The Sivei Dimona Compound

The story

This plot, at the entrance to Dimona, was designated with the founding of the city for a plant that would provide employment for its residents. The ceremony of laying the cornerstone for the "Sivei Dimona" plant was held on 1 January 1960. The plant was set up by investors from the United States and from Italy, with the help of a government loan; all the equipment was bought in Japan and assembled here by Japanese experts. It was inaugurated on 8 August 1961, in a ceremony at which the Minister of Commerce and Industry Pinhas Sapir was present. In 1965 more than five hundred workers worked in it. The production expanded to synthetic fibers, another plant arose in Yeruham, and in 1967 a plant in Beersheba was bought. The energy was supplied by natural gas from the Rosh Zohar field south of Arad. At the end of 1968 one thousand seven hundred and fifty workers worked in the plants of the company, among them one hundred and fifty Bedouin workers. A second combine operated in the city alongside it, "Kitan Dimona", which at its peak employed about two thousand workers; in 1972 it was reported that one of every three families in Dimona made its living from it. Sivei Dimona ran into difficulties, in 1979 "Dimona Textil" was founded and bought the combine, and the plant closed for good at the end of 1996. In 1998 the production lines were sold to a company from Egypt. Kitan closed in 2012. On the grounds of the plant a shopping center was built that was inaugurated in January 2007.

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