Azor ( he, אָזוֹר, ar, أزور) (also ''Yazur'') is a local council in the Tel Aviv District of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

, on the old Jaffa-Jerusalem road southeast of Tel Aviv. Established in 1948 on the site of the depopulated Palestinian village of

Yazur Yazur ( ar, يازور, he, יאזור) was a Palestinian Arab town located east of Jaffa. Mentioned in 7th century BCE Assyrian texts, the village was a site of contestation between Muslims and Crusaders in the 12th-13th centuries. During the ...

, Azor was granted local council status in 1951. In it had a population of , and has a jurisdiction of .

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 The Greek Old Testament, or Septuagint (, ; from the la, septuaginta, lit=seventy; often abbreviated ''70''; in Roman numerals, LXX), is the earliest extant Greek translation of books from the Hebrew Bible. It includes several books beyond th ...

form Άζωρ. According to scholars, the name my derive from

Semitic root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as a sequence of consonants or " radicals" (hence the term consonantal root). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowel ...

’-Z-R “to gird, encompass, equip”, but "this derivation is highly hypothetical as this root is so far not productive in the toponymy." The council of the new village named it Mishmar HaShiv'a ('Guardian of the Seven') in honour of seven Jewish 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. However, another new village nearby was later named

Mishmar HaShiv'a Mishmar HaShiv'a ( he, מִשְׁמַר הַשִּׁבְעָה, lit=guard of the seven) is a moshav in central Israel. Located near Beit Dagan, it falls under the jurisdiction of Sdot Dan Regional Council. In it had a population of . History Th ...

History

the 16th century, Haseki sultan endowed the lands of Yazur to its Jerusalem soup kitchen. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the area belonged to the Nahiyeh (sub-district) of

Lod Lod ( he, לוד, or fully vocalized ; ar, اللد, al-Lidd or ), also known as Lydda ( grc, Λύδδα), is a city southeast of Tel Aviv and northwest of Jerusalem in the Central District of Israel. It is situated between the lower Shephe ...

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 Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...

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. For further information, see on the page of the preceding Palestinian village,

Notable residents

Shelly Krolitzky Shelly Krolitzky (born 8 July 1999) is an Israeli tennis player. Krolitzky has a career-high WTA singles ranking of 1,098, achieved on 10 October 2016, and a career-high WTA doubles ranking of 751, achieved on 25 September 2017. Krolitzky has w ...

(born 1999), tennis player *

Matvey Natanzon Matvey Natanzon (better known by his pseudonym Falafel) (July 5, 1968 - February 14, 2020) was a Russian-born Israeli backgammon player. Life and career Natanzon was born in Soviet Russia and moved with his mother to Azor, a small Israeli town nea ...

, backgammon player *

Margalit Tzan'ani Margalit "Margol" Tzan'ani ( he, מרגלית "מרגול" צנעני; born December 19, 1948) is an Israeli singer and television personality. Tzan'ani is famous for her repertoire of Israeli oriental music style with soul influences, as well a ...

, singer and tv personalityDon't mess around with me

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...

Main sights

* , archaeological museum

References

{{Authority control Local councils in Tel Aviv District