Arrival at Joppa

The rain and chilly weather of the past week has finally left town, leaving me with a beautiful, warm, sunny Saturday to enjoy. There's simply no point in staying indoors on a day like this. Since U. and A.K. were out of town this weekend and I hadn't heard from S. since we had lunch last week, I decided to go exploring on my own – I would walk along the beach-front promenade from Tel Aviv to Jaffa (a.k.a. Joppa).

Here's what Jaffa looks like from Tel Aviv:



The beach stretching south from Tel Aviv to Jaffa is a good place to fly a kite,


hold hands,


read a book,


dip your feet in the surf,


or just watch the clouds pass by.


Before long, I started to approach Jaffa.


In contrast to Tel Aviv, Jaffa is a very old city. It is mentioned several times in the Bible – legend has it that the city was founded by Japhet, son of Noah – and I vividly remember that it made a cameo appearance in the 1981 movie Clash of the Titans. (It's the city that Thetis threatens to destroy with a sea monster unless Andromeda is sacrificed to the monster. Andromeda's Rock, where she was supposed to be sacrificed, is now well marked for tourists.) I could hardly have guessed when I was watching that movie at the age of ten that I'd be roaming around Jaffa on a sunny Saturday afternoon twenty-six years later.

Here's what Mark Twain had to say about Jaffa when he visited the city in 1867, one hundred and forty-one years before me:

We came finally to the noble grove of orange trees in which the Oriental city of Jaffa lies buried; we passed through the walls, and rode again down narrow streets and among swarms of animated rags, and saw other sights and had other experiences we had long been familiar with….
Simon the Tanner formerly lived here. We went to his house. All the pilgrims visit Simon the Tanner's house. Peter saw the vision of the beasts let down in a sheet when he lay upon the roof of Simon the Tanner's house. It was from Jaffa that Jonah sailed when he was told to go and prophesy against Nineveh, and no doubt it was not far from the town that the whale threw him up when he discovered that he had no ticket. Jonah was disobedient, and of a faultfinding, complaining disposition, and deserves to be lightly spoken of almost. The timbers used in the construction of Solomon's Temple were floated to Jaffa in rafts, and the narrow opening in the reef through which they passed to the shore is not an inch wider or a shade less dangerous to navigate than it was then. Such is the sleepy nature of the population Palestine's only good seaport has now and always had. Jaffa has a history and stirring one. It will not be discovered anywhere in this book. If the reader will call at the circulating library and mention my name, he will be furnished with books which will afford him the fullest information concerning Jaffa.

I didn't see any orange groves as I approached Jaffa, but I did see some very nice tree-lined streets there.


The city walls and fortifications that M.T. had to pass through are still there:


And so is the port (though, with all due respect to Mr. Twain, I believe Haifa is now Israel's biggest seaport).


The mode of transportation that Mark Twain used hasn't entirely disappeared either.


I didn't see Simon the Tanner's house, but I did see a few others. I like the balconies on these ones.

One thing M.T. didn't mention is the fine-looking mosques in Jaffa, though perhaps that falls under "other sights … we had long been familiar with."

Twain also didn't mention the delicious chocolate ice cream you can get in Jaffa on a Saturday afternoon in February. Yes, it was that warm, and yes, I had some. (I even asked for the ice cream in Hebrew, though I suspect the guy who sold it to me was probably an Arab Israeli. Unfortunately, I don't know how to ask for ice cream or anything else in Arabic.)

After my ice cream, it was time to head back to Tel Aviv. Here's what Tel Aviv looks like from Jaffa.

It's back to the ulpan on Sunday to study more Hebrew.