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Coordinates: 31°56′54.59″N 34°53′20.4″E / 31.9484972°N 34.889000°E / 31.9484972; 34.889000
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The earliest written record of Lod in a list of towns in [[Canaan]] drawn up by the [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] [[pharaoh]] [[Thutmose III]] at [[Karnak]] in [[2nd millenium BCE|1465 BCE]].<ref name="Franciscan">{{cite news|title=Excursions in Terra Santa|url=http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/sbf/escurs/TS/02_TSen.html |date= |publisher=Franciscan Cyberspot|first= |last= |accessdate=2007-02-22}}</ref> From the 5th century BCE until the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] conquest in 70 CE, the city was a well-known centre of Jewish scholars and merchants.<ref name=EB>"Lod," ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2009.</ref> [[Martin Gilbert]] writes that, during the [[Hasmonean]] period, which lasted from 166 BCE to 37 CE, [[Jonathan Maccabee]] and his brother [[Simon Maccabaeus]] enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering Lydda.<ref>[[Martin Gilbert|Gilbert, Martin]]. ''Dearest Auntie Flori: The Story of the Jewish People''. Harper Collins 2002, p. 82; also see Josephus, ''Antiquities of the Jews'' 14:208</ref>
The earliest written record of Lod in a list of towns in [[Canaan]] drawn up by the [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] [[pharaoh]] [[Thutmose III]] at [[Karnak]] in [[2nd millenium BCE|1465 BCE]].<ref name="Franciscan">{{cite news|title=Excursions in Terra Santa|url=http://198.62.75.1/www1/ofm/sbf/escurs/TS/02_TSen.html |date= |publisher=Franciscan Cyberspot|first= |last= |accessdate=2007-02-22}}</ref> From the 5th century BCE until the [[Roman Empire|Roman]] conquest in 70 CE, the city was a well-known centre of Jewish scholars and merchants.<ref name=EB>"Lod," ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2009.</ref> [[Martin Gilbert]] writes that, during the [[Hasmonean]] period, which lasted from 166 BCE to 37 CE, [[Jonathan Maccabee]] and his brother [[Simon Maccabaeus]] enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering Lydda.<ref>[[Martin Gilbert|Gilbert, Martin]]. ''Dearest Auntie Flori: The Story of the Jewish People''. Harper Collins 2002, p. 82; also see Josephus, ''Antiquities of the Jews'' 14:208</ref>


The city is mentioned several times in the Bible: in the [[New Testament]], it is the site of [[Saint Peter|Peter]]'s healing of a paralytic man in {{sourcetext|source=Bible|version=King James|book=Acts|chapter=9|verse=32|range=-38}}.<ref>"Lod," ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2009. "And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda," Acts 9:32-38.</ref>
The city is mentioned several times in the Bible.In book of Ezra, Lod is mentioned as one of the cities,whose inhabitants returned after Babylonian captivity.<ref>http://kingjbible.com/ezra/2.htm</ref>. In the [[New Testament]], it is the site of [[Saint Peter|Peter]]'s healing of a paralytic man in {{sourcetext|source=Bible|version=King James|book=Acts|chapter=9|verse=32|range=-38}}.<ref>"Lod," ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'', 2009. "And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda," Acts 9:32-38.</ref>


===Roman Palestine===
===Roman Palestine===

Revision as of 14:28, 2 June 2009

For other uses, see Lod (disambiguation).

Template:Infobox Israel municipality Lod (Template:Lang-he-n; Arabic: اَلْلُدّْ, al-Ludd; Greco-Latin Lydda) is a city located on the Sharon Plain Template:Km to mi southeast of Tel Aviv in the Center District of Israel. At the end of 2007, it had a population of 67,000, roughly 80 percent Jewish and 20 percent Arab.

The first mention of Lod dates back to 1465 BCE[1] .It became Jewish town under the Maccabees[2]. It was destroyed by Romans in 66CE, and in 200CE Roman city was established on the site, with mostly Christian inhabitants.[3] The city has been known as Lydda in the English-speaking world throughout most of its existence. It was captured by Arab army in 636CE, and served as the headquarters of the province of Filastin, until the capital was moved to Ramla.[4] When it was conquered in July 1948 by Israel, tens of thousands of its Palestinian inhabitants were expelled and the city was settled by Jewish immigrants.[5] Since then, it has been known as Lod, its biblical name.[6]

Israel's main international airport, Ben Gurion International Airport (previously called Lydda Airport, RAF Lydda, and Lod Airport) is located in the city.

