Rishon LeZion ( , "First to Zion") is a city in Israel, located along the central Israeli coastal plain south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area. With a population of as of , Rishon LeZion is the fifth-largest city in Israel.
Founded in 1882 by Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who were part of the First Aliyah, it was the first settlement founded in Israel by the New Yishuv and the second Jewish farm settlement established in Ottoman Syria in the 19th century, after Petah Tikva.
The city is a member of Forum 15, which is an association of fiscally autonomous cities in Israel that do not depend on national balancing or development grants.
Etymology The name Rishon LeZion is derived from a verse from the Tanakh: "First to Zion are they, and I shall give herald to Jerusalem" (Isaiah 41:27) and literally translates as "First to Zion".
History
Ottoman period (1882–1900)
Rishon LeZion was founded on 31 July 1882, by ten Lovers of Zion pioneers from Kharkiv, Ukraine (then the Russian Empire) headed by Zalman David Levontin. Reuven Yudalevich was also a member of the group. The British vice-consul in Jaffa, Haim Amzaleg, purchased of land southeast of present-day Tel Aviv, the site of watering holes called ‘Uyūn Qārā (literally 'fountain of the crier') from Mustafa Abdallah ali Dajan. According to Marom, ‘Uyūn Qārā offered "a convenient launching pad for early land purchase initiatives which shaped the pattern of Jewish settlement until the beginning of the British Mandate". Amzaleg signed a declaration to the settlers stating that none of the structures on this land would ever be his own.
In addition to the problems posed by sandy soil and lack of water, the newcomers had no agricultural experience. Baron Rothschild brought in experts who drilled for water, finding the groundwater table uneven. Wells were built at a depth of 20–25 meters.
After the Biluim arrived, the town slowly began to develop. On 23 February 1883, the settlers found water in the wells. To mark this occasion, the village emblem was inscribed with a verse from the Torah: "We have found water." (Genesis 26:32) Fani Belkind, Israel Belkind, Shimshon Belkind, Yoel Drubin, Haim Hissin, and David Yudilovich were among the Biluim who arrived in Rishon Lezion at this time.
In 1883, Itzhak Leib Toporovski a blacksmith of the young village created the first iron plow in the land of Israel, and in 1885 the flag that would later become the flag of Israel was raised for the first time as part of the celebrations of the 3rd anniversary of the village.
When Baron Edmond James de Rothschild took over, sending in his administrators and agricultural guide Shaul Helzner of Mikve Israel, major progress was made in the spheres of agriculture, citrus and viticulture. In November 1883 the first rows were planted, led by ten Russian farmers who were further trained at Mikveh Israel agriculture school, also funded in part by Rothschild. The Great Synagogue, which became a major focus of life in Rishon LeZion, was built between 1885 and 1889. Under Rothschild's patronage, the Carmel-Mizrahi Winery was, established in 1886. The Baron Edmond James de Rothschild and his wife Adelheid von Rothschild came to visit the village a year later in 1887.
In 1886, as Rishon LeZion's population of around 300 included several dozen children who required proper education, the Haviv elementary school was established in Rishon LeZion as the first modern school to teach exclusively in Hebrew. Dov Lubman Haviv taught there and Mordechai Lubman Haviv was an educational inspector. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, the leading figure in the revival of Hebrew, was a teacher in Rishon LeZion, as was his colleague David Yudilovitz. In 1898, the first Hebrew kindergarten in the world was established by Esther (Shapira) Ginzburg a former student of the Haviv school.
Naphtali Herz Imber, the later famed Hebrew language poet, lived in Rishon LeZion for a few years in the late 1880s. He recited his poem, Tikvahtenu, to eager ears. In 1887, Shmuel Cohen, a young resident of Rishon with a musical background, observed the emotional response of the local Jewish farmers to Imber's poem. Using his musical skill, he put the poem to music. Cohen's musical composition was an adaptation of a Moldavian/Romanian folk song, "Carul cu Boi" ("The Cart with Oxen"). The catalyst of Cohen's musical adaptation facilitated the quick, enthusiastic spread of Imber's poem throughout all the Zionist communities of Mandatory Palestine. Within a short few years, it spread globally to pro-Zionist communities and organizations becoming the unofficial Zionist National Anthem.
In 1933, at the 18th Zionist Congress in Prague, the Imber/Cohen Zionist National Anthem, formally adopted, was renamed the Hatikvah (The Hope). In November 2004, the State of Israel formally adopted Shmuel Cohen's 1887 musical adaptation to a newly shortened, modified version of Imber's poem, creating the modern Israeli National Anthem, the Hatikvah.
In 1888, the medicine house, the baron's stables, and the baron's clerks house were built. In 1889 the building in which the Carmel-Mizrahi Winery is located was built. A telephone was added to the winery in 1891 and in 1898 electricity was installed. In 1890, a palm boulevard was planted in the location of the future city park. The Rishon LeZion orchestra was established in 1895. In 1898, the year Theodor Herzl visited the settlement, the city park (then the village park) was established and a water tower was built next to the well.
A founder of Rishon LeZion was Joseph Feinberg the father of Dora Bloch.
At the year of its founding in 1882, Rishon LeZion had a population of 150. In 1890, Rishon LeZion had a population of 359. Five years later, the figure had risen to 380, and by 1900, to 526.1900
Village council and JCA administration (1900–1922) In 1900, the management of the village was transferred from the baron's office to the village council and the Jewish Colonization Association. Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, worked in the winery for two months in the summer of 1907.Teveth, Shabtai (1987) Ben-Gurion. The Burning Ground. 1886-1948. Houghton Mifflin; . p. 53
In 1910, the village bell was constructed next to the medicine house, and in 1912 the first car ("First chariot without horses") appeared in the village. In 1911, 4,000 dunams of land in Rishon LeZion were planted with grapes and 254 dunams with other fruit orchards.
In 1913, the governor of Greater Syria, Djemal Pasha, annexed the sands around Rishon Lezion to their territory and in 1915 Rishon Lezion was expanded again and was given the territory between it and the Mediterranean Sea. In 1913, Nahlat Yehuda, another Jewish settlement, was established north of Rishon Lezion. In 1915 Rishon Lezion and the surrounding area experienced a Locust attack.
Ayun Kara was the scene of a bloody battle between Turkish and New Zealand troops on 14 November 1917. Local citizens carried the wounded to a medical facility in Rishon LeZion. A stone cenotaph was erected by the people of Rishon LeZion to the memory of the New Zealanders who fell that day, but it has since been destroyed.
In the wake of the battle, the New Zealanders set up camp at Rishon Lezion, which was described by one officer as a "pretty little hamlet surrounded by vineyards and orange groves." Relations between the troops and villagers were good, and the troops brought the villagers the news of the Balfour Declaration.
In 1919, the women of Rishon Lezion were given voting rights and in the same year, Nehama Pohatchevsky was elected chairman of the village council which marked the first time a woman was elected to the position.
British Mandate In 1924, the British Army contracted the Jaffa Electric Company for wired electric power to the military installations in Sarafand. The contract allowed the Electric Company to extend the grid beyond the original geographical limits that had been projected by the concession it was given. The high-tension line that exceeded the limits of the original concession ran along some major towns and agricultural settlements, offering extended connections to the Jewish settlements of Rishon Le-Zion, Nes-Ziona and Rehovot (despite their proximity to the high-tension line, the Arab towns of Ramleh and Lydda remained unconnected). According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Rishon LeZion had a population of 1,396 inhabitants, consisting of 1,373 Jews and 23 Muslims, increasing in 1931 census to 2,525 inhabitants, in 648 houses.Mills, 1932, p. 23
State of Israel Rishon LeZion was declared a city in 1950, by which time it had a population of around 18,000. By 1983 it had a population of 103,000. In 2006, 222,300 people were living in the city. By 2020, the population is expected to reach 253,600. In 2007, the Rishon LeZion Municipality was awarded the Ministry of Interior Prize for Proper Management.
In 2016, the Israeli government approved the expansion of Rishon LeZion onto sand dunes west of the city, upon which one of the largest commercial and residential construction projects in the Central District will be built on 1,000 dunams. Another industrial zone in the western part of the city is planned to be almost doubled in size.
On June 14, 2025, an Iranian missile strike directly hit a residential building, killing three civilians and injuring over 20 others, including a 3-month-old baby who was rescued from the rubble. In March 2026, a daycare which was empty at the time of impact, as well other sites, were damaged by cluster munitions during the 2026 Iran war, with sites being visited afterwards by Israeli President Isaac Herzog.
Demographics
The 1922 Census conducted by the British Mandate authorities found 1,373 Jews living in Rishon LeZion and 23 Muslims.
According to data from the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics as of December , the number of residents in Rishon LeZion is . Rishon LeZion is one of the fastest-growing cities in Israel, and is the third-youngest city in the country, after Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, with 31.1% of the population being children and teenagers, and 61.4% of all residents being aged 40 or under. In addition, the city has attracted significant immigration, including from English-speaking countries. The city is expected to have a population of around 270,000 by 2030. Its population growth rate is about 5% per year. The majority of the city's residents are Jews.
Economy
Rishon LeZion's main industries today are wine, construction, services and commerce. Factories and workshops are located in the old industrial zone, which has become a popular venue for pubs, dance clubs, and restaurants. Industry in the city is largely divided into two industrial centers: the old industrial zone in the north of the city and the new industrial zone in the west of the city.
The three major malls in Rishon LeZion are Rothschild Center in the old downtown center, Gold Mall (Kenyon HaZahav) in the New West district, and the newly constructed Azrieli Rishonim. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Gazit-Globe, Volvo, and Fiat are expected to open in the Maayan Sorek area. As part of the city's 5-year plan to be completely water-independent, construction of a desalination plant is planned for Rishon, which will produce 3.7 million cubic meters of water per year. The city already hosts the large Shafdan recycling plant. On 25 January 2026, it was announced that the Soreq B desalination plant had gone into full operation, producing 200 million cubic metres of water annually after having began at 60% capacity in the previous year.
Local government Mayors
Elyakum Ostashinski (1950–51) Aryeh Sheftel (1951) Moshe Gavin (1952–55) Gershon Man Mankov (1955) Hana Levin (1955–60) Aryeh Sheftel (1960–62) Noam Laoner (1962–65) Aryeh Sheftel (1965–69) Hananya Gibstein (1969–83) Meir Nitzan (1983–2008) Dov Tzur (2008–2018)