Beersheba, courtesy IsraelCities.com |
The history
of Beersheba goes back to pre-Hebraic times but written records are first
mentioned in Biblical sources. In the Book of Genesis, the site of Beersheba
was recorded as being under the control of the Philistines. It was here that
Abraham dug a well that was later violently
taken away by the servants of Abimelech, king of the Philistines. Promised
protection, Abraham and Abimelech made an oath with seven ewe lambs and the
name of the place was henceforth called “Beersheba” (well of seven). Abraham’s
son Isaac renewed the oath. For a time, it was the dwelling place of Isaac’s
son Jacob, before his sojourn in Egypt.
After the
conquest of Canaan by Joshua, Beersheba was allotted to the tribe of Shimon. It
was the southernmost city settled by the Israelites, hence the expression
"from Dan to Beersheba" which described the whole of Israelite
territory from north to south.
The sons of
the priest-judge Samuel were judges here.
During the period of the
divided kingdom when Ahab ruled in the north and Asa ruled in the south,
Beersheba was considered the gateway to the desert. The prophet Elijah, while escaping the wrath of Queen Jezebel, wife of King Ahab, took refuge in Beersheba before
continuing on his journey to Mt. Horeb.
Under the Roman
occupation, the native Israelites slowly abandoned the city and Christians, and
later the Byzantine Christians, gradually took over. Then during the Muslim conquest in the 7th century,
Beersheba was totally abandoned and destroyed. It
remained abandoned until the late 19th/early 20th centuries when the
modern city was built by the Ottoman Turks for the Bedouin of the area,
acquiring the nickname as "the first Bedouin city." By 1914,
Beersheba had a population of 1000, made up mostly of Bedouin and non-Bedouin
Arabs from the Hebron and Gaza areas, as well as a small number of Jews one of
whom, ran a flour mill.
In World War
I, Turkish fortifications were laid out around the town and more settlers,
including Jews, came and provided services to the Turkish army. In 1920, now
under British rule, a few Jewish laborers planted a tree nursery and eucalyptus
grove there and experimented with cultivating vegetables and other crops. In
1922, the population reached 2,356, among whom were 98 Jews. Due to the Arab
riots in 1929 when many Jews were ethnically cleansed from various parts of
Palestine including Beersheba, the number of Beersheba Jews decreased to 11.
These last Jews were, as well, ethnically cleansed during the 1936–39 riots. In
spite of this, efforts were intensified to purchase land for Jewish settlement
in the Negev.
Following
the conclusion of the War of Independence, the 1949 Armistice
Agreements formally
granted Beersheba to Israel. After a few months, the town's war-damaged houses
were repaired. As a post-independence wave of Jewish immigration to Israel
began, Beersheba experienced a population boom as thousands of immigrants moved
in. They came mainly from North Africa, Iraq, India, Romania, Poland, Hungary,
and South America. The city rapidly expanded beyond its core, which became
known as the "Old City" as
new neighborhoods were built around it, complete with various housing projects
such as apartment buildings and houses with auxiliary farms, as well as
shopping centers and schools. The Old City was turned into a city center, with
shops, restaurants, and government and utility offices. An industrial area and one of
the largest cinemas in Israel were also built in the city. It was also a
communication center linking to the Lod-Kiryat
Gat and Dimonah-Oron highways. A
pumping station of the Eilat-Haifa oil pipeline was located there. Its largest industries (ceramics,
sanitary ware, fire-resistant bricks, pesticides and other chemicals, and
bromide compounds) exploited Negev minerals. There was also a large textile
factory, flour mill, machine garage, and smaller plants for building materials,
diamonds, metals, and other industries. The city had several academic,
scientific, and cultural institutions. Among the first was the Municipal Museum. In 1957, the Negev Institute for Arid Zone Research was
established, experimenting in water desalination by electrodialysis,
exploitation of solar energy, cloud seeding, adaptation of plants to
aridity, hydroponics, and human behavior under desert conditions. Other
endeavors were: Soroka
Hospital (opened
in 1960), Ben Gurion University (originally
the Institute for Higher Education which opened
in 1965, becoming the University of the Negev in 1970, and finally its present
name in 1973), the Beersheba Theater and
the Symphony Orchestra (both 1973), Shamoon College of Engineering
(1995), and the city's tallest building, Rambam
Square 2, a 32-story apartment building (2003). The
city also serves as a market center for the Negev's tens of thousands of
Bedouin. The traditional Thursday, Bedouin market day, is a noted tourist
attraction.
Other
tourist attractions are the many sites of ancient remains including those at Tell el-Sheba, the most ancient site of
Beersheba. In addition, a park, to be called Beit Eshel Park, will be established around the nearby Biblical
town of Beit Eshel at the official entrance to the river park.
As with the
rest of Israel, Beersheba has also seen its fair share of terrorist incidents. 1998:
sixty four people were wounded in a grenade attack; 2004: sixteen people were
killed in two suicide bombings
on commuter buses in Beersheba for which Hamas claimed responsibility; 2005: another
suicide bomber attacked the central bus station, seriously injuring two
security guards and 45 bystanders; 12/27/2008-1/18/2009: During Operation Cast Lead, Hamas fired over 2000 rockets and
mortars from Gaza into southern Israel, including Beersheba; 2010: an Arab
attacked and injured two people with an axe; 2012: a Palestinian from Jenin was stopped before a stabbing
attack in a "safe house"; 2015: a lone gunman shot and
killed a
soldier guarding the Beersheva bus station before being gunned down by police;
2016: the Shin Bet thwarted a Palestinian
Islamic Jihad terror
attack at a wedding hall.
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