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By Jerry Klinger
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DIMONA, Israel — This modern city in the eastern Negev desert was founded as an idea credited to David Ben Gurion. Dimona (meaning South) is a location name mentioned in the Book of Joshua as land belonging to the Tribe of Judah
Thirty-six North African Sephardi families were sent to Dimona in 1955 by the Israeli government, founding the city. They would have been homeless victims of ethnic cleansing of Jewish communities from Muslim lands if Israel did not exist. They went with a purpose. They came with a vision to rebuild the Jewish homeland.
The conditions in the desert were terrible. Their dreams and mission were stronger.
Dimona has a population of over 40,000 today. It is very diverse; culturally, historically, and socially. The city is of central importance to Israel’s defense.
More than 100,000 years ago, Dimona was an important destination for early humans. Developers of a solar panel field for the local electric company made a discovery. Dimona had an accessible deposit of flint. Early humans came to Dimona to knap, and shape the flint into tools and weapons.
About 3,300 years ago, Moses had been driven into the Sinai desert to die by Pharoh. He was rescued by the Bedouin Kenite leader Jethro. Moses married Jethro’s daughter Zipporah. Moses led a nomadic life, raised a family, and tended Jethro’s flocks.
Arad, about 30 miles to the north of Dimona, was the main urban center of the Kenite people. The Kenites lived peacefully with the Jews before and after the establishment of biblical Israel. They chose to ally themselves with the Jews, much as the modern-day Muslim Druze do in Northern Israel. Did Moses pass through Dimona? The Bible is silent.
Joshua became the leader of the Jewish people after Moses’s death. Joshua was a warrior. He led the Jews into the Promised Land, parceling out lands to the “Sons” of Jacob.
A new power arose in the Northern Negev about the 3rd century B.C.E., the Nabateans. They allied with the Maccabees in the struggle against the Seleucid Greeks. Later, they allied with the Romans, ending Biblical Israel. The Jewish defeat began 2,000 years of darkness, the Jewish exile from the Land.
The remains of a remarkably well-preserved and excavated Christian Nabatean city, Mamshit, are about ten miles north of Dimona. Today, a UNESCO World Heritage site, Mamshit was a “way station” for caravans navigating the Incense Trail between Yemen and the Mediterranean. It is the finest Nabatean archeological site in Israel. Mamshit, founded about one hundred B.C.E., fell into decay after its Byzantine rulers abandoned the location in the sixth century C.E.
David Ben Gurion toyed with the idea of a revived Mamshit becoming the Capital of Israel if the state ever came to be. Necessity was reality. Ben Gurion declared Israel’s independence in Tel Aviv in 1948. Dimona was too remote, too hard to get to, and endured a harsh climate.
However, Dimona was the perfect location for a secret project between France and Israel: the construction of Israel’s nuclear reactor. Construction began in 1958. The reactor went live between 1962-1964. Controversial on many levels, the plant has remained a flashpoint of fears, super secrecy, and international subterfuge.
Many of the initial personnel working at the reactor were Jews from India. Jews have lived in India for an estimated 2,000 years. Today, Dimona is home to over 7,500 Indian Jews.
A radically different community, the African (Black) Hebrew Israelite Nation of Jerusalem, moved to Dimona in the 1960s by overstaying their visas.
Led by Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, (Ben Carter), an American steelworker, Ben Ammi had a vision of the Archangel Gabriel instructing him to take his followers back to the Holy Land. Black American culture has a long messianic sub-history believing they are the true Jews. The Sephardic, the Ashkenazic, the Indian, and even the Ethiopian Jews are not the true Jews to them.
The Black Hebrews evolved a religious community that thrived in Dimona. For decades, the Israeli government tried to deport them. A compromise was reached. If the young men and women of the Black Hebrews were willing to serve in the IDF and defend Israel shoulder-to-shoulder with other Israelis, the community would be granted permanent Israeli citizenship.
The Chief Rabbi of Dimona, American-born, Haredi educated in Boro Park, Brooklyn, New York, Rabbi Yitzhak Elefant, recognizes the Black Hebrews as part of Dimona but not as Jews.
Shimon Peres, a past Prime Minister, President of Israel, and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, celebrated his 85th birthday in Dimona. He purposefully went to the Black Hebrew “Village of Peace” and told them, “Your community is beloved in Israel… You give the country happiness and song and hope for a better world.”
The Black Hebrews in Israel are now a community of approximately 5,000.
Peres passed away in 2014. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu renamed the Dimona Nuclear reactor the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center in his honor. Peres was instrumental in its construction.
The Dimona nuclear reactor has been and remains the center of extreme secrecy and intrigue. It and Dimona were targets of the recent failed Iranian missile attacks.
Little was known about the nuclear facility, except by conjecture, until a disgruntled former technician, Mordechai Vanunu, revealed smuggled photographs from the interior to the Western Press. Vanunu, a formerly Orthodox Jew, trans-morphed. For unknown reasons, he became rabidly anti-Israel. Vanunu converted to Christianity, became an extreme peace activist, flirted with the Communist Party, and sought to dismantle the state of Israel.
Vanunu had been in a very sensitive position at the nuclear center. Although he knew much about the plant’s operation, he did not know enough to be 100% authoritative about its ultimate purpose. Vanunu claimed the plant was built to generate nuclear materials that were assembled into nuclear weapons.
Vanunu’s revelations created a massive problem for Israel. Israel had long denied and still does to this day that it has nuclear weapons. Under American law, aid cannot be given to any country involved in Nuclear Weapons proliferation.
It is ironic, considering the massive transfer of money to Iran. The billions enhanced and accelerated the Iranian terrorist state’s nuclear weapons programs. The money was given to them by Presidents Obama and Biden.
The government of Israel steadfastly denies that it has nuclear weapons. Anti-Israel countries and groups believe in and support Vanunu.
A historical perspective: When Theodor Herzl first approached the Sultan of Turkey to pay off Turkey’s national debt in return for the state of Israel, the Sultan and many European heads of state thought it might be a good idea. They knew Jews had all the world’s money.
Herzl had nothing but a bluff. The antisemites played right into it.
Does Israel have nuclear weapons, or are they bluffing?
Until President Biden’s colossal blunder of publicly announcing the U.S. was going to withhold weaponry from Israel involved in its existential war with Hamas, Israel trusted America’s word. Western Nations and allies of America trusted America’s pledges of multilateral defense pacts. No one 100% trusts America anymore.
Should Israel develop its own nuclear umbrella of insane deterrence…that will be for Israel to decide.
The Lion’s Trail – Dimona lion sits tall, over 9’ high, proudly in a traffic circle outside the Peretz Center Mall.
The dedication plate at the Lion’s base reads:
The Lion’s Trail – Dimona
“The portion that fell by various lots to the clans of the tribe of Judah…Kina, Dimona, and Adada”… Joshua 15:1,22
The Jewish People have been living here for over three thousand years
Donated by the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation with support from the city of Dimona
Sam Philipe -Sculptor
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Jerry Klinger is the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation