What is Jaffa Made of?
The tangible produces the intangible; the intangible produces the tangible.
The Sea
The Mediterranean is Jaffa’s sea with a natural port. The sea offered fish, sailing, trade, entrance of pilgrims, salt, tourists, beach, recreation, vacation, and occupiers. The sea is the door to the whole world, to change, new ideas, adventure, languages, religions, designs, thinking, inventions, habits, and ‘intermarriage’. The sea offers an infinite horizon and interconnectivity. Palestine’s hinterland and mountain cultures like Jerusalem and Nazareth, were more traditional and conservative than adventurous Jaffa. Palestine has an ancient culture of both urban and rural.
The Orange
Orange groves grew in water-rich Jaffa. Someone in the Jaffan Shammouti family experimented and developed a special sweet orange type with a thick peel. The thick peel made this orange perfect for export on long journeys. With the orange orchards close to the sea, Jaffa Orange turned into an international brand and fortune. Jaffa Orange was developed from experiments and work, produced, and marketed in the city; the Jaffa Orange is Jaffa’s Intellectual Property. Jaffa Oranges put Jaffa and Palestine on the map. Those special oranges arrived at European royal palaces and were sold in the capitals of the Mediterranean and further. The Jaffa orange, and the proximity to the sea; turned Jaffa from an entrance to Palestine into a blooming and international rich city.
The Wealth
Jaffa Orange trees had to be planted, watered, the trees pruned, the fruit picked, wrapped in silk paper, packed, and transported on sailships heading to London. It needed advertising, and printing houses for the oranges’ silk paper, lawyers, and sailors, not to mention carpenters for the boxes and storage houses. The work and new wealth attracted tens of thousands of workers. Workers need homes, bakeries, doctors, and schools for their children. The Mediterranean port town became a cosmopolitan modern urban heartbeat of Palestine. The new capital produced more businesses, luxurious neighborhoods, and a new lifestyle with extra money to try new things. Many orange grove owners had multiple villas, and ‘Well-Houses’, which were villas in the middle of the orange groves near a water well and a pool. ‘La dolce vita‘ was on.
The Urbanization
A flourishing city started rethinking its growth and ordered an urban master plan. Rich Jaffans promoted the arts, culture, and sports. The new neighborhoods were dotted with cafés, cabarets, cinemas, and theaters attracting a creative and innovative crowd. The rich built cinemas, churches, and tennis courts. The mega singers of the Arab world arrived first in Jaffa on their world tour. The stadium, Olympic Institute, tennis courts, and boxing rings saw international players. The buzzing city introduced different people to each other, locally and internationally.
(Painting on the right: “Jaffa Oranges”, by a Palestinian artist named Isra’ Frehat)
The Intellect
This concentration of wealth, business, possibilities, and international connections produced the intellectual capital of Palestine. The rich cosmopolitan city produced and attracted intellect: printing houses, newspapers and magazines, books, schools, and culture – all bloomed in Jaffa. With an excess of money, time, and thought, the city developed independent thinking and took part in imagining futures. At the turn of the century, Jaffa became a center of the Arab Nahda, (the Arab Renaissance movement), which accelerated with fast modernity. These ingredients produced autonomous tendencies. Jaffans had an identity not different from other old seaside city cultures such as Venice or Amsterdam. Jaffans had a distinctive culture.
The Resistance
The rich city with about six centuries of layers, does not just disappear. Jaffa resisted occupiers throughout history since the Pharaos occupied it, and during the Ottoman rule, then the British occupiers (British Mandate) who destroyed the oldest part of Jaffa. And soon a new group, Zionists made the ancient city disappear. Jaffa produced individual and collective resistance. Resistance needs intellect, media, money and people defending their city. Jaffa had the press and thinkers, the wealthy who were involved in defending their city, and at the last stages was the underground armed resistance, of which we hear about a group of underground armed Jaffan women. Jaffa fell during the Nakba on 13 May 1948.
Back to the Sea
The port is the spot where Jaffan oranges wrapped in silk paper left for London for the royal family for Christmas. This is the point where pilgrims from Venice and France arrived continuously for 2000 years. On a Saturday, May 1948, the port of Jaffa saw its inhabitants pushed and crammed into it: cinema-goers, math teachers, orange packers, coffee drinkers, babies in their grandfather’s arms, and fishermen, were pushed to the sea. Jaffa fell and was ethnically cleansed of 97% of the Jaffans. This was the Nakba. Jaffans hopped on boats and in that one magical moment, Jaffans turned into homeless refugees, and Jaffa became a forbidden city. The boats went north and many went south to another Mediterranean ancient port city, to Gaza. Over 75% of the people in Gaza today are refugees, and Gaza is full of the Jaffans.
Today
Jaffans in exile are still Jaffans. The 97% of Jaffans who were exiled and their children are forbidden to return. Some are stubborn and imaginative enough to return illegally after death. Others are still resisting, in refugee camps, in Gaza, and in the world, and have a legal and official right to return.
This map is dedicated to the Jaffans. May remembering and renarrating bring history to life. May Jaffa and Jaffans be reunited.
The intangible history, heritage, and memories can change into tangible.
(Picture of Gaza 2023 on the right)