel Aviv to Rechovot, which later became the location of the Agricultural Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . In 1934 Chaim Weizmann founded the Daniel Sieff Research Institute , which was renamed the Weizmann Institute for Sciences (Weizmann Scientific Park, Nes Ziona, Rehovot) in 1949 .

On February 29, 1948, the paramilitary underground organization Lechi carried out an attack on the PR train from Cairo to Haifa shortly after it had left the Rechovot station. 28 British soldiers were killed and another 35 soldiers and 100 civilians injured.

Most of the land in the Palestinian village of Sarnūqa (زرنوقة) belongs to Rechovot today. In 1948 all 2761 Palestinian residents were evicted and most of their homes were destroyed.

The family of Fathi Schakaki , a co-founder of Islamic Jihad , comes from Sarnuka.

controversy

After a wave of Islamist-motivated knife attacks, the city administration issued a special decree in October 2015 stating that “workers who belong to minorities” (meaning Arab Israelis ) “are prohibited from entering educational institutions”. Doron Milberg, a city official, defended the edict, saying, "The cleaning staff ... are employed by the city and there is not a single Arab among them."

mayor

  • 1970 - 1979: Shmuel Rechtman
  • ? - 2009: Schuki Forer
  • since 2009: Rahamim Malul

economy

From 1945 to 1948 the Ayalon Institute produced 2.25 million cartridges. The underground ammunition factory was camouflaged by a kibbutz that operated a laundry. The historical facilities have been accessible as a museum since 1987 and are now used for tourism.

Rechovot is the Israeli center of orange cultivation and the seat of many companies that fill fruit juices or process them into concentrates.

In the north of Rechovot there is the Tamar Science Park, an approx. 100 hectare industrial park on which mainly companies from the high-tech sector have settled.

Town twinning

City partnerships exist with

Personalities

Honorary citizen

sons and daughters of the town

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ אוכלוסייה ביישובים 2018 (population of the settlements 2018). (XLSX; 0.13 MB) Israel Central Bureau of Statistics , August 25, 2019, accessed May 11, 2020 .
  2. ^ Ruth A. Berman: Modern Hebrew. In: Robert Hetzron (ed.): The Semitic Languages . Routledge, 2006, p. 316.
  3. ^ Benny Morris: Righteous Victims. New York: Vintage; Pp. 53, 65.
  4. ^ Benny Morris: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited . Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 258f. et passim ; Sami Hadawi: Palestinian Rights and Losses in 1948: A Comprehensive Study . Saqi Books, 1988, p. 237; Welcome to Zarnuqa
  5. ^ Yarden Skop: Israeli Towns Move to Ban Arab Workers From Schools. In: Haaretz , October 18, 2015.
  6. ↑ Article on www.answers.com

Web links

Commons : Rechovot  - collection of images, videos and audio files