Jaffa
JAFFA
Ancient port on the eastern Mediterranean, south of present-day Tel Aviv, Israel. Known as Joffa in biblical times, Jaffa prospered under Egyptian, then Ottoman, rule in the nineteenth century as a thriving port city. The population, 5,000 in the mid-nineteenth century, expanded to 40,000 by 1914; 15,000 of that number were Jews. The city was virtually deserted during World War I, but under the subsequent British Mandate, Jaffa revived, reaching a population of 30,000 by 1922 and continuing to grow thereafter. After the United Nations decision to partition Palestine in 1947, riots broke out in Jaffa. Following the fighting, Jewish forces took the city, and most of its 65,000 Arabs fled. In 1950 Jaffa was incorporated into the Tel Aviv municipality and remains a mixed Jewish and Arab section of the metropolitan area.