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<\/a>Ancient and modern clash in Wadi Salib, a neighborhood once home to a bustling Arab community and later to Middle Eastern Jewish immigrants. Here, Haifa\u2019s modern courthouse is on the right across from old, derelict houses. Photo by Sharon Yanai<\/p><\/div>\n
Haifa is one of Israel\u2019s five \u201cmixed\u201d Arab-Jewish cities, with a population that is about 10 percent Arab. For the past half century or so, its harmonious vibe has reverberated in this contentious corner of the world, where strife and intolerance are firmly entrenched.<\/p>\n
Haifa-born Einat Kalisch Rotem, the leader of the opposition on the Haifa City Council, describes her city as \u201cthe sanest place in Israel,\u201d where the political climate is balanced between right and left. Haifa, she says, \u201cis a secular city that is very lucky not to have too many religious or historical sites.\u201d Aside from the magnificent Baha\u2019i shrine on Mount Carmel\u2014the headquarters of the peace-loving Baha\u2019i Faith\u2014there is no sacred stone for people to fight over.<\/p>\n
But Haifa does have a metaphorical \u201csacred stone,\u201d the same one dividing many coastal cities\u2014land. And it\u2019s not so much the land itself, but how to use it.<\/p>\n
<\/a>There are few sacred sites in Haifa to squabble over, save the Baha\u2019i shrine on Mount Carmel, the headquarters of the peace-loving Baha\u2019i Faith. Photo by Richard T. Nowitz\/Corbis<\/p><\/div>\n
Coastal cities around the world have their own stories of gentrification, and this is Haifa\u2019s. It\u2019s been an oasis of calm in a divided region: a relatively tolerant city where differences are a way of life and diversity is its strength. In this age of property lust, will Haifa\u2019s vibrant history be quashed by the insipid visions of outside entrepreneurs?<\/p>\n
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Built on the slopes of Mount Carmel overlooking a bay on the northern coast of Israel, Haifa is the third-largest city in the country, which has a population of eight million. Eighty percent of the city\u2019s inhabitants are Jewish, ranging in observance from Orthodox to secular; the 10 percent Arab population is both Christian and Muslim; Druze, Baha\u2019i and non-religious people make up the other 10 percent. Like Tel Aviv, another mostly secular coastal city 95 kilometers south of Haifa, the city also has a thriving gay community, both Arab and Jewish. This may not count as diverse outside of Israel\u2019s borders, but here it\u2019s progressive.<\/p>\n
<\/a>By the mid-19th century, Haifa was the most important port in the region. Today, the port extends over 69 city blocks and handles all sorts of cargo, including grain, cars and trucks, hazardous chemicals, and oils. Photo by Richard Cummins\/Corbis<\/p><\/div>\n
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Haifa\u2019s history as a community is deep and varied. The city dates to 3,500 years ago, when it was a small fishing village. Over the centuries, under the changing rules of Canaanites, Phoenicians, Israelites, Romans, and others, Haifa grew into a well-fortified city, until a Crusader siege in 1100 CE and subsequent invasions left it deserted by the time of the Ottoman conquest in 1516. Its fortunes were revived in the 1760s, when Dahir al-\u2018Umar\u2014the Arab governor of Northern Palestine, and by all reports a tolerant ruler who embraced diversity\u2014took control of the city, demolished the ancient town, and moved it three kilometers to the southeast. This new, walled city was very close to the location of today\u2019s Wadi Salib.<\/p>\n
For the moment, any hint of Wadi Salib\u2019s illustrious past remains hidden. And threats from developments like Sally Valley may entirely subsume its history. Haifa\u2019s Downtown Administration, a city agency, describes Sally Valley on its website as \u201ca dynamic complex incorporating both businesses and residences.\u201d The brainchild of Tel Aviv real estate developer Joseph and His Brothers, the glitzy glass edifice, according to the company\u2019s director, is designed to honor Wadi Salib\u2019s past (it is also named in homage to his long-time housekeeper, a woman named Sally).<\/p>\n
