Shlomi () is a

town A town is a type of a human settlement, generally larger than a village but smaller than a city. The criteria for distinguishing a town vary globally, often depending on factors such as population size, economic character, administrative stat ...

in the Northern District of

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. In it had a population of .

Etymology

Shlomi was named after a leader from the tribe of Asher, mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
. '' Ma'abara Ma'abarot (, singular: Ma'abara ) were immigrant and refugee absorption camps established in Israel in the 1950s, constituting one of the largest public projects planned by the state to implement its sociospatial and housing policies. The ma' ...

in 1950 by Jewish immigrants from

Tunisia Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...

and

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

on the ruins of a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

village of

al-Bassa al-Bassa () was a Palestinians, Palestinian Arab village in the Mandatory Palestine's Acre Subdistrict, Mandatory Palestine, Acre Subdistrict. It was situated close to the Blue Line (Lebanon), Lebanese border, north of the district capital, Acr ...

, which had been destroyed during what the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

, and which

Adolf Neubauer Adolf Neubauer (11 March 1831 – 6 April 1907) was a Hungarian-born at the Bodleian Library and reader (academic rank), reader in Rabbinic Hebrew at Oxford University. Biography He was born in Bittse (Nagybiccse), Upper Hungary (now Bytča ...

"proposed to identify... with the Batzet of the Talmud". The Palestinian Arab village was stormed by

Haganah Haganah ( , ) was the main Zionist political violence, Zionist paramilitary organization that operated for the Yishuv in the Mandatory Palestine, British Mandate for Palestine. It was founded in 1920 to defend the Yishuv's presence in the reg ...

troops in May 1948 and almost completely razed. Its residents were either

internally displaced An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee. I ...

or expelled to neighboring countries. Shlomi was the target of

Hezbollah Hezbollah ( ; , , ) is a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament. I ...

Katyusha Katyusha () is a diminutive of the Russian name Ekaterina or Yekaterina, the Russian form of Katherine Katherine (), also spelled Catherine and Catherina, other variations, is a feminine given name. The name and its variants are popular in c ...

rocket A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely ...

attacks on 11 May 2005, Israel's

Independence Day An independence day is an annual event memorialization, commemorating the anniversary of a nation's independence or Sovereign state, statehood, usually after ceasing to be a group or part of another nation or state, or after the end of a milit ...

, and again on Israel's

in 2006. It was again the target of rocket attacks on 12 July 2006, a diversion to facilitate the killing of three soldiers and kidnapping two others, which sparked the

2006 Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War was a 34-day armed conflict in Lebanon, fought between Hezbollah and Israel. The war started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, thoug ...

. On 6 April 2023, several rockets hit the town and caused damage to a street and a commercial center.

Gaza war

During the 2023-24 war between Hamas and Israel, northern Israeli border communities, including Shlomi, faced targeted attacks by

and Palestinian factions based in

Lebanon Lebanon, officially the Republic of Lebanon, is a country in the Levant region of West Asia. Situated at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian Peninsula, it is bordered by Syria to the north and east, Israel to the south ...

, and were evacuated.

Archaeology

Pi Metzuba ruins

On the road between Shlomi and

Kibbutz A kibbutz ( / , ; : kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1910, was Degania Alef, Degania. Today, farming has been partly supplanted by other economi ...

Hanita, Israeli archaeologists found the remains of Pi Metzuba, a prosperous Christian town mentioned in the

Jerusalem Talmud The Jerusalem Talmud (, often for short) or Palestinian Talmud, also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel, is a collection of rabbinic notes on the second-century Jewish oral tradition known as the Mishnah. Naming this version of the Talm ...

,Christian Town Destroyed by Persians 1,400 Years Ago Found in Northern Israel
Ariel David for

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

, 17 June 2020. Re-accessed 6 April 2023. the

Tosefta The Tosefta ( "supplement, addition") is a compilation of Jewish Oral Law from the late second century, the period of the Mishnah and the Jewish sages known as the '' Tannaim''. Background Jewish teachings of the Tannaitic period were cha ...

(''Shevi'it'' 4:8-ff.) and in the 3rd-century

Mosaic of Rehob The Mosaic of Reḥob (, also known as the Tel Rehov inscription and the Baraita of the Boundaries), is a late 3rd–6th century Common Era, CE mosaic discovered in 1973. The mosaic, written in late Mishnaic Hebrew, describes the geography and ...

.. The town was destroyed in the early seventh century when Persia invaded the region as part of its broader conflict with the Byzantine Empire.

Ma'sub inscription

The site of Khirbet Ma'sub, immediately to the east of the Arab village of Bassa, is where the Masub inscription was found before being purchased by the

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

in 1885. Written in

Phoenician script The Phoenician alphabet is an abjad (consonantal alphabet) used across the Mediterranean civilization of Phoenicia for most of the 1st millennium BC. It was one of the first alphabets, attested in Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found ...

, the fragmentary Phoenician-language text, written in 222/21 BCE during Ptolemaic rule on a

Hellenistic In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

-style limestone

stele A stele ( ) or stela ( )The plural in English is sometimes stelai ( ) based on direct transliteration of the Greek, sometimes stelae or stelæ ( ) based on the inflection of Greek nouns in Latin, and sometimes anglicized to steles ( ) or stela ...

, originates from a temple of

Astarte Astarte (; , ) is the Greek language, Hellenized form of the Religions of the ancient Near East, Ancient Near Eastern goddess ʿAṯtart. ʿAṯtart was the Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic equivalent of the East Semitic language ...

and is on display at the Louvre.stèle
Louvre website (in French). Accessed 28 March 2024.

References

External links

History of Shlomi
{{Authority control Development towns Local councils in Northern District (Israel) Populated places established in 1950 1950 establishments in Israel