Ancient history

Lydda's old city in 1948

The city is situated on the site of the ancient settlement of Lod(Lydda).[7] Pottery discovered there dates its initial settlement to 5600–5250 BCE.[8]

The earliest written record of Lod in a list of towns in Canaan drawn up by the Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III at Karnak in 1465 BCE.[1] From the 5th century BCE until the Roman conquest in 70 CE, the city was a well-known centre of Jewish scholars and merchants.[9] Martin Gilbert writes that, during the Hasmonean period, which lasted from 166 BCE to 37 CE, Jonathan Maccabee and his brother Simon Maccabaeus enlarged the area under Jewish control, which included conquering Lydda.[10]

The city is mentioned several times in the Bible.In book of Ezra, Lod is mentioned as one of the cities,whose inhabitants returned after Babylonian captivity.[11]. In the New Testament, it is the site of Peter's healing of a paralytic man in Acts 9:32-38.[12]

Roman Palestine

St George's Church by David Roberts, 1839

In 43 CE, Cassius, the Roman governor of Syria, sold Lydda's inhabitants into slavery. The Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, razed the town on his way to Jerusalem in 66 CE. It was occupied by Emperor Vespasian in 68 CE.[13]

Saint George's tomb

In 200 CE, the emperor Septimius Severus established a Roman city in Lydda, calling it Colonia Lucia Septimia Severa Diospolis.[14] At that point, most of its inhabitants were Christian. It later became known as Georgiopolis because St. George, a soldier in the Guard of Emperor Diocletian, was killed there in 303 for refusing to recant his Christian faith.[7] The city's Church of St. George was built as a memorial.[1]

Arab conquest of Palestine

Lydda became an important city after the Arab conquest of Palestine (Filastin) by Khalid ibn al-Walid in 636 CE during the Muslim conquests, when it served as the capital, though this was later moved to Ramla.[9][15]

Crusader period

The Crusaders occupied the city in 1099 and named it St. Jorge de Lidde.[9] It was briefly conquered by Saladin, but retaken by the Crusaders in 1191. For the English Crusaders, it was a place of great significance as the birthplace of Saint George. The Crusaders made it the seat of a Latin rite diocese,[16] and it remains a titular see.[17] According to the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, there was one Jewish family living there in 1170.[18]

Modern history

Ottoman period and the British Mandate

Lydda in 1903
The city in 1920
Old Khan

The first railway station in the entire region was established in Lydda under the rule of the Ottoman empire in 1892.[19] In the second half of the 19th century, Jewish merchants migrated to the city but left after conflict between Zionists and Arabs escalated in the 1921 Jaffa riots.[19] By this time, Lydda was under the administration of the British Mandate in Palestine, as per a League of Nations decree that followed World War I. During World War II, the British set up supply posts in and around Lydda and its railway station, also building an airport, renamed Ben Gurion Airport after the establishment of Israel in 1948.[19]

Arab–Israeli conflict

Further information: Operation Danny, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Arab-Israeli conflict, 1948 Palestine war, 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and 1948 Palestinian exodus

Until 1948, Lydda was an exclusively Arab town with a population of around 20,000—18,500 Muslims and 1,500 Christians.[20][21] In 1947, the United Nations proposed dividing Palestine into two states, one Jewish state, one Arab. Lydda was to form part of the proposed Arab state.[22] The proposal was rejected by the Arabs, and on May 14, 1948, Israel declared its independence. Several Arab states attacked, and in the ensuing war Israel captured Palestinian towns outside the area the UN had allotted it. Lydda was one of those towns. It was captured on July 11, 1948.

During 1948, the population had swelled to 50,000 people as refugees from areas the Israelis had advanced on fled their homes, or were expelled by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).[19] On the night of July 9, 1948, the IDF launched Operation Dani as part of a plan to relieve the siege of Jerusalem and to push forward up to Ramallah.[23][24] The first phase of the plan was occupying Lydda and Ramle. Lydda was defended by around 1,000 of its residents, who had been armed and had formed a local militia. They were aided by 125-150 soldiers from the Arab Legion—Jordan's army, led by the British. The Arab Legion's British commander, Glubb Pasha, had decided not to dispatch forces in the area, because he regarded the Legion as not able to defend it, and saw Latrun as strategically more important.[24]

Expulsion of the Palestinians

Main article: Exodus from Lydda
An image of the Palestinian's three-day march out of Lydda

On July 11, the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the Yiftah Brigade entered Lydda. The following day, under the impression that it was under attack, the 3rd Battalion was ordered to shoot anyone "seen on the streets." According to the Israeli army, 250 Palestinians (men, women, and children) were killed. Other estimates are higher: Palestinian historian Aref al Aref estimated 400, and Nimr al Khatib 1700.[25][26]

