And the police were just laughing

Some 300 people, both Palestinian and Jews, marched from the Clock Tower square in Jaffa to the Yiftah police office on Salameh Street, protesting against thelatest wave of police violence.

Among the speakers were Jerrias Kobti, who was violently arrested by the police some three weeks ago,  Gabi ElAbed of the AlRabita (the Association of the Arabs of Jaffa), Omar Siksik, municipal council member of the Jaffa List, Yoav Goldring, municipal council member for "A City for All" (Ir lekulanu), MK Dov Khenin and Sheikh Ahmad Abu Agua of the northern Islamic movement, who spoke in Arabic and in Hebrew against police violence as we have been experiencing over the last several weeks. 

The demonstration was  peaceful , people marching together, shouting slogans in Arabic and Hebrew demanding an investigation. a change of policy and a respect for democracy.

Severa l policemen, among them Ohion, the Yiftach commander, were laughing. One wonders why. The recent reports of serious violence towards citizens should worry him deeply.

Jerrias Kobti gave a short report of what had happened to him in the police station after he had been arrested and handcuffed. His testimony is  terrifying. The violence he went through could happen to any of us. And that should worry us all. And it should worry Ohion as well. A police corps that resorts to violence as a regular method, is in deep trouble.

There is little belief in "Mahash" (המחלקה לחיקרת שוטרים the unit that is supposed to investigate crimes committed by policemen) and distinct feelings of anger and despair were expressed by some of the speakers and many in the audience. 

Few of us here have never witnessed or experienced incidents with the police. Many of us feel helpless face a face police violence. Some are so scared of revenge, they will not complain nor testify against abusive police officers.

One wonder why Ohion was laughing so much.

Ajami, ethnic cleansing one step further, unless the high court stops it

Last Wednesday judge Zafet of the Tel Aviv district court heard the case of 28 Jaffa residents (honesty demands to say that i'm one of them) against the Israel Land Administration and the Be'emuna company who won the tender for a piece of land right in the middle of Ajami. Originally Palestinian owned, declared "absentee property" and finally "publicly owned" and sold by the Israel Land Administration by tender to the highest bidder, the Be'emuna company. Until here everything has the appearance of "stinking but kosher" according to Israeli law. We were represented by lawyers Gil Gan Mor and Dan Yakir of the Israel Association for Civil Rights.

Until a few years ago, our market took place on the plot. The market was closed by the municipality for no reason (or so it appeared at the time) and no other plot was offered for the purpose of creating a new market, leaving us, the Jaffa population as well as many people from Bat Yam and Tel Aviv, as well as small farmers from the central area of the country, without a cheap  fresh food market, a true necessity in an impoverished area such as Jaffa. 

Yet the Be'emuna company is NOT just another building company out to make a good profit. They marketed the flats planned on to be constructed by them on the Ajami plot, to the members of one very specific group only: Zionist religious Jews. They put it bluntly on their website, but just to make sure, we also called them, interested in buying a cheap flat on their plot. Not very surprisingly, we were refused. Private companies can sell to whom they like, but NOT when the land was previously publicly owned, as in this case and according to the "Ka'aden" high court ruling.

The company's efforts are part of a well orchestrated and funded, much larger effort to expel the Palestinian population from the shared Palestinian and Jewish towns and cities in Israel. It appears that after the disengagement from Gaza some of the settlers and their colonially minded friends decided settling in the West Bank was no longer an ideological necessity for them. Instead they decided to address Israel's mixed cities with their racist ideology. The process is under its way in Accre, Lod, Ramle, Haifa, Nazareth Elite as well as in Jaffa. And there is nothing friendly or innocent about it.

We are talking about a concentrated effort to "replace" the original Palestinian residents with Jewish ones; Not to live together and share our cultures but to expel the Palestinians from their homes and "Judaize" the area.

During the previous sessions the judge had made remarks which led us to conclude that he is not as impartial as he should be. Therefore we asked him to dismiss himself, which he refused.

The verdict was sent to us yesterday afternoon: not surprisingly the judge decided in favor of the colonialist project.

We will have to appeal our case to the Supreme Court.

A dead dog, police and a few kids: Ajami the sequel?

Yesterday a dog was killed  in a car accident in Ajami. It happens. The dog's owner, a kid from Ajami, did what people do when a beloved pet dies: bury it.

The child and some of his friends buried said dog, crying. Close to the beach and close to the place where the dog had been killed by a quickly driving car.

But right in the middle of the burial ceremony a police car passes by and this is where and when things start going wrong. Kids burying something in Jaffa? Drugs, of course drugs!. The over zealous policemen jump out and run  towards the unsuspecting children.

The kids explain it was a dog they buried. But the police were sure they made a catch and start arresting the crying and terrified children. Tony and Geries Cobti, two guys from Ajami, who watched the scene from their nearby home, go down into the street order to talk to the policemen and explain the misunderstanding.

The Cobti brothers are well known in Jaffa. Both are highly educated sons of a school principal, in short, good kids. University (Technion) graduates with good jobs, nice guys. And yes, they were also involved in the production of their brother Scandar's movie "Ajami".  But to the police they are simple "Arabs from Jaffa".

And being a Palestinian in  Ajami classifies you automatically as "criminal" and "drug dealer". So the brothers were arrested.

Then, some other cocky policemen came to dig up the "drugs", but all they found was the corpse of a dog. Oops. So what do they do? They do the thing the police always do: claim the brothers attacked the police. 

Usually that claim works wonders. Many kids from Jaffa have some sort of a record. A few juvenile mistakes, and as a result they can be presented to the court as "withered criminals". The court