Azor () is a local council in the

Tel Aviv District The Tel Aviv District (; ) is the geographically smallest yet also the most densely populated of the six administrative districts of Israel, with a population of 1.35 million residents. It is 98.9% Jewish and 1.10% Arab (0.7% Muslim, 0.4% Chris ...

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

, on the old Jaffa-Jerusalem road southeast of Tel Aviv. Established in 1948, Azor was granted local council status in 1951. In it had a population of , and has a jurisdiction of .

Etymology

The earliest occurrence of the name is Babylonian A-zu-ru (in a

Neo-Assyrian The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the fourth and penultimate stage of ancient Assyrian history. Beginning with the accession of Adad-nirari II in 911 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire grew to dominate the ancient Near East and parts of South Caucasus, Nort ...

text from 701 B.C.E.) which is compatible with the

Septuagint The Septuagint ( ), sometimes referred to as the Greek Old Testament or The Translation of the Seventy (), and abbreviated as LXX, is the earliest extant Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the original Biblical Hebrew. The full Greek ...

form Άζωρ (

Joshua Joshua ( ), also known as Yehoshua ( ''Yəhōšuaʿ'', Tiberian Hebrew, Tiberian: ''Yŏhōšuaʿ,'' Literal translation, lit. 'Yahweh is salvation'), Jehoshua, or Josue, functioned as Moses' assistant in the books of Book of Exodus, Exodus and ...

19:45). According to scholars, the name may derive from

Semitic root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...

’-Z-R “to gird, encompass, equip”, but "this derivation is highly hypothetical as this root is so far not productive in the toponymy." The council of the new village named it Mishmar HaShiv'a ('Guardian of the Seven') in honour of seven Israelis soldiers killed near there in 1948, but the government committee in charge of assigning names forced them to change it to Azor on the grounds that preserving Biblical names was more important. However, another new village nearby was later named

Mishmar HaShiv'a Mishmar HaShiv'a () is a moshav in the Central District (Israel), Central District of Israel. Located near Beit Dagan, it falls under the jurisdiction of Sdot Dan Regional Council. In it had a population of . History The village was founded in ...

History

The

tel TEL or Tel may refer to: Businesses and organisations * Tokyo Electron, a semiconductor equipment manufacturer * TE Connectivity, a technology company, NYSE stock ticker TEL * The European Library, an Internet service Place names * Tel, Azerbaij ...

of the ancient city is situated in the northern part of modern Azor. the 16th century,

Haseki sultan Haseki Sultan (, ''Ḫāṣekī Sulṭān'' ) was the title used for the chief consort of an Ottoman sultan. In later years, the meaning of the title changed to "imperial consort". Hurrem Sultan, principal consort and legal wife of Suleiman the ...

endowed the lands of Azor to its Jerusalem soup kitchen. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the area belonged to the Nahiyeh (sub-district) of

Lod Lod (, ), also known as Lydda () and Lidd (, or ), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephelah on the east and the coastal plain on the west. The ci ...

that encompassed the area of the present-day city of

Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut ( ''Mōdīʿīn-Makkabbīm-Rēʿūt'') is a city located in central Israel, about southeast of Tel Aviv and west of Jerusalem, and is connected to those two cities via Highway 443. In the population was . The populati ...

in the south to the present-day city of

El'ad El'ad () is a city in the Central District of Israel. In the 1990s, it was built for a Haredi population and to a lesser extent, it was also built for a Religious Zionist Jewish population. Located about east of Tel Aviv on Route 444 between R ...

in the north, and from the foothills in the east, through the Lod Valley to the outskirts of

Jaffa Jaffa (, ; , ), also called Japho, Joppa or Joppe in English, is an ancient Levantine Sea, Levantine port city which is part of Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel, located in its southern part. The city sits atop a naturally elevated outcrop on ...

in the west. This area was home to thousands of inhabitants in about 20 villages, who had at their disposal tens of thousands of hectares of prime agricultural land.

Notable residents

Shelly Krolitzky Shelly Krolitzky (; born 8 July 1999) is an Israeli former tennis player. Krolitzky has a career-high WTA singles ranking of 1,098, achieved on 10 October 2016, and a career-high WTA doubles ranking of 751, achieved on 25 September 2017. Krolit ...

(born 1999), tennis player *

Matvey Natanzon Matvey Natanzon (better known by his pseudonym Falafel) (July 5, 1968 – February 14, 2020) was a Russian-born Israeli backgammon player. Life and career Natanzon was born in Soviet Russia and moved with his mother to Azor, a small Israeli town ...

, backgammon player *

Margalit Tzan'ani Margalit "Margol" Tzan'ani (; born December 19, 1948) is an Israeli singer and television personality. Tzan'ani is famous for her repertoire of Israeli oriental music style with soul influences, as well as jazz, blues, rock, and pop. Biography ...

, singer and tv personalityDon't mess around with me

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

Main sights

* , archaeological museum

References

{{Authority control Local councils in Tel Aviv District