The 50,000 residents were expelled by order of the Israeli high command. The expulsion order was signed by Yitzhak Rabin, who said the order came directly from the prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. Residents were expelled on foot, walking 17 kilometers to Arab Legion lines on one of the hottest days of the year. Many died from exhaustion and dehydration. Estimates of the dead vary from a handful to 355, as a result of which the exodus has come to be known as the Lydda death march.[27][28] Benny Morris writes that "all the Israelis who witnessed the events agreed that the exodus, under a hot July sun, was an extended episode of suffering for the refugees, especially from Lydda...Some were stripped by soldiers of their valuables as they left town or at checkpoints along the way. Hundreds of civilians died in the scorching heat, from exhaustion, dehydration and disease."[29] The town was subsequently sacked by the Israeli army.

Around 700 inhabitants remained in the city after the expulsions, according to Bechor Sheetrit, the Israeli Minister for Minority Affairs at the time.[30] They were not permitted to live in their own homes, but were concentrated into a fenced compound. They were vastly outnumbered by the influx of Jewish immigrants who moved into the town from August 1948 onwards, as a result of which Lydda became a predominantly Jewish town and came to be known as Lod.[21][31]

Lod airport massacre

Main article: Lod Airport massacre

On May 30, 1972, 28 passengers were gunned down at Ben Gurion International Airport by members of the Japanese Red Army in collaboration with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The founder of the PFLP, George Habash, was among those expelled from Lod by the IDF when he was a child. Five weeks later, PFLP spokesman Ghassan Kanafani was killed by a car bomb in Beirut.

Today

Demographics

Synagogue, church, and mosque in Lod

According to the CBS, in 2001 the ethnic and religious makeup of the city was 80.3% Jewish and other non-Arab, and 19.7% Arab (18.6% Muslim and 1.1% Christian). There are 561 "olim", or new immigrants to Israel, included in these figures. See Population groups in Israel.

According to CBS, in 2001 there were 32,400 males and 33,700 females. The population of the city was spread out with 36.7% 19 years of age or younger, 16.4% between 20 and 29, 19.2% between 30 and 44, 14.5% from 45 to 59, 3.7% from 60 to 64, and 9.5% 65 years of age or older. The population growth rate in 2001 was 1.7%.

According to CBS, there are 38 schools and 13,188 pupils in the city. They are spread out as 26 elementary schools and 8,325 elementary school pupils, and 13 high schools and 4,863 high school pupils. 52.5% of 12th grade pupils were entitled to a matriculation certificate in 2001.

Economy and income

The airport and related industries are a major source of employment for the residents of Lod. The Jewish Agency Absorption Centre, the main facility for handling olim arriving in Israel, is also located in Lod.

According to CBS figures for 2000, there were 23,032 salaried workers and 1,405 self-employed. The mean monthly wage for a salaried worker was NIS 4,754, a real change of 2.9% over the course of 2000. Salaried men had a mean monthly wage of NIS 5,821 (a real change of 1.4%) versus NIS 3,547 for women (a real change of 4.6%). The mean income for the self-employed was NIS 4,991. There were 1,275 people receiving unemployment benefits and 7,145 receiving an income supplement.

Plagued by a poor image for decades, projects are under way to improve services in Lod. New upscale neighborhoods are expanding the city to the east, among them Ganei Ya'ar and Ahisemah.[32]

Sports

The city's major football club, Hapoel Bnei Lod, currently plays in Liga Leumit (the second division) and is based at the Lod Municipal Stadium. The club was formed by a merger of Bnei Lod and Rakevet Lod in the 1980s. Two other clubs in the city play in the regional leagues; Hapoel MS Ortodoxim Lod in Liga Bet and Maccabi Lod in Liga Gimel.

Until the 2000s, Hapoel Lod, who played in the top division during the 1960s and 1980s, and won the State Cup in 1984, were they city's major club. However, after several relegations they folded in 2002. A new club, Hapoel Maxim Lod (named after former mayor Maxim Levy) was established soon after, but folded in 2007.

