City Focus Israel: Hod HaSharon

This is a part in a series of posts focusing on Israeli cities. I will focus on some smaller, less known cities, and some larger cities. Each post will attempt to teach readers something new about an Israeli city.

Hod Hasharon was given city status in 1990. Located about an hour Northeast of Tel Aviv by bus, Hod HaSharon is in the vicinity of Kfar Saba. The city was founded through the joining of four smaller towns, founded 1924 and 1938. The towns, Magdiel, Ramatayim, Kfar Hadar, and Ramat Hadar, were founded to be agricultural villages. The villages were merged into a local council in 1964. The land, initially unsuitable for agriculture, was purchased or alloted to the initial settlers. The city is 99.9% Jewish, and is home to about 45,000.

The city is home to the Alexander Muss High School, which is home to a program for American high school students to spend either a semester or year abroad in Israel.

On a personal note, I found Hod HaSharon to be similar to Boca Raton in Florida, but much smaller. The single family houses gave the town a suburb feel, and the large park in the center of town was a nice place to take an afternoon walk. It is not much of a tourist town, and gave me a chance to see life in Israel outside of a larger city or Kibbutz. The town’s residents are welcoming. It seemed that Hod HaSharon would be a nice place to live.