Ajami, Jaffa

Ajami (Arabic: حي العجمي‎‎, Hebrew: עג'מי‎‎) is a predominantly Arab neighborhood in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel, situated south of Old Jaffa and north of the Jabaliyya neighborhood on the Mediterranean Sea.

The neighborhood was named after Ibrahim al-Ajami, one of prophet Muhammad's companions. According to a 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 was founded during Ottoman rule over Palestine at the end of the 19th century, as a small Maronite Christian settlement. The neighborhood's streets were laid parallel to the coast, with ample houses and small stairway-alleys leading down to the shore. A Maronite monastery and church founded in 1855, stood in the nearby harbor. In 1895, Father Antonios Shbeir Ghostaoui, a monk from the Lebanese Maronite Order, built a new church and a monastery on an area of 1,600 square meters. Later on, between 1901 and 1920, the church was demolished and replaced by a bigger and more attractive one, the first stone of which was laid during a grand ceremony on February 28, 1904. This Maronite church still stands today, and it is located in the south tip of Dolphin Street, in the middle of Ajami neighborhood.

The neighborhood’s houses were built from limestone surrounded by large courtyards, reflecting the economic ability of its Maronite residents. Being an affluent residential area of the upper middle-class, Ajami had been the first neighborhood of Jaffa – in fact in the whole of Palestine - to be swiftly and fully connected to the new electric grid which had been built by the Jaffa Electric Company in 1923

Ajami played a significant role in the history of Jaffa 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 and Irgun) 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 fled. Some 4,000 remained in Jaffa.

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