Notable residents

Notes

  1. ^ a b c "Excursions in Terra Santa". Franciscan Cyberspot. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
  2. ^ Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14:208
  3. ^ Michael Avi-Yonah, Encyclopaedia Judaica, ad v. "Lydda"
  4. ^ "Lod," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2009.
  5. ^ Morris, Benny. (2004) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press, pp. 414-461.
  6. ^ Yacobi, Haim. The Jewish-Arab City, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 29: "The occupation of Lydda by Israel in the 1948 war did not allow the realization of Pocheck's garden city vision. Different geopolitics and ideologies began to shape Lydda's urban landscape ... [and] its name was changed from Lydda to Lod, which was the region's biblical name."; also see Pearlman, Moshe and Yannai, Yacov. Historical sites in Israel. Vanguard Press, 1964, p. 160.
  7. ^ a b Frenkel, Sheera and Low, Valentine. Why Lod, the other land of St George, isn't for the faint-hearted, The Times]], April 23, 2009.
  8. ^ Schwartz, Joshua J. Lod (Lydda), Israel: from its origins through the Byzantine period, 5600 B.C.E.-640 C.E.. Tempus Reparatum, 1991, p. 39.
  9. ^ a b c "Lod," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2009.
  10. ^ Gilbert, Martin. Dearest Auntie Flori: The Story of the Jewish People. Harper Collins 2002, p. 82; also see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14:208
  11. ^ http://kingjbible.com/ezra/2.htm
  12. ^ "Lod," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2009. "And it came to pass, as Peter passed throughout all quarters, he came down also to the saints which dwelt at Lydda," Acts 9:32-38.
  13. ^ Michael Avi-Yonah, Encyclopaedia Judaica, ad v. "Lydda"
  14. ^ Roth, Cecil. Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1972, p. 619.
  15. ^ Petersen, Andrew. Dictionary of Islamic Architecture. Routledge 1996, p. 230.
  16. ^ Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Lydda" . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  17. ^ Lydda Catholic-hierarchy.org
  18. ^ Pringle, 1993, p. 11.
  19. ^ a b c d Shahin, 2005, p. 260.
  20. ^ "Lod," January 2, 1949, IS archive Gimel/5/297 in Yacobi, Haim. The Jewish-Arab City, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 31.
  21. ^ a b Monterescu and Rabinowitz, 2007, pp. 16-17.
  22. ^ Sa'di and Abu-Lughod, 2007, pp. 91-92.
  23. ^ Tal, 2004, p. 304.
  24. ^ a b Morris, 2008, p. 286-293.
  25. ^ Sefer Hapalmah ii (The Book of the Palmah), p.565; and KMA-PA (Kibbutz Meuhad Archives - Palmah Archive). Quoted in Morris, 1987.
  26. ^ Morris, 1987, p. 205. Morris writes: "[...] dozens of unarmed detainees in the mosque and church in the centre of the town were shot and killed."
  27. ^ Spiro Munayyer, The Fall of Lydda, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Summer, 1998), pp. 80-98. See also Yitzhak Rabin's diaries, quoted here.
  28. ^ Holmes et al., 2001, p. 64.
  29. ^ Morris, 1989, pp. 204-211.
  30. ^ Yacobi, Haim. The Jewish-Arab City, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 32.
  31. ^ Yacobi, Haim. The Jewish-Arab City, Taylor & Francis, 2009, p. 29.
  32. ^ Ganei Ya'ar in Lod The Jerusalem Post, 7 February 2008

Bibliography

  • Holmes, Richard; Strachan, Hew; Bellamy, Chris; Bicheno, Hugh (2001), The Oxford companion to military history (Illustrated ed.), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0198662092, 9780198662099 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Monterescu, Daniel; Rabinowitz, Dan (2007), Mixed towns, trapped communities: historical narratives, spatial dynamics, gender relations and cultural encounters in Palestinian-Israeli towns (Illustrated ed.), Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., ISBN 0754647323, 9780754647324 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Morris, Benny (1987), The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521330289
  • Morris, Benny (1989), The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521338891
    • Morris, Benny. (2004) The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521009677
  • Morris, Benny (2008), 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War
  • Prior, Michael P. (1999), Zionism and the state of Israel: a moral inquiry (Illustrated ed.), Routledge, ISBN 0415204623, 9780415204620 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Pringle, Denys (1993), The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem: A Corpus, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0521390370
  • Sa'di, Ahmad H.; Abu-Lughod, Lila (2007), Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory (Illustrated ed.), Columbia University Press, ISBN 0231135793, 9780231135795 {{citation}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  • Shahin, Mariam (2005), Palestine: A Guide, Interlink Books, ISBN 156656557X
  • Tal, David (2004), War in Palestine, 1948. Strategy and Diplomacy, Routledge
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lod.

31°56′54.59″N 34°53′20.4″E / 31.9484972°N 34.889000°E / 31.9484972; 34.889000

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