Hadera

▪ Israel

      city, western Israel. It lies on the Plain of Sharon midway between Tel Aviv–Yafo and Haifa, near the Mediterranean Sea. The first Jewish settlement on the northern coastal plain, adera (from Arabic khadhīr, “green”) was founded in 1890 by Jewish immigrants from tsarist-ruled Poland and Lithuania. The seasonal watercourse Naẖal adera (then called by its Arabic name of Nahr Mufjir), which flowed through the town, flooded the low-lying area annually during the winter rains and created malarial swamps. Many of the early settlers died from the disease. With the aid of the French-Jewish philanthropist Baron Edmond de Rothschild, eucalyptus trees were planted to help drain the swamps. After 1894 citrus groves flourished; their acreage was increased, and adera is now the centre of one of the chief citrus-producing regions of Israel.

      The city developed as a rail hub with the construction of the eastern Sharon line (Lod-Hadera-Haifa), built by the British army during World War I; this line has now yielded precedence to the coastal Tel Aviv-Yafo–adera–Haifa line, built in the 1950s. The stations are, respectively, to the west and east of the business district. adera received municipal council status in 1936 and was proclaimed a city in 1952. Its principal industries are a large paper mill, supplying most of Israel's needs, and a tire factory. There are also metalworking, citrus-processing, and vegetable-canning plants. Pop. (2006 est.) 76,300.

* * *