Ashdod

Ashdod is a coastal city in Israel's Southern District on the Mediterranean, about 32 kilometers south of Tel Aviv and 20 kilometers north of Ashkelon, with 228,562 residents as of 2024, the sixth largest city in Israel. Established in 1956 about 6 kilometers northwest of the ancient site of the same name, one of the five principal cities of the Philistines with roughly 3,700 years of documented history before its depopulation during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the modern city's port handles about 60 percent of Israel's cargo, making it the country's largest; Ashdod has absorbed extensive immigration, particularly from the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, and is home to the world's largest Georgian Jewish community.