Jaffa in Wikipedia
Jaffa (Hebrew: יָפוֹ, Yāfō (help·info); Arabic: يَافَا, Yāfā
(help·info); Latin: Joppe; also Japho, Joppa as
transliteration from the Greek "Ιόππη") is an ancient port
city believed to be one of the oldest in the world.[1] Jaffa
has been incorporated with Tel Aviv creating the city of Tel
Aviv-Yafo, Israel.
Etymology
The name of the city is supposedly mentioned in Egyptian
sources and the Amarna Letters as Yapu. There are several
legends about the origin of the name Jaffa. Some say it is
named for Japheth, one of the sons of Noah, who built it
after the Great Flood.[citation needed] The Hellenist
tradition links the name to "Iopeia", which is Cassiopeia,
the mother of Andromeda. An outcropping of rocks near the
harbor is reputed to have been the place from which
Andromeda was rescued by Perseus. Pliny the Elder associates
the name with Jopa, the daughter of Aeolus, god of wind. The
Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi mentions it under the name
Yaffa, which is used by Arabic speakers today.
History
[edit]Antiquity
Painting of Jaffa in 1887
Tel Yafo (Jaffa Hill) rises to a height of 40 meters (130
ft) and offers a commanding view of the coastline; hence its
strategic importance in military history. The accumulation
of debris and landfill over the centuries made the hill even
higher. Archaeological evidence shows that Jaffa was
inhabited some 7,500 years BCE.[2] Jaffa's natural harbor
has been in use since the Bronze Age. Jaffa is mentioned in
an Ancient Egyptian letter from 1440 BCE, glorifying its
conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III, whose general, Djehuty hid
armed Egyptian warriors in large baskets and sent the
baskets as a present to the Canaanite city's governor. The
city is also mentioned in the Amarna letters under its
Egyptian name Ya-Pho, ( Ya-Pu, EA 296, l.33). The city was
under Egyptian rule until around 800 BCE.
Jaffa is mentioned four times in the Hebrew Bible, as one of
the cities given to the Hebrew Tribe of Dan (Book of Joshua
19:46), as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for
Solomon's Temple (2 Chronicles 2:15), as the place whence
the prophet Jonah embarked for Tarshish (Book of Jonah 1:3)
and as port-of-entry for the cedars of Lebanon for the
Second Temple of Jerusalem (Book of Ezra 3:7). Jaffa is
mentioned in the Book of Joshua as the territorial border of
the Tribe of Dan, hence the nowadays term "Gush Dan", used
for the center of the coastal plain. Many descendants of Dan
lived along the coast and earned their living from
shipmaking and sailing. In the "Song of Deborah" the
prophetess asks: "דן למה יגור אוניות": "Why doth Dan dwell
in ships?"[3]
After the Canaanite and Philistean domination, King David
and his son King Solomon conquered Jaffa and used its port
to bring the cedars used in the construction of the First
Temple from Tyre. The city remained often in Jewish hands
even after the split of the Kingdom of Israel. In 701 BCE,
in the days of King Hezekiah (חזקיהו), Sennacherib, king of
Assyria, invaded the region from Jaffa.
After a period of Babylonian occupation, under Persian rule,
Jaffa was governed by Phoenicians from Tyre. Then it knew
the presence of Alexander the Great's troops and later
became a Seleucid Hellenized port until it was taken over by
the Maccabean rebels (1 Maccabees x.76, xiv.5) and the
refounded Jewish kingdom. During the Roman repression of the
Jewish Revolt, Jaffa was captured and burned by Cestius
Gallus. The Roman Jewish historian Josephus (Jewish War
2.507-509, 3:414-426) writes that 8,400 inhabitants were
massacred. Pirates operating from the rebuilt port incurred
the wrath of Vespasian, who razed the city and erected a
citadel in its place, installing a Roman garrison there.
The New Testament account of St. Peter's resurrection of the
widow Tabitha (Dorcas, Gr.) written in Acts 9:36-42 takes
place in Jaffa. St. Peter later had here a vision in which
God told him not to distinguish between Jews and Gentiles as
told in Acts 10:10-16 ...
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