Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

An Israeli Town’s Campaign To Rename Sodom Street

The residents of Ashkelon in Southern Israel like to think of themselves as good, upstanding folk. Which is why one local street sign has become a cause of great annoyance and embarrassment.

For as long as most Ashkelon residents can remember, they have had a Sodom Street. Sodom, if you recall, was one of the two cities said in the Book of Genesis to have been destroyed by God for its immorality.

For years, led by residents of the streets near Sodom Street who were constantly the subject of cutting jokes about their morality, the people of Ashkelon have been campaigning to change the name, and the local media reports they have now succeeded.

The replacement name is as innocuous as they come — Metar, the Biblical word for chords that support tents.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.