14 Facts About Ashdod

The nearby site of Ashdod-Yam, today part of the modern city, was a separate city for most of its history.

Three stone tools dating from the Neolithic era were discovered, but no other evidence of a Stone Age settlement in Ashdod was found, suggesting that the tools were deposited there in a later period.

In 950 BCE Ashdod was destroyed during Pharaoh Siamun's conquest of the region.

Hugo Winckler explains the use of that name by the fact that Ashdod was the nearest of the Philistine cities to Jerusalem.

In 30 BCE Ashdod came under the rule of King Herod, who then bequeathed it to his sister Salome.

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Documents from the Crusader period indicate that Ashdod belonged to the lordship of Ramla, and it appears probable that in 1169 the old Arab sea fort was given by Hugh, lord of Ramla, to his knight Nicolas de Beroard.

In 1596 CE, administrated by nahiya of Gaza under the liwa' of Gaza, the population of Ashdod numbered 75 households, about 413 persons, all Muslims.

City Mall, Ashdod was opened in a combined building with the central bus station in 1996, following the examples of the Tel Aviv Central Bus Station and the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.

In late 2012, Ashdod won a NIS 220 million grant from the Israeli Transport Ministry to improve public transportation and decrease private car use.

Passenger railway connection to Ashdod opened in 1992 after the renovation of the historical railway to Egypt.

Port of Ashdod has its own railway spur line as well as a special terminal for potash brought from the Sodom area and exported abroad.

The population of Ashdod is significantly younger than the Israeli average because of the large number of young couples living in the city.

MonArt Centre for the Arts, which includes a ballet school, a music center and the Ashdod Museum of Art, is a performing arts center which comprises different galleries, art schools, studios and events.

Theatre and concerts are hosted in several cultural venues; the most important are performed at the Ashdod Performing Arts Center, a new 938-seat concert hall of distinct elegance and originality designed by Israeli architect Haim Dotan and inaugurated in 2012 in the city's cultural center.