Residents are feeling the pinch from developers. Hadar, a neighborhood close to what traditionally has been the most expensive real estate\u2014Mount Carmel, with it expansive water views of Haifa Bay and the Galilee (a mountainous region in Israel\u2019s north)\u2014has seen apartment prices increase 220 percent in the past eight years. Predictably, developers have turned their gazes to the older, rundown parts of the city, the downtown and port area, with neighborhoods like Wadi Salib.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Amram Alperovitch, who runs a small grocery store in downtown Haifa, wears a pistol over his shoulder following a spate of stabbings in other Israeli cities. \u201cIf you want peace, you must prepare for war,\u201d he says. Photo by Sharon Yanai<\/p><\/div>\n
Kalisch Rotem, the chair of the Chaim b\u2019Haifa (Living in Haifa) political party, wants to put the brakes on Sally Valley and other developments that focus less on revitalizing communities and more on profit. An architect and urban planner by profession, she supports urban regeneration: indeed, she has a fierce attachment to the city and its future. Born in Haifa, she is also the proud daughter and granddaughter of Polish immigrants. \u201cMy father came as a baby from Europe after \u201948, barely survived the Holocaust,\u201d she writes via email.<\/p>\n
The vision of the city as just one big Sally Valley has aroused the ire of other long-time Haifa residents equally invested in the city\u2019s history, including Jafar Farah, the director of the Mossawa Center, the Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel. \u201cThere is no will in the planning authorities and the political authorities in Haifa City to renovate and to keep the landscape and architecture of the Arab neighborhoods,\u201d Farah says.<\/p>\n
Wadi Salib, Kalisch Rotem says, is \u201cthe wound of the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
The past\u2014whether 500 or 50 years ago, Arab or Jewish\u2014is a vital part of Farah\u2019s and Kalisch Rotem\u2019s Haifa.<\/p>\n
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Like many coastal cities, Haifa\u2019s waterfront neighborhoods became undesirable with the encroachment of industry and commerce as they expanded in the 20th century. Gil Meller, media spokesperson for the Downtown Administration, which is overseeing the redevelopment of the port area, including Wadi Salib, puts it this way: \u201cPubs, hookers\u2014this is the reason why people went from here [the downtown core, next to the port]. They didn\u2019t want to live where there are drugs and whores.\u201d Just three to five years ago, he says, \u201cif you would ask someone to come and live here, they would look at you as if you were crazy.\u201d Meller is certain that in the next five years or so, Wadi Salib will be a new neighborhood. \u201cMost of the buildings were bought by several entrepreneurs, and every one of them has their own plans to build new buildings there.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a>Haifa\u2019s neighborhoods are undergoing radical change. Photo by Sharon Yanai<\/p><\/div>\n
This new transformation echoes an earlier change to Arab neighborhoods, one that dates to the years following the Second World War. In 1948, Arabs in the city of Haifa faced Israel\u2019s joyful declaration of an independent state, which came to be known in Arabic as al-Nakba<\/em>, which means \u201ccatastrophe.\u201d In that year, following the defeat of the city by Jewish forces, about 70,000 of Haifa\u2019s Palestinian Arabs (slightly less than half the city\u2019s population) fled, leaving only 5,000 remaining\u2014among them Farah\u2019s father and grandparents.<\/p>\n Today, the trend is reversing: while many young Jewish professionals are leaving for jobs in Tel Aviv, thousands of young educated Arabs\u2014doctors, lawyers, engineers\u2014are moving into Haifa from small villages in the Galilee region. They are drawn by Haifa\u2019s superior services and its reputation for tolerance: 14 percent of the medical students at Haifa\u2019s renowned Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and 25 percent of students at the University of Haifa are Arab-Israelis\u2014proportions far higher than at other Israeli institutions of higher learning.