Ajami, Jaffa
Encyclopedia
Ajami is a neighborhood in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, situated south of Old Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

 and north of the Jabaliyya neighborhood on the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

.

History

Ajami was founded during Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 rule over Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

 at the end of the 19th century by wealthy Maronite
Maronite Church
The Syriac Maronite Church of Antioch is an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Holy See of Rome . It traces its heritage back to the community founded by Maron, a 4th-century Syriac monk venerated as a saint. The first Maronite Patriarch, John Maron, was elected in the late 7th...

 Christian Arabs. The neighborhood's streets were laid parallel to the coast, and a church and monastery of St. Antony were built. The neighborhood’s houses were built from limestone surrounded by large courtyards; the construction style reflected the economic ability of its initial residents. The neighborhood is named after Ibrahim al-Ajami, one of prophet Muhammad's companions. According to a local tradition, he was buried in the south of the neighborhood. A mosque constructed at the site in 1895, al-Ajami, is named for him.

Ajami played a significant role in the history of Jaffa
Jaffa
Jaffa is an ancient port city believed to be one of the oldest in the world. Jaffa was incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel. Jaffa is famous for its association with the biblical story of the prophet Jonah.-Etymology:...

 including the Israeli War of Independence and the events of the Nakba. Following the decision by the British Government to end the Mandate for Palestine, violence erupted between the Jewish paramilitary groups (Haganah
Haganah
Haganah was a Jewish paramilitary organization in what was then the British Mandate of Palestine from 1920 to 1948, which later became the core of the Israel Defense Forces.- Origins :...

 and Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...

) and Palestinian Arab irregulars. Jaffa witnessed some of the most violent of these encounters. On May 13, 1948, the day before the declaration of the Israeli state, Jaffa surrendered and Palestinian Arab residents were forced to move into Ajami, where they were subject to martial law. By the end of the war, it is estimated that over 90% of Jaffa's Palestinian Arab residents were expelled or fled. Some 4,000 remained in Jaffa.

Over the years, Ajami became run-down and neglected, and was reported to be the lowest-income neighborhood in Tel Aviv-Jaffa despite being known for its palatial villas and unique architectural styles prior to 1948. The neighborhood suffers from a severe housing crisis and drug-use.

Gentrification projects

Despite these socio-economic problems and the neighborhood's severe housing crisis, the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality drew up plans to develop the neighborhood, which subsequently increased housing prices and led to the exodus of a growing number of Arab residents. Many of Ajami's Arab residents feel that they have come to suffer under Tel Aviv-Yafo's Municipality's plans to 'develop' the neighborhood.Since the start of the gentrification process, many wealthy Jewish Israelis have moved into the neighborhood.

In addition, some 497 eviction and demolition orders have been served by the Amidar
Amidar (Company)
Amidar is a state-owned housing company in Israel.The company was founded in 1949. Its mission statement is "to be involved in construction projects, development, population and maintenance in Israel"...

, Israel's government-operated public housing company, targeting Ajami and Jabaliyya residents. Ajami residents claim that this is a result of discriminatory policies which date back to the establishment of the Israeli state, but the Amidar company says they are illegal squatters.

The housing crisis developed political overtones when one of the housing projects, B'emuna, said its apartments would be sold only to members of the religious-Zionist community
Religious Zionism
Religious Zionism is an ideology that combines Zionism and Jewish religious faith...

. In February 2010, the Tel Aviv District Court dismissed a stop work petition presented by 27 Ajami residents, which argued that the stipulation that housing in the project be available only to religious Jews discriminated against the neighborhood’s Arab residents. In November 2010, the Supreme Court of Israel
Supreme Court of Israel
The Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...

 rejected the appeal and upheld the continuation of the project.

Al-Ajami Mosque

The Ajami Mosque was established by Haj Yousef-Al-Manawi in 1895 on the shrine of Sheikh Ibrahim-Al-Ajami. It is located in the northern part of Ajami next to the Hassan Arafeh public school. Under British rule, Ajami Mosque was the only mosque open for daily prayers. The mosque and the adjoining school were previously owned by the Islamic Waqf
Waqf
A waqf also spelled wakf formally known as wakf-alal-aulad is an inalienable religious endowment in Islamic law, typically denoting a building or plot of land for Muslim religious or charitable purposes. The donated assets are held by a charitable trust...

, until the Israeli authorities annulled their status as Waqf property under Israel's Absentee's Property Law.

Arab-Jewish community center

Ajami is the location of the Jaffa AJCC, a municipal community center in Tel Aviv-Jaffa catering to Jewish, Christian, and Muslim populations in the city. The center was established in 1993, bringing together conflicting populations and educating towards reconciliation, recognition and cooperation. Both facilitated and unmediated encounters take place at the center between members of Jaffa’s diverse ethnic and age groups, including children from Jewish and Arab kindergartens, elementary and high school students, and adults.

Peres Center for Peace

The Peres Center for Peace
Peres Center for Peace
The Peres Center for Peace located in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization founded in 1996 by Nobel Peace Laureate and current President of Israel Shimon Peres, with the aim of furthering his vision in which people of the Middle East...

, located in the southern tip of Ajami, opened in December 2009 after 10 years of planning and construction. The building (2,500 sq.m.), a distinctive architectural landmark on the Jaffa coast, was designed by Italian architect Massimiliano Fuksas
Massimiliano Fuksas
Massimiliano Fuksas is an Italian architect, born in Rome in 1944 to an Jewish Lithuanian father and Italian Catholic mother. He received his degree in architecture from the La Sapienza University in 1969 in Rome, where he opened his first office. Subsequent offices were opened in Paris and Vienna...

.

Tourism and recreation

"The Old Man and the Sea" is a popular Arab seafood restaurant in the southern part of Ajami. Abu Hassan is a small hummus
Hummus
Hummus is high in iron and vitamin C and also has significant amounts of folate and vitamin B6. The chickpeas make it a good source of protein and dietary fiber; the tahini consists mostly of sesame seeds, which are an excellent source of the amino acid methionine, complementing the proteins in the...

 restaurant located on the northern tip of Ajami. It was opened in 1959 by Ali Karawan and now has two additional branches in Jaffa.

Notable residents

Fakhry Geday, born in the Ajami neighborhood in 1926, is a pharmacist, owner of the Al-Kamal Pharmacy that has been in the same location from the time of the British Mandate. To neighborhood residents, it is a city landmark. Geday is writing a history of the neighborhood.

Omar Siksik, also born in Ajami, owns a local hardware store. He is the founder and chair of the Committee for the Arabs of Jaffa, and was recently elected to represent Jaffa in Tel-Aviv Yafo Municipality's city council.

Film

The 2009 Israeli film Ajami
Ajami (film)
Ajami is a 2009 Arab/Jewish collaboration drama film. Its plot is set in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa.-Overview:Written and directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani , Ajami explores five different stories set in an actual impoverished Christian-and-Muslim Arab neighborhood of the Tel...

directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani was nominated as a foreign language film for the 2010 Academy Awards. Many characters in the film were played by non-professional actors who live in Ajami.

External links

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