Concept

Rehovot

Summary
Rehovot (רְחוֹבוֹת Reḥōvōt ʁeχoˈvot) is a city in the Central District of Israel, about south of Tel Aviv. In it had a population of . Israel Belkind, founder of the Bilu movement, proposed the name "Rehovot" (lit. 'wide expanses') based on Genesis 26:22: "And he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said: 'For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land'." This Bible verse is also inscribed in the city's logo. The biblical town of Rehoboth was located in the Negev Desert. Rehovot was established in 1890 by pioneers of the First Aliyah on the coastal plain near a site called Khirbat Deiran, an "abandoned or sparsely populated" estate, which now lies in the center of the built-up area of the city. According to Marom, Deiran offered "a convenient launching pad for early land purchase initiatives which shaped the pattern of Jewish settlement until the beginning of the British Mandate". Excavations at Khirbat Deiran have revealed signs of habitation during the Hellenic, Roman and Byzantine periods, with a major expansion to about 60 dunams during the early centuries of Islamic rule. Evidence of Jewish and possibly Samaritan occupants during the Roman and Byzantine periods has been found. In 1939, Khirbet Deiran was identified by Klein as Kerem Doron ("vineyard of Doron"), a place mentioned in Talmud Yerushalmi (Peah 7:4), but Fischer believes that there is "no special reason" for this identification, while Kalmin is unsure whether Doron was a place or a person. Rehovot was founded as a moshava in 1890 by Polish Jewish immigrants who had come with the First Aliyah, seeking to establish a township which would not be under the influence of the Baron Edmond James de Rothschild, on land which was purchased from a Christian Arab by the Menuha Venahala society, an organization in Warsaw that raised funds for Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel. In March 1892, a dispute over pasture rights erupted between the residents of Rehovot and the neighboring village of Zarnuqa, which took two years to resolve.
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