No abstract

A primary factor in the initial establishment of the diamond trade in the Netherlands and Belgium was the religious toleration accorded Jews there from the fifteenth century onward. The policies of De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd., in the twentieth century, have controlled the sale of eighty percent of the world's uncut diamonds, thereby affecting the economic health of diamond centers everywhere. The growth of the diamond industry in Israel has resulted from government planning rather than from the traditional dominance of Jews in the diamond trade. Low labor costs in Israel and India might cause the industry to shift eastward, but automation of gempolishing, plus laboratory production of gem-quality diamonds in Europe and the United States will affect such a shift.

No abstract

No abstract

Beersheba has changed from a small agricultural settlement in pre-Biblical times to a city of importance in modern Israel. The wells and fertile loess soils of the Beersheba Basin have been utilized by all who have occupied the area. From 3300 B.C. to the present, Beersheba has functioned as an oasis, market town, military center, transportation node, and as a traditional gathering place for the Bedouin tribes of the Negev, Israel's southern desert. In 1900, the Ottoman Turks initiated the modern devclopment of Beersheba. After World War I, the British administered the area as part of the Palestine Mandate. With the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, the city began to grow rapidly. In the early 1960's, Beersheba had a population of over 52,000. It functions as the capital of a region containing over two-thirds of the national area.N the current literature of urban and settle-