A view of
Jaffa, including the bell tower of
St. Peter's Church and the minaret of
Al-Bahr Mosque, from the
Tel Aviv Promenade. An ancient port city in what is now southern
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Jaffa is mentioned in the Bible several times in association with the stories of
Solomon,
Jonah, and
Saint Peter. The town was captured by various groups over several millennia, including Arabs,
Crusaders, Egyptians, the
Ottoman Empire,
the French, and
British. During the
British Mandate tensions arose between the mostly-Jewish population of Tel Aviv and the mostly-Muslim population of Jaffa, and conflict broke out in the late 1940s when the port town was
to be included in the new Israeli state. In 1950, Jaffa was merged into Tel Aviv.
Photograph: Andrew Shiva