Jaffa rocked and rocking back

“Residents of Jaffa in danger of eviction/ our houses in danger"

“1948. 2005. and today.”

For over a year and a half, Jaffa, “the bride of the sea,” has been my home. For the first ten months, my life was entwined with the city; working at Sadaka Reut, a nation-wide Arab-Jewish youth organization which strives to be highly involved in local Jaffa community projects and teaching English at al-Rabita: the League for the Arabs of Jaffa. Since my Shatil fellowship ended, my main source of income has come from a part-time job in Jerusalem, I’ve interned in Tel Aviv, worked freelance from my home and spent a month in Morocco. Yet, I’ve tried to stay involved in the Sadaka Reut community, and follow the local Jaffa news because I like the people, it’s important to me to live in a mixed Arab-Jewish city, the humus is superb and I can’t imagine living anywhere else in Israel.

My dad came to Israel to visit for Passover a few weeks ago (a couple days after my mom flew in). At the airport, security personnel asked him to explain the purpose of his visit, to which he answered, “visiting my daughter.” When asked where I live, he specified that I live in Jaffa, rather than Tel Aviv, in case they wanted the exact street address. Jaffa sufficed as a location, but the young woman remarked, “Jaffa…that’s controversial.”

Over the past few weeks, approximately 500 hundred eviction and demolition orders have been issued by the Israel Land administration and the Amidar housing company to families in Jaffa- mainly in the A’jame and Jabaliya neighborhoods, which are traditionally Arab and prime, beach-front property. These homes are technically illegal buildings, meaning they were built without permits, yet most have been standing for decades.

Several weeks ago I attended an early morning protest at the first home to be slated for demolition. It was an unattractive structure built of concrete and tin, standing amongst several more elegant homes and multiple construction sites, where luxury apartments overlooking the Mediterranean will soon stand. The protest itself was rendered unnecessary because concerned citizens raised the 2,000 shekels needed to file an objection, postponing the demolition and canceling the bulldozers, at least for now.

Most of the 500 families in danger of losing their homes share at least two common traits; they are poor and they are Arab. Additionally, most can probably trace their family ties to the city of Jaffa as far back as their ancestry goes.

On Friday, a large-scale demonstration took place to protest these eviction and demolition orders. Hundreds of Jaffo natives were joined by hundreds of others, including those of us who have chosen Jaffa as home for now, the Tel Aviv anarchists, the communists and others. The group paraded through the aforementioned neighborhoods growing in numbers along the way and chanting slogans; “Arabs and Jews against house demolitions,” calling for the mayor or Tel Aviv-Jaffa to resign and proclaiming “yafo l’yafowim” (Jaffa for Jaffa-ians).

While these eviction orders are new, the struggle is perennial. For decades, plots of the seaside neighborhoods have been eaten up by developers who build fancy apartments the former residents probably could not afford. And the poster for the demonstration makes reference to 1948, when the Arab population of the city plummeted from 70,000 to less than 5,000.

Since gentrification may be inevitable, I can only hope that Jaffa will remain ethnically and socio-economically diverse, the poor’s right to housing will be respected and it will be a place I can be proud to have called home.