Ottoman era in Hadera, 1931 Hadera was founded on 24 January 1891, in the early days of modern
Zionism by
Jewish immigrants from
Lithuania and
Latvia on land purchased by
Yehoshua Hankin, known as the Redeemer of the Valley. The village was named after
Wadi al-Khudeira (), as the nearby section of
Hadera Stream was known. Earlier, the whole Hadera Stream had been known as
Nahr Akhdar (). The
Crusaders called the location
Lictera – a corruption of the Arabic name,
el-Khudeira. From the outset, attempts were made to pick instead a Hebrew name for the new settlement. About half a year after it was founded, rabbi Ya'akov Goldman reported on an event in "the moshav of
Hadere, that is,
Hatzor". The name
Liktera was in preferential use by the British military during
World War I. In the end of the nineteenth century, the region of Hadera was populated by three immigrant groups – Circassians, Bosnians and Russian Jews. These transnational colonists joined what was, in Roy Marom's words, "a sparsely populated coastal plain inhabited by Arabic-speaking highland peasants and nomads of Turkmen, Nubian, Egyptian and of Arabian-Peninsular descent". Marom further notes that in 1871 Ottoman authorities inspected Khirbet al-Khudeira, and found it 'empty of inhabitants and lacking resident peasants who are eligible to purchase it in return for the payment of land registration fees". Selim al-Khoury, a Christian merchant from Haifa, purchased Kh. al-Khudeira, together with 3000 hectares of land, and established an agricultural estate among the ruins. In 1890, al-Khoury sold al-Khudeira to Yehoshua Hankin (1864–1945).
Baron Edmond James de Rothschild's surveyor, Yitzhak Goldhar, claimed that Hadera was founded on the site of the former town called
Gedera of Caesarea (), as mentioned in
Tosefta ''Shevi'it
, ch. 7. Benjamin Mazar preferred to locate ancient Gador
, formerly known as Gedera by Caesaria'', at Tell Ahḍar ("green hill"), later known as Tell esh Sheikh Ziraq and currently as Tel Gador, on the coast south of
Giv'at Olga. Others say that the ancient Gadera should be identified with
Umm Qais or with
al-Judeira. The first Jewish settlers lived in a building known as the Khan near Hadera's main synagogue. The population consisted of ten families and four guards. In 1896 Baron Rothschild paid for "hundreds of black labourers" from
Egypt "to dig the broad and deep trenches" needed to drain the swamps. They "died in scores". Old tombstones in the local cemetery reveal that out of a population of 540, 210 died of malaria. Therefore, a Bible verse from the Psalms (Tehillim) was inscribed in the city's logo: "Those who sow in tears, will reap with songs of joy." (Ps 126:5)
Hashomer guards kept watch over the fields to prevent incursions by the neighboring
Bedouin. By the early twentieth century, Hadera had become the regional economic center. Land disputes in the area were resolved by the 1930s, and the population had grown to 2,002 in 1931. Free schooling was introduced in the city in 1937 in all schools apart from the
Histadrut school. 1st Battalion, "D" company stationed at Givat Olga. 1948 File:Hadera 1932.jpg|Hadera 1932 1:20,000 File:Hadera 1945.jpg|Hadera 1945 1:250,000
State of Israel After the
1948 War, the north-western part of Hadera (including "Newe Chayyim") expanded on the land which had belonged to the
depopulated Palestinian village of
Arab al-Fuqara. Hadera's population increased dramatically in 1948 as immigrants flocked to the country. Most of the newcomers were from Europe, though 40 Yemenite families settled there, too. New neighborhoods were built, among them Givat Olga on the coast, and Beit Eliezer in the east of the city. In 1964, Hadera was declared a city. A
massacre of six civilians at a Bat Mitzvah occurred in early 2002. A suicide bomber blew himself up at a
falafel stand on October 26, 2005, killing seven civilians and injuring 55, five in severe condition. During the
second Lebanon War, on August 4, 2006, three rockets fired by
Hezbollah hit Hadera. Hadera is south of the Lebanese border and marked the farthest point inside Israel hit by Hezbollah. In the 2000s, the city center was rejuvenated, a high-tech business park was constructed, and the world's largest
desalination plant was built. New neighborhoods are under construction in the underdeveloped northeastern part of the city, and plans are under way for a large park, shopping malls and hotels with a total of 1,800 rooms. The city is envisaged as a future vacation destination due to its closeness to the
Galilee, beaches, and access to major highways. ==Geography==