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Caesarea - is a town in Israel located
mid-way between Tel Aviv and Haifa (45 km), on the Israeli
Mediterranean coast near the city of Hadera. The town was built
by Herod the Great about 25-13 BCE as the port city of Caesarea
Maritima. Modern Caesarea as of December 2007 has a population
of 4,500 people. It is the only Israeli locality managed by a
private organization, the Caesarea Development Corporation, and
also one of the most populous localities not recognized as a
local council. It lies under the jurisdiction of the Hof
HaCarmel Regional Council.
Caesarea is believed to have been built on the ruins of
Stratonospyrgos (Straton's Tower), founded by Straton I of
Sidon, and was likely an agricultural storehouse in its earliest
configuration. In 90 BCE, Alexander Jannaeus captured Straton's
Tower as part of his policy of developing the shipbuilding
industry and enlarging the Hasmonean kingdom. Straton's Tower
remained a Jewish city for two generations, until the Roman
conquest of 63 BCE when the Romans declared it an autonomous
city. The pagan city underwent vast changes under Herod the
Great, who renamed it Caesarea in honor of the Roman emperor,
Caesar Augustus.
In 22 BCE, Herod began construction of a deep sea harbor and
built storerooms, markets, wide roads, baths, temples to Rome
and Augustus, and imposing public buildings. Every five years
the city hosted major sports competitions, gladiator games, and
theatrical productions in its theatre overlooking the
Mediterranean Sea. Caesarea also flourished during the Byzantine
period. In the 3rd century, Jewish sages exempted the city from
Jewish law, or Halakha, as by this time the majority of the
inhabitants were non-Jewish. The city was chiefly a commercial
centre relying on trade. The area was only seriously farmed
during the Rashidun Caliphate period, apparently until the
Crusader conquest in the eleventh century. Over time, the farms
were buried under the sands shifting along the shores of the
Mediterranean.
A portion of the Crusader walls and moat, as they exist todayIn
1251, Louis IX fortified the city. The French king ordered the
construction of high walls (parts of which are still standing)
and a deep moat. However, strong walls could not keep out the
sultan Baybars, who ordered his troops to scale the walls in
several places simultaneously, enabling them to penetrate the
city. Caesarea lay in ruins until the nineteenth century when
the village of Qisarya, the Arabic name for Caesarea, was
established in 1884 by Muslim immigrants from Bosnia, who built
a small fishing village on the ruins of the Crusader fortress on
the coast. The kibbutz of Sdot Yam was established 1 km south in
1940. Many of Qisarya's inhabitants left before 1948, when a
railway was built bypassing the port, ruining their livelihood.
Qisarya had a population of 960 in 1945. During the 1948
Arab-Israeli War part of the population fled for fear of
attacks, before it was conquered by Jewish forces in February,
after which the remaining inhabitants were expelled and the
village houses were demolished. During the conquest of Qisarya a
number of the Arab inhabitants were killed. According to a
testimony collected from Battalion members obtained by Israeli
historian Uri Milstein: "In February 1948, the 4th Battalion of
Palmach, under the command of Josef Tabenkin, conquered Caesaria." |
