Rishon LeZion

Rishon LeZion, city, west-central Israel. It lies on the Judaean Plain southeast of Tel Aviv–Yafo. The name (Hebrew: “first to Zion”) is derived from a biblical allusion in Isaiah 41:27. The second oldest Jewish village of Palestine (after Petah Tiqva), Rishon LeZion was founded in 1882 by Russian-Jewish immigrants of the First Aliyah. At first unsuccessful, owing to lack of agricultural experience, the colonists were assisted (after 1898) by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the financier...