Tel Aviv Beaches

and a walking tour through Old Jaffa

November 18th - Day 6

The weather is warm and sunny... a perfect time to spend time on the beach! Before we headed out, however, we did a walking tour through Old Jaffa.

Our tour guide, Namaa, gave a spirited and entertaining introduction to the old City of Jaffa. Jaffa is a city of 46,000 people, 30,000 of whom are Jewish and 16,000 who are Arab, the majority of whom are Muslim with a few Christians.

Jaffa, one of the oldest ports in the world, has changed hands through history. The name was derived from the Hebrew word for "beautiful", is referenced in the Bible as part of the region that was given to the tribe of Dan when Israelites first entered the promised Land. To this day, many businesses, including a major hotel chain, has the word "Dan" in their name.

We began our tour at the Clock Tower, built in 1901 and located in the plaza by the Setai Hotel. According to Namaa, local folklore is that the clock was constructed by Moritz Schoenberg, a Jewish businessman and clockmaker, to save himself from being pestered by pedestrians, no one who had personal watches in those days, who would come in to his shop to ask the time on their way to the train station. Four clocks were installed in the tower – two of them showing the time in Europe, and two of them the time in Israel.

Seven similar clocks were constructed across Israel, part of one hundred clock towers built across the Ottoman Empire to address the problem of keeping accurate time during the age of train travel. This was, in fact, a worldwide problem. In the US alone there were literally thousands of local time zones in the mid 1800's, creating massive problems when train travel demanded accurate knowledge of when they would be arriving and departing. The need for accurate, standardized time to support railway travel led to establishment of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), and demand for a whole new class of consumer products to get people there on time, personal watches.

Namaa, at the Suspended Orange Tree we first saw on Day 1. Jaffa oranges are known around the world in part because at the turn of the century their thick skin made them stay fresh during transport, while they were exceptionally sweet.

Namaa provided a thoughtful interpretation of suspended tree, connecting it to Jaffa's diverse population. Both Jews and Arabs finding themselves living outside of their Homeland must make a choice to either live in the past, or embrace it. Either way, they are uprooted and must live, suspended in a new environment.

It seems, however, that without ongoing support, the Jaffa tree, which was planted by the artist Ran Morin in 1991, would have died long ago. But it is possible to thrive when nurtured. And survival is tenuous.

The Setai, in the heart of Old Jaffa, is an exclusive and very expensive Hotel today. However, it wasn't always the case. Originally, the building was a police station, and was used for this purpose during the Ottoman Empire, the British occupation, and later, when Israel became a state.

The most famous prisoner to be kept here was Adolf Eichman, a German-Austrian Nazi and one of the major organizers of the Holocaust.in World War II. Spirited out of Argentina where he had been hiding by the Israeli Mossad in 1960, he was tried and hanged for war crimes. The trial, in Israel, crimes in Israel opened up painful memories for Holocaust survivors, but also helped them to tell their story in ways that had not been possible until then.

The ancient port of Jaffa. While it was an important port at one time, it is too shallow for large modern ships, and so Elat and Haifa are the major ports in Israel now. The dilapidated building in the distance was the Immigration building used during the British occupation. Until modern port facilities were built in Israel, larger ships would dock offshore, and deliver immigrants and goods via smaller boats to the port.

The future of old Immigration building in Jaffa is the cause of considerable controversy at this time. Advocates for its preservation have prepared plans to refurbish the building into a museum, similar to Ellis Island in New York City. However, a new mayor has been recently elected in Jaffa who would like to see the old cement structure, constructed hastily by the British. to be torn down.

What? Tear down a major part of history, the place where thousands of refugees and immigrants making Aliyah in Israel and set foot in the Holy Land for the first time?

Graffiti on the wall of the abandoned Immigration Building describes how some have reacted to his idea. I'll be honest though. Having seen the building myself, I'm with the mayor on this one!

Israeli flag on a rock located just outside the Jaffa Port. The rock is associated in Greek mythology with the place of Andromeda's chaining and rescue.

Egyptian Gate, replica, also photographed in the evening of our 1st Day, below

This is a replica of the original Egyptian Gate, found at this exact site by archaeologists. It was erected during the reign of Ramsees II, the same pharaoh that ruled when Moses led the Israelites out of the land of Egypt.

After our tour through Old Jaffa, we stopped by a Greek restaurant for lunch, and later ventured out for some time on the beach. It was warm and sunny, but the afternoon was short, and with the sun quickly setting around 4:30 pm, it was time to head home, and get ready for dinner. Such a busy schedule... my goodness!!

Dinner that night was at a restaurant where we had enjoyed lunch while escaping the rain just outside the Nachlat Binjamin Arts and Crafts Market on Day 4. We had discovered while we first visited it that live jazz is played there every evening. This time,there was no rain. It was a lovely evening, followed by a walk back along the seashore on the way home.