Azor ( he, אָזוֹר, ar, أزور) (also ''Azur'') is a small town ( local council) in the

Tel Aviv District The Tel Aviv District ( he, מָחוֹז תֵּל אָבִיב; ar, منطقة تل أبيب) is the smallest and most densely populated of the six administrative districts of Israel with a population of 1.35 million residents. It is 98.9% Jewi ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, on the old Jaffa-Jerusalem road southeast of Tel Aviv. Established in 1948 on the site of the depopulated Palestinian village of

Yazur Yazur ( ar, يازور, he, יאזור) was a Palestinian Arab town located east of Jaffa. Mentioned in 7th century BCE Assyrian texts, the village was a site of contestation between Muslims and Crusaders in the 12th-13th centuries. During th ...

, Azor was granted local council status in 1951. In it had a population of , and has a jurisdiction of .

Etymology

Azor was named for the ancient city of Azur (lit. mighty, heroic), preserved in the name of the Palestinian village of Yazur. The council of the new village named it Mishmar HaShiv'a ('Guardian of the Seven') in honour of seven Jewish 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.

History

the 16th century, Haseki sultan endowed the lands of Yazur to its Jerusalem soup kitchen. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the area belonged to the Nahiyeh (sub-district) of

Lod Lod ( he, לוד, or fully vocalized ; ar, اللد, al-Lidd or ), also known as Lydda ( grc, Λύδδα), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephe ...

that encompassed the area of the present-day city of

Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut ( he, מוֹדִיעִין-מַכַּבִּים-רֵעוּת) is an Israeli 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 t ...

in the south to the present-day city of

El'ad El'ad, also spelled Elad ( he, אלעד), is a city in the Central District of Israel. In the 1990s, it was built for a Haredi Jewish population and to a lesser extent, it was also built for a Religious Zionist Jewish population. Located about e ...

in the north, and from the foothills in the east, through the Lod Valley to the outskirts of Jaffa 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. For further information, see on the page of the preceding Palestinian village,

Notable residents

* Shelly Krolitzky (born 1999), tennis player * Matvey Natanzon, backgammon player *

Margalit Tzan'ani Margalit "Margol" Tzan'ani ( he, מרגלית "מרגול" צנעני; 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 a ...

, singer and tv personalityDon't mess around with me

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner ...

Main sights

* , archaeological museum

References

{{Authority control Local councils in Tel Aviv District