Bnei Ayish : History Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bnei Ayish

Local council

Bnei Ayish 31°47′18.94″N 34°45′39.29″E / 31.7885944°N 34.7609139°E / 31.7885944; 34.7609139
District	Central
Founded	7 October 1957
Government
• Head of Municipality	Aryeh Garela
Area
• Total	836 dunams (83.6 ha or 207 acres)
Population (2022)^[1]
• Total	6,881
• Density	8,200/km² (21,000/sq mi)
Name meaning	Sons of Akiva Yosef Schlezinger

Bnei Ayish (Hebrew: בְּנֵי עַיִ"שׁ) is a town and local council in the Central District of Israel. Located around ten kilometers from Ashdod and adjacent to Gedera, it had a population of 6,881 in 2022.^[1]

History

The town was founded in 1957 on land that had belonged to the depopulated Palestinian village of Yasur.^[2] Before 1948, the area had served as a military base for British Army troops during the Mandate era. It was named after Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlezinger, whose name is abbreviated to Ayish.

Bnei Ayish originally served as a transit camp for immigrants from Yemen in the early 1950s. Today its population is almost entirely made up of Jews of Yemenite descent and immigrants from the former Soviet Union ^{[citation needed]}.

References

^ ^a ^b "Regional Statistics". Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2024.
^ Khalidi, Walid (1992), All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948, Washington D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, p. 139, ISBN 0-88728-224-5