Beer in Israel is manufactured primarily by two major breweries – Tempo Beer Industries and Israel Beer Breweries. Over the past decade numerous microbreweries have established themselves throughout the country. Beer festivals are held annually in Israel, of which one of the largest is in Jerusalem. History Like the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans, the ancient Israelites were far more drawn to wine than they were to beer. After the exile of the Jews to Babylonia in the sixth century BC, they began embracing beer and several rabbis became established brewers. Two notable Babylonian Jewish brewers were Rav Chisda and his pupil Rav Papa, both of whom lived in the vicinity of Sura during the fourth century CE. In James Armand de Rothschild, identifying a demand for beer on the part of British nationals residing in Palestine, established the first local commercial brewery in partnership with Gaston Dreyfus, in Rishon LeZion. In 1940 the Palestine Brewery () – or, as it was also known, the Nesher Brewery – was commissioned by the AACI to supply beer to Australian troops stationed in Palestine. By 1942 the brewery was compelled to enlarge its plant in order to meet increased demand being generated on the part of both military and civilian consumers. Construction of what was at the time the largest brewery in the Middle East, the National Brewery, began in April 1952 in the city of Netanya, founded by a group of investors led by Louis Herzberg. Upon completion in May 1953, the National Brewery had an annual production capacity of 400,000 barrels. In 1954 it shipped what was theretofore "[t]he largest single shipment of imported beer ever to enter the United States" – 180,000 bottles of its Abir label beer. The National Brewery merged with the Palestine Brewery and the Galilee Brewery in 1973, whereby it came to control 90% of Israel's beer market. The company was acquired in 1976 by Canadian land developer Murray Goldman for . In 1980 a canned beer bearing a label indicating its origin as the National Brewery in Netanya was being sold in Egypt in spite of an Egyptian boycott of Israeli products. Called O.K. beer, it proved more successful than Heineken and Tuborg and was consumed at premier bars in Cairo and other locations in Egypt, even as conservative religious Muslim leaders campaigned to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks in the country.