ASHKELON

courtesy Wikipedia

Ashkelon today is one of the major ports of Israel located on the southern coast. Its population of over 130,000 is made up of the descendants of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa, and also immigrants from South Africa, UK, Ethiopia, and Russia.

In the time of Joshua, Ashkelon became one of the five major cities of the Philistines. Even though it was allotted to the tribe of Judah, the Israelites were never able to conquer it and it was, consequently, at constant war with them and later, the Kingdom of Judah. 

During the Assyrian invasion in the 8^th century BCE, Ashkelon allied with King Hezekiah. Later, it was the last of the Philistine cities to hold out against Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. When it fell in 604 BCE, it was burnt and destroyed and its people taken into exile thus, extinguishing the Philistines as a people.

Ashkelon was thereafter repopulated by various gentile peoples but it also contained a sizable Jewish community after the Babylonian captivity. This community flourished under the Egyptian Ptolemies in the early 2^nd century BCE. It later had mostly friendly relations with the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms of Judea. It surrendered twice to Jonathan the Maccabbee and later, to Alexander Jannaeus. In a significant case of an early witch-hunt, during the reign of the Hasmonean queen Salome Alexandra, the court of Simeon ben Shetach sentenced to death eighty women in Ashkelon who had been charged with sorcery. Herod the Great, who became a client king of Rome over Judea and its surroundings in 38 BCE, had not received Ashkelon, yet he built monumental buildings there: bath houses, elaborate fountains and large colonnades, and his sister Salome resided there.

The city remained loyal to Rome during the Great Revolt, 66–70 AD. During the revolt, Jewish forces tried several times to conquer the city but without success. Jews continued to live and flourish in Ashkelon, however, and during the Byzantine era from the 4^th – 7^th centuries, they built their own synagogue. Their local orchards became famous and a city fair was held every year. Under Fatimid Arab rule in the 10^th century, the Jewish community was known as the Kehal Ashkelon and the Kahal Kadosh (according to letters found in the Cairo Genizah).

After the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem, many Jews fled to Ashkelon escaping Crusader atrocities. The six elders of the local Karaite Jewish community contributed to the ransoming of captured Jews and holy relics from Jerusalem. The Letter of the Karaite elders of Ascalon, which was sent to the Jewish elders of Alexandria, described their participation in the ransom effort and the ordeals suffered by many of the freed captives. At the same time, members of the Jewish community were in constant touch with Jewish centers abroad. For example in 1110, letters were sent to the head of the "Gaon Jacob Yeshivah," which was exiled from the country. After the Crusader conquest in 1153, part of the Jewish population remained in Ashkelon. Benjamin of Tudela (c. 1170) described it as "a large and beautiful town, which contains two hundred Jews, and apart from them, several dozen Karaites and about three hundred Samaritans." A few hundred Jews were living in Ashkelon in the second half of the 12th century, but moved to Jerusalem when the city was destroyed in 1191. Information also exists on the settlement of Samaritans in the 13^th century.

Throughout the rule of the Ottoman Empire (1516-1917), there was no Jewish community in Ashkelon. After the invasion of Israel by Napoleon, the Jewish community of Gaza was destroyed by the invading French with the active participation of the local Arabs. When Israel was briefly invaded and occupied by Arab forces from Egypt (1831-1840), Ibrahim Pasha, the commander of Egyptian forces, took the stones from Gaza’s ruined synagogue and used them to build a fort in Ashkelon. At the same time, Arabs were brought in from Egypt to settle there and the town of al Majdal was established.

In 1948, the city was re-captured by Egyptian Arab forces who were on their way to conquer Tel Aviv. However, it was taken by Israeli forces later that year. Tel Aviv was saved and the Arab population fled along with the Egyptian army. It was later settled by Jewish refugees from throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

Thereafter, it was named “Migdal Ashkelon” but in 1953, the nearby neighborhood of Afridar was incorporated and the name "Ashkelon" was returned to the town.