Netanya

Netanya was founded in 1929 by members of the Bnei Binyamin association of farmers, who bought sand dunes and land on the Sharon plain to grow citrus. They named the new settlement after Nathan Straus, the American merchant and philanthropist who funded health and welfare work in the country, and the first houses went up among the groves a little inland from the cliffs. Growth was slow at first, and the Mediterranean beach was as much a working shore as a resort.

Two things changed it. In 1939 the first diamond polishing plant in the country opened here, and Netanya became one of the centres of the diamond trade — an industry that later shifted much of its business to Ramat Gan but left its mark on the city's economy and institutions. At the same time, the beaches and the clifftop air gave it a second life as a seaside resort for Tel Aviv and for visitors from abroad.

After 1948 the population multiplied as immigrants arrived from North Africa, Romania, Iraq and later the former Soviet Union and Ethiopia, and new neighbourhoods were laid out inland and to the north. From the 1990s a substantial French-speaking community settled here, and building moved south along the coast into Poleg and Ir Yamim, where towers now stand above the dunes. The city was among those hit by attacks during the second intifada in the early 2000s.

Netanya's character comes from who has moved there. Successive waves of immigration — Sephardi and Mizrahi families in the 1950s, Soviet Jews from 1990, Ethiopian Israelis, and a large French-speaking community from the 2000s — have given the city a mix of languages and kitchens that is unusual even by Israeli standards. Shop signs in French are common near the seafront, Russian is heard in the northern neighbourhoods, and Amharic in others.

Life is lived outdoors and towards the sea. The clifftop promenade functions as a public living room: walkers at dawn, pensioners on the benches through the afternoon, families and buskers in the evening, and the plaza above the beach used for open-air concerts and public events in summer. Paragliders launch from the cliff edge when the sea breeze is right, and the beaches below have their own regulars for matkot, swimming and fishing.

Sport matters here. Maccabi Netanya has played in the top division for most of its history, and the national physical education institute at Wingate, just south of the city, trains much of the country's coaching and sports medicine profession. Religious life is mostly moderate and traditional rather than strict, though the city has Orthodox neighbourhoods and synagogues serving many different immigrant traditions, and Shabbat quietens the streets from Friday afternoon.

About 235,000 people live in Netanya, the seventh-largest city in the country and the biggest on this stretch of coast. Many residents commute south to Tel Aviv or to the office parks along the coastal highway, and the railway station and Highway 2 carry heavy traffic in both directions each morning. Others work in local light industry, the remaining diamond businesses, hospitals, schools and the hotel and restaurant trade.

The city divides fairly clearly. The clifftop strip and the newer southern districts hold hotels, holiday flats and expensive apartments with sea views; inland and northern neighbourhoods built for earlier immigration waves are poorer, and municipal effort has gone into renewing them. Property prices near the sea have risen sharply, partly driven by second homes bought from abroad, which leaves some seafront buildings half empty outside the summer.

Days follow the coastal rhythm: early swimmers and runners on the promenade, schools and offices from Sunday to Thursday, the market busy in the morning, and the seafront filling again as the afternoon cools. Friday is for shopping before Shabbat, and Saturday belongs to the beach. Since February 2026 the war with Iran has added rocket alerts and periods when public gatherings are cancelled to ordinary life here as elsewhere in the country.

Netanya eats what the rest of the coast eats, with an accent of its own. Falafel and shawarma counters, hummus places and bakeries fill the streets leading inland from the seafront, and the city market supplies olives, cheeses, spices, dates and the citrus that the area was planted with a century ago. Sabich, the pita of fried aubergine and hard-boiled egg with tahini and amba, and shakshuka, eggs poached in spiced tomato and pepper, are everyday food here as everywhere in Israel.

The French community has left the clearest mark. Patisseries and boulangeries around the centre sell croissants, éclairs and baguettes alongside rugelach and burekas, and several restaurants cook in a French-Mediterranean style, with kosher versions of dishes that would elsewhere use butter or cream. North African cooking brought by immigrants from Morocco and Tunisia is strong too: couscous with vegetables and meat on Friday, fish in spicy tomato and pepper sauce, and harissa on the table.

The sea provides the rest. Fish restaurants at the small anchorages north of the city, at Mikhmoret and along the shore, grill whatever has come in and serve it with a spread of mezze salads. Fruit from the Sharon plain and the Hefer Valley — citrus, avocados, strawberries in spring — appears in the markets and at roadside stalls, and summer evenings on the promenade run on ice cream and cold watermelon with salty cheese.