Azor () is a local council in the Tel Aviv District of

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 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 ’-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 of the ancient city is situated in the northern part of modern Azor. the 16th century, Haseki sultan 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 that encompassed the area of the present-day city of Modi'in-Maccabim-Re'ut in the south to the present-day city of El'ad 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 (born 1999), tennis player * Matvey Natanzon, backgammon player * Margalit Tzan'ani, 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