Lod city center, courtesy, Wikipedia |
The town of Lod appears in
the Hebrew
Bible as a town of Benjamin but is not mentioned in the Book of Joshua. It
is however, mentioned in the Book of Chronicles as being founded by Shemed the
Benjaminite who also founded the
town of Ono (1 Chronicles 8:12; Ezra 2:33; Nehemiah 7:37; 11:35).
In Ezra 2:33, it is mentioned as one of the cities whose inhabitants returned after
the Babylonian
captivity. From the fifth century BCE
until c. the 2nd century, the city was a center of Jewish
scholarship and commerce. During the Hasmonean period, Jonathan Maccabee and his brother Simon conquered the city from the Greeks and enlarged the area under Jewish control. But in
63 BCE, the Land of Israel came under Roman rule and twenty years later, Cassius, the Roman governor of Syria,
sold the inhabitants of Lod into slavery. They were set free two years later
by Mark Antony. In the New Testament, Lod appears in its Greek form, Lydda, and was the site of Peter's
healing of a paralytic man as described in Acts
9:32-38. The earliest Christian
community in the town was established at this time. In 66 CE, during the First
Jewish–Roman War, Lod/Lydda was under
the command of John the Essene. The Roman proconsul of Syria, Cestius Gallus, razed the town on his way to Jerusalem which was also razed four years later. But in the period following the destruction, Rabbi Tarfon, who appears in many Tannaitic and Jewish legal discussions, served as
the town’s rabbinic authority. During the Kitos War, 115–117 CE, the Roman army laid siege
to Lod/Lydda, where the rebel Jews had gathered under the leadership of Julian
and Pappos. The distress became so great, that Patriarch Rabban Gamaliel II, who was shut up there (and died soon afterwards), controversially permitted
fasting on Ḥanukkah. Lydda
was finally taken and many Jews were executed; the "slain of Lydda"
are often mentioned in words of reverential praise in the Talmud. Generally
speaking however, the town flourished between the first war against Rome and the
Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135 CE). It had a large market; cattle were raised in the area; and textile, dyeing, and
pottery industries were established. It was the seat of a local Sanhedrin; famous scholars, such as R.
Eliezer b. Hyrcanus, R. Akiva, Joshua b. Levi, Judah b. Pazi, Eleazar bar
Kappara, and Ḥanina bar Ḥama taught there. Among its synagogues was one specially maintained by a community of Tarsians.
After the Bar Kochba Revolt was crushed,
Jews remained in Lydda, though its agricultural hinterland had been destroyed. On
the other hand, the patriarch R. Judah I leased estates in its plain. The
Samaritan element became more powerful in Byzantine times, although the town became
predominantly Christian and had a bishop.
In 1170, Benjamin of
Tudela found only one Jewish family there, but after Saladin's re-conquest of
the town in 1191, more Jews settled there. The community was even described by the
14th century geographer Ashtori ha-Parhi. A small community existed
sporadically since then but was largely gone for most of the 19th
century. In the second half of the century however, a new community was
established, but they were ethnically cleansed by Arabs after the 1921 Jaffa riots. Some returned afterwards. In 1934, an airstrip was
built by the British authorities for purposes of trade and travel. In 1973, it
was renamed, Ben Gurion Airport.
In the 1947 United Nations
proposal to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, Lydda was allotted to
the Arabs. During the bloody Arab onslaughts that triggered the War of Independence,
Israeli forces captured the town and it was later incorporated into the State
of Israel. The Arab population fled and later, Jewish refugees from “Arab”
countries settled there. Beginning in the 70s, they were joined by Jews from
Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union.
In 1996, prior to the
widening of HeHalutz Street, a
well-preserved mosaic floor dating
to the Roman period was excavated as part of a salvage
dig conducted on behalf of
the Israel
Antiquities Authority and the Municipality of Lod. The mosaic was
initially covered over with soil at the conclusion of the excavation, for lack
of funds, to conserve and develop the site. It is now part of the Lod
Mosaic Archaeological Center.
Although Lod has been
plagued by a poor image for decades, as of 2008 dozens of projects were under
way to improve life in the city. New upscale neighborhoods are expanding the city
to the east, among them Ganei Ya'ar
and Ahisemah. In 2010, the Lod Community Foundation organized an
event for representatives of bicultural youth movements, volunteer aid organizations,
educational start-ups, businesses, sports organizations, and conservation
organizations.
Lod is also active in
Israel’s sports scene. The city's major football club, Hapoel Bnei Lod,
formed by a merger of Bnei Lod and Rakevet Lod in the 1997, plays in Liga Leumit (the second division). Its home
is at the Lod Municipal Stadium.
Two other clubs in the city play in the regional leagues: Hapoel MS Ortodoxim Lod in Liga Bet and Maccabi Lod in Liga Gimel. Hapoel Lod played in the top division during the 1960s and 1980s, and won
the State
Cup in 1984. It folded in 2002.
A new club, Hapoel Maxim Lod (named after former mayor Maxim Levy) was established soon after, but folded in 2007.
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