Netanya

Netanya is a city in the Central District of Israel and the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain, about 30 kilometers north of Tel Aviv and 56 kilometers south of Haifa. It was founded in 1929 on land purchased in the Arab village of Umm Khalid and named for Nathan Straus, the Jewish American philanthropist and co-owner of the Macy's department store chain. The city's 14 kilometers of beaches have made it a popular tourist destination, and it expanded eastward after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. During the 1990s Netanya absorbed large numbers of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and from Ethiopia; about one in four residents speaks Russian, and the city hosts the largest Ethiopian community in Israel, numbering more than 12,000. As of 2024 its population reached 234,813, the seventh-largest of any city in Israel.