Naharija 5.83

Nahariya is the northernmost coastal city in Israel. In it had a population of.EtymologyNahariya takes its name from the stream of Ga'aton, which bisects it.HistoryAntiquityThe ruins of a 3,400-year-old Bronze Age citadel were found in the coastal city of Nahariya near the beach on Balfour Street, at a site known to archaeologists as Khirbet Kabarsa. The citadel was an administrative center serving the mariners who sailed along the Mediterranean coast. There are evidence of commercial and cultural relations with Cyprus and the rest of the Mediterranean region. The fortress was destroyed four times by conflagration and rebuilt each time.Byzantine PeriodA church from the Byzantine period, dedicated to St. Lazarus, was excavated in the 1970s. It was destroyed by fire, probably at the time of the Persian invasion in 614.British Mandate of PalestineIn 1934, work began to found Nahariya as an agricultural village by a company limited by shares and headed by the agronomist Dr. Selig Eugen Soskin (1873-1959), the civil engineer Joseph Loewy (1885-1949), the financial expert Heinrich Cohn (1895-1976) and the engineer Simon Reich (1883-1941). The company acquired an area of land by purchase from the Arab landowner family Toueini. After ameliorisation and parcelling the plots were offered to new German Jewish immigrants who had escaped from Nazi persecution. The first two families permanently settled in Nahariya on February 10, 1935, which is now considered the official founding date of Nahariya. After an accumulation of economic, financial and climatic problems the residents soon realized that agriculture was impractical and chose to focus on tourism and the food industry. Nahariya was turned into a European-style resort town, taking advantage of the natural surroundings and beaches, and new inns were opened. Two prominent food manufacturers also set up shop: the Strauss company was founded as a commercial dairy by German immigrants in Nahariya, and the Soglowek family, which settled in Nahariya in 1937, opened a prominent butcher shop and developed the "Nahariya sausage". During the British Mandate of Palestine, many British officers coming from Khartoum stopped in Nahariya.