Bnei Ayish pop. 7,600, is a town (local council

Local council (Israel)

Local councils are one of the three types of local government found in Israel, with the other two being cities and regional councils. As of 2003, there were 144 local councils in Israel, these being settlements which pass a minimum threshold enough to justify their operations as independent...

), in the Center District

Center District (Israel)

The Central District of Israel is one of six administrative districts, including most of the Sharon region. The district capital is Ramla. It is further divided into 4 sub-districts: Petah Tikva, Ramla, Sharon and Rehovot. The district's largest city is Rishon LeZion. Its population as of 2008 was...

 of Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, about ten km from Ashdod and bordering Gedera

Gedera

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Bnei Ayish originally served as a transit camp for immigrants

Aliyah

Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 from Yemen

Yemen

The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....

 in the early 1950s. Before Israeli independence, the area had served as a military base for British Army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 troops during the British Mandate of Palestine. Today its population is almost entirely made up of Jews of Yemenite descent and immigrants from the former Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

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Bnei Ayish, meaning Sons of Ayish, is named after Rabbi Akiva Yosef Schlezinger, whose name is abbreviated to Ayish.