Azor

For other uses, see Azor (disambiguation).

Azor (Hebrew: אָזוֹר) is a local council in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, on the old Jaffa-Jerusalem road southeast of Tel Aviv. Established in 1948, Azor was granted local council status in 1951.^[2] In 2022 it had a population of 13,593,^[1] and has a jurisdiction of 2,415 dunams (2.415 km²; 0.932 sq mi).^[3]

Azor אָזוֹר‎ أزور
Local council (from 1951)
Hebrew transcription(s)
• ISO 259	ʔazor
Azor Show map of Central Israel Azor Show map of Israel
Coordinates: 32°1′20.03″N 34°48′40.47″E
Country	Israel
District	Tel Aviv
Founded	1948
Government
• Head of Municipality	Arie Pechter
Area
• Total	2,415 dunams (2.415 km2 or 597 acres)
Population  (2022)[1]
• Total	13,593
• Density	5,600/km2 (15,000/sq mi)
Website	www.azor.muni.il

Location of Azor in the Tel Aviv District

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 form Άζωρ (Joshua 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."^[4]

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.^[5] However, another new village nearby was later named Mishmar HaShiv'a.^[5]

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.^[6] 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 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.^[7]

Notable residents

• Shelly Krolitzky (born 1999), tennis player
• Matvey Natanzon, backgammon player^[8]
• Margalit Tzan'ani, singer and tv personality^[9]

Main sights

• Azor Museum [he], archaeological museum