Kfar Saba

Kfar Saba (Hebrew: כְּפַר סָבָא [kfaʁˈsaba]), officially Kfar Sava [kfaʁ saˈva], is a city in the Sharon region, of the Central District of Israel. In 2023 it had a population of 100,013, making it the 16th-largest city in Israel. The population of Kfar Saba is nearly entirely Jewish.

The village of Kafr Saba was considered to be ancient Capharsaba, an important settlement during the Second Temple period in ancient Judea. It is mentioned for the first time in the writings of Josephus, in his account of the attempt of Alexander Jannaeus to halt an invasion from the north led by Antiochus, appears in the Talmud in connection to corn tithing and the Capharsaba sycamore fig tree.

The Jewish moshava of Kfar Saba was established in 1898, following the purchase of land from the Arab village of the same name. Acquiring 7,500 dunams (equivalent to 1,668 acres in Ottoman Palestine, where a dunam equals 900 square meters), the endeavor faced initial challenges: the land was desolate, neglected, and distant from other Jewish settlements. Furthermore, the Ottoman pasha of Nablus, to whose governorate the land belonged, refused to give building permits, forcing the first settlers to live in huts made of clay and straw. They earned their living by growing almonds, grapes and olives. It was located approximately 3 km to the west of the Arab village of Kafr Saba, after which it was named. Despite attractive advertisements in Jerusalem and London, initial attempts to sell plots to private individuals were unsuccessful. Starting in 1903, Jewish workers resided on the site of Kfar Saba. A well was dug in 1906. Most of the manual laborers on the land were peasants from Qalqilya.

In 1910, an Arab guard employed by Jewish landowners shot at a group of Arab almond thieves from Qalqilya, killing one. An Arab mob then descended on Kfar Saba, beating residents, breaking and looting equipment, and taking two Jewish guards prisoner. The situation was defused when reinforcements from Petah Tikva arrived, and a peace was negotiated. This attack drew widespread public attention among Jews in Palestine and around the world, and it was subsequently decided to turn Kfar Saba into a permanent settlement, even without building permits. In 1912, the construction of twelve single-story permanent houses began along a route that is now Herzl Street. The houses were camouflaged due to the lack of building permits. Construction was finished in 1913.

When World War I broke out in 1914, the Ottoman authorities harassed the residents, confiscating work animals and crops. The 1915 Palestine locust infestation destroyed vegetation in the area. Before Kfar Saba had fully recovered, about a thousand Jewish refugees of the Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportation who were seeking shelter arrived. The town's few houses could not accommodate the large number of refugees, and many died due to the harsh sanitary conditions.

In the Palestine Campaign of the war, Kfar Saba was on the front line between British General Edmund Allenby's Egypt Expeditionary Force and the Ottoman Army for almost a year, and by the time of the British victory in September 1918, it had been destroyed.

Following Kfar Saba's destruction in World War I, residents began rebuilding the town. During the 1921 Jaffa riots, Kfar Saba, then a small and isolated town, was evacuated on orders of the Haganah. It was attacked during the riots. In May 1921 the original residents returned and found their homes had been looted and burned. They began to rebuild the town for a third time, and it slowly recovered. In 1924 additional settlers joined Kfar Saba. In this period the moshava began to redevelop as cultivation of citrus fruit began, replacing almonds. The first elections for the local council were held.^{[citation needed]}

In August 1947, a Jewish man was found shot to death outside the town.