JAFFA, JONAH & the APOSTLE

Jaffa (Joppa, Yaffo) is a very ancient port city with 9,000 years of history. It is strategically located in the center of Israel, near the north-south Via Maris (“Way of the Sea”)

Picturesque Jaffa on the Mediterranean Sea is one of the attractions when visiting Israel. Ancient alleyways, houses built from the local stone…just beautiful.

Jaffa is mentioned in the Bible in the Old Testament. It was here, at the port of Jaffa, that Jonah the Prophet tried to escape from God and came to take a boat to escape. In the New Testament it is mentioned in the miracle that Peter performed in Jaffa when he brought back to life the young child named Tabitha. It is here where the apostle Peter received a crucial vision as he went up to the roof to pray, while staying in the house of Simon the Tanner. This is where the meeting with the angle took place. Also, from here the soldiers of Cornelius come to take Peter to Cornelius in Caesarea.

To learn more about Caesarea (where Peter was summoned by Cornelius), read here: Caesarea Martima

The story of Jonah the Prophet is told in the Book of Jonah. The story recounts that Jonah took a boat from Jaffa port to escape God.

Jaffa is the most ancient port city in Israel.

This is the port where King Solomon imported cedar trees for the construction of the 1st Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

This is also the port that became to be very important to King Thalami the 1st and is also mentioned also in the Hasmonean Revolt. During this period most of the city inhabitants were Israelite Jews. In 67 AD during this revolt the city was flooded by refugees who fled from other towns that had already been conquered by the Romans.

The Crusaders used Jaffa as the main port of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Between the 16th – 19th centuries Jaffa was the most important city in Israel being a cosmopolitan city. Jews, Christians & Muslims co-lived in this city. On the 19th century, when the Zionist pioneers came to Israel to rebuild Israel as we know it today, they entered through the Jaffa Port and this created some conflict and clashes with the Muslims living at that time in Jaffa. This is the beginning of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

At the end of the 19th century the Jews built the 1st neighborhoods outside of the old city walls, north of the old city, and later on these neighborhoods became part of Tel-Aviv which was built in later years.

In May 1948 the city was liberated and the Arab citizens living in it, surrendered to the Israeli Army. In 1949 Jaffa and Tel-Aviv united into one municipality, and nowadays it is called: Tel-Aviv Jaffa.

You can learn here why Tel-Aviv’s White City has been proclaimed a UNESCO world cultural heritage site: Tel-Aviv - the White City

I’d like to thank the Watchman and Jaime Elgrod.