Yeruham

The name Yeruham was first mentioned in the inscription of the pharaoh Sheshonok I , who invaded Palestine at the end of the tenth century BC. At the western entrance to the city is Tel Rahma , which is identified as ancient Yeruham. Well Rahma , according to Professor Johanan Aaroni - the same one that Hagar found, wandering in the desert with his son Ishmael .

In 1951, Amnon Tsairi from the kibbutz Gan Shmuel established a temporary camp ( maavara ) for repatriates from Romania under the name Kfar Yeruham ; after 6 years, he replenished with repatriates from Morocco, Iran, India. The village was located on the way from Be'er Sheva to Eilat, on the so-called “oil route”. The first head of the settlement was Pinchas Maanit, one of the founders of Nahalal , who moved to the camp with his family.

In 1959, the camp was disbanded and a local council was founded in its place; its head remained the same. In 1962, when its population reached 1700 inhabitants, the village got its current name. Two years later, another camp was organized nearby, in which 3,000 residents settled.

In 1965, a new road was laid connecting Beer Sheva and Eilat - the Ha-Arava highway, and transit traffic stopped passing through Yeruham; the situation was aggravated by the laying of the Beer Sheva - Mitspe Ramon road. All this, coupled with the remoteness of the place from the center of the country, led to the outflow of youth from Yeruham. However, in the 60s the first plant was opened there.

In the 1970s, a group of Orthodox Jews arrived in Yeruham in search of a cheap place to live, they founded a small community with their educational institutions, the main of which was the yeshiva , which has been under the direction of Rabbi Rafael Tikochinsky since 1985, who attracted many students. In 1978, Professor Menachem Aleksanberg arrived at the scene with a group of families - adherents of religious Zionism; they founded the College of Arts and Jewry. The college was successful and worked for several years as a branch of Bar-Ilan University , but during the stay of Alexanberg in the USA it was closed for political reasons.

In 1983, Baruch Almakase was elected the first head of the council. Under him, several new educational institutions were opened, but unemployment reached 39%. One of his largest but controversial investments is Yeruhamsky Park, which at one time was considered very successful, but later found to be problematic (due to the accumulation of garbage and toxic waste, swimming in the pond was forbidden, and the fish died).

Since 1986, Bnei Akiva groups began to arrive in Yeruham, increasing its population.

In the 1990s, the village was replenished with repatriates from the Soviet Union , and to a lesser extent, from the USA and Great Britain . Today, about half of Yeruham’s residents are of North African descent, a quarter are from the CIS and 14% are from India .

After the local council was mired in debt as a result of unjustified investments, the Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to dissolve the existing council, and in 1992 the native of Yeruham Moti Avisrur won the election. In 2003, Almakase defeated Avisrura in the next election, and the debts of the local council grew so much that municipal workers stopped receiving wages, and various funds stopped all investments in Yeruham. In the winter of 2005, as a result of repeated appeals to the court, Almakeys was removed from his post, and retired major general Amram Mitsna , who previously headed Haifa and chairman of the Avoda party, was appointed in his place.

Mitsna promoted projects to improve infrastructure, education and the environment; among other things, a decision was made in his cadence to transfer many AOI training bases from the center of the country to the vicinity of Yeruham, and the number of computers in schools reached 4 per student (first place in Israel). In 2008, the cadence of Mitsna was extended for two years by decree of the Minister of the Interior.

In 2010, elections were held, which won Michael Beaton.

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics of Israel , the population at the beginning of 2018 was 9,511 people ^[2] .

Natural population growth is 0.9%.

The average salary for 2007 is 5,502 shekels .

Yeruham population growth chart:

In Yeruham there are several industrial enterprises with 1,150 employees - the Agis pharmaceutical plant (Perrigo), the Akerstein construction plant, and the Tempo juice production company. About 250 people work in state institutions, mainly in schools.