Jaffa's Ex-Fountain

"Where?" "Ah, next to the fountain where all the drug addicts hang out." "No, it's north of the fountain". "No, no it's just south of the fountain". How often have i explained or received an answer on how to get somewhere along Jaffa's Jerusalem Boulevard.

Jerusalem Boulevard was once known as "Nouzha", named after the lovely mosque of that name, located there.
Nouzha was a fancy shopping street, in pre-1948 Jaffa. Shops, hotels, the main post office, the "AlHambra Theatre (where Oum Kalthoum performed during one of her Jaffa visitsm today's Discount Bank branch) , the municipality and ofcourse the fountain.
As Jerusalem Boulevard is a long tree-lined street, running from south to north, the fountain has always been a kind of reference point: "Is it north or south of the fountain?", people ask, when told to go to an address somewhere along Jerusalem Boulevard. The fountain was once located right in the middle of the boulevard. On old photographs you can see it was opposite the old Jaffa municipality (today's Welfare Department building) . All around the fountain were geranium flowers or roses. In my mind they are red flowers, although i have no way to know that, as all photographs from that time were black & white (the ones I have seen, that is) .
After 1948 the fountain was removed and put somewhere in a municipal warehouse. In the fifties it was returned and placed in front of the Welfare Department ("Sha'ar Yafo), a little to the east of its original location and became a landmark: when giving instructions for a place along Jerusalem boulevard you indicate it's either to the north or the south of the fountain.
The fountain itself was (yes WAS) a simple affair, sinple in the good sense of that word, of simple elegance.
No more.
Yesterday i was shocked to see it destroyed. One more piece of Palestinian Jaffa removed.

There is a lot of construction going on. The Reform Judaism Daniel Center is almost complete. Perhaps the fountain will be returned (a part of its basin was laying, in tact, on the side) but it's won't be the same.
The systematic removal of Palestinian cultural landmarks from Jaffa, the renaming of streets etc all serve one purpose: telling the Israeli narrative,


Update January 2, 2007: It appears they are reconstructing the fountain a little to the east of its previous place. Let's hope so. It's not only pretty, but also an important landmark.