<\/p>\n On the surface, it looks as if Haifa is embracing this influx and increased diversity. But, as Farah notes, there is still almost total separation in grade school and in other spheres as well; in addition, there is not a single museum or archive in Haifa devoted to the history of the Arab community. The picture is more nuanced, he says. Sitting in the Mossawa Center\u2019s offices in a restored limestone 1915 mansion that graces a narrow street in the heart of another of Haifa\u2019s old Arab neighborhoods, Wadi Nisnas, Farah explains that there is almost no consultation by city planners with the Arab community. Both he and Kalisch Rotem, he says, envision a future where Haifa is an example for coexistence. But currently, it falls short. \u201cI call it more normal than other cities in Israel; she calls it sane,\u201d Farah says, later adding via email: \u201cHaifa has less confrontations, more mixed spaces, less tension, hate speech, and fear, where people meet, work, and study together.\u201d Haifa is more normal than Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, but it\u2019s not yet a city known for the kind of tolerance found in Amsterdam, Montevideo, or Toronto. It could be better, and that\u2019s what Farah hopes comes from revitalization.<\/p>\n The Haifa neighborhood of Wadi Nisnas comes alive during the holidays for a festive market. Photo by PhotoStock-Israel\/Alamy Stock Photo<\/p><\/div>\n On a drive around the city, Farah points out other neighborhoods, such as Wadi el Siyah, once a small Arab village, bordering a lovely old orchard. The owners of the houses here, members of the peaceful Muslim Ahmadiyya clan, are facing eviction following a court battle. Neve David is a poor neighborhood that became a refuge for Mizrachi Jews evacuated from Wadi Salib in the 1950s and 1960s following violent clashes between non-European and European Jewish (Ashkenazi) police officers\u2014an early Mizrachi protest against discrimination by Ashkenazi elites. Today, the neighborhood is overshadowed by the massive new towers of Ramat HaNasi, which offers 1,000 apartments and, according to the developer, \u201csprawling green spaces, preschools \u2026 and a modern commercial center \u2026 just a short distance from Haifa\u2019s magnificent beaches.\u201d Closer to the port is Khayfa al-Atika (Ancient Haifa) a neighborhood with roots dating back to a second-century fishing, farming, and trading village, and currently home to about 50 Arab families. The rubbish-strewn neighborhood is also slated for redevelopment.<\/p>\n For true revitalization to happen in Haifa, \u201cwe need to go through a process of reconciliation and recognition of the historical rights of the Arab community,\u201d Farah says. Further, the same Arab community should be involved in the planning processes, he says, which means that the city should also be promoting meetings and talks between Arabs and Jews, young and old.<\/p>\n Meller, however, insists the redevelopments can be a force for good.<\/p>\n On a walk around the port area\u2014not far from the wharf where hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe and North Africa disembarked in 1948, including Meller\u2019s grandmother in 1949 as a refugee from Romania\u2014Meller says he\u2019s pleased with the changes rolling through the neighborhoods.<\/p>\n Ten years ago, most of the buildings surrounding the Downtown Administration\u2019s airy, open-plan office \u201clooked like junk,\u201d Meller says, adding that some of them were infested with pigeons from the nearby grain silos. He points with pride at the colorful facade of the new Carmel Academic Center. Portraits of famous Jewish-Israeli writers, poets, and artists (notably absent are any Arab or Baha\u2019i individuals) are displayed on the institution\u2019s walls, though it grants degrees in the more pragmatic disciplines of law and business. There is a hipster vibe here. Next door to the center is an old nightclub, festooned with lurid graffiti\u2014including a masked man with hairy arms and a raised, bloody saber\u2014spray-painted by Haifa\u2019s Broken Fingaz collective, an internationally recognized team of four anonymous graffiti virtuosos. Old municipal buildings nearby have been converted into student dormitories for the academic center and a neighboring graphic design school. A public square, shaded by palm trees and served by chic restaurants and trendy microbrewery LiBira, is the site of a summer film festival.<\/p>\n<\/a>
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