Haifa (Hebrew: חֵיפָה; Arabic: حيفا Ḥayfā ) is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 291,000. Haifa is a mixed city: 80.5% are Jews, 5.3% are Arab Christians, 4.8% Arab Muslims, and 9.4% other groups. It is also home to the Bahá’í World Centre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Today, the city is a major seaport located on Israel’s Mediterranean coastline in the Bay of Haifa covering 63.7 square kilometres (24.6 sq mi). It is located about 90 kilometres (56 mi) north of Tel Aviv and is the major regional center of northern Israel. Two respected academic institutions, the University of Haifa and the Technion, are located in Haifa, and the city plays an important role in Israel’s economy. It is home to Matam, one of the oldest and largest high-tech parks in the country. Haifa Bay is a center of heavy industry, petroleum refining and chemical processing. Haifa was formerly the western terminus of an oil pipeline from Iraq via Jordan. The city is considered to be the Israeli equivalent of San Francisco because of its sloping steep streets and proximity to a bay.
Built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, the history of settlement at the site spans more than 3,000 years. The earliest known settlement in the vicinity was Tell Abu Hawam, a small port city established in the Late Bronze Age (14th century BCE). In the 3rd century CE, Haifa was known as a dye-making center. Over the centuries, the city has changed hands: It has been conquered and ruled by the Phoenicians, Persians, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, British, and the Israelis. Since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948; the city has been governed by the Haifa Municipality.
A Little History
Haifa is first mentioned historically around the 3rd century CE as a small town near Shikmona. The Byzantine ruled there until the 7th century, when the city was conquered — first by the Persians, then by the Arabs. In 1100, it was conquered again by the Crusaders after a fierce battle with its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. Under Crusader rule, the city was a part of the Principality of Galilee until the Muslim Mameluks captured it in 1265.
In 1761 Daher El-Omar, Bedouin ruler of Acre and Galilee, relocated the city, surrounding it with a thin wall marking the beginning of the town’s modern era. With the exception of two brief periods in history, the town was under Ottoman rule until 1918. In time, Haifa grew in terms of traffic, population and importance.
By the beginning of the 20th Century, Haifa had emerged as an industrial port city and growing population center, reflected by the establishment of facilities like the Hejaz railway and Technion. Today, Haifa is home to Jews, Muslim and Christian Arabs, as well as small communities of Ahmadis (in Kababir), Druze (in nearby Isfiya and Daliyat al-Karmel), Bahá’ís, and others. Haifa is characterised as a mosaic of peaceful coexistence between the communities.
Haifa works, Jerusalem prays, and Tel Aviv plays
Haifa has a reputation of being a city of workers. A generation ago Haifa’s image was that of a serious, dull labor city because of its many factories. It still has an industrial area where one of Israel’s two oil refineries is located. But it also has a world-class high-tech strip in its south. The park includes blue-chip tech firms such as Intel, Philips, Microsoft, and Google as well as some of Israel’s largest tech firms, Elbit, Zoran, and Amdocs. IBM has an R&D center on the top of Mount Carmel at Haifa University and HP has a lab at the Technion, Israel’s leading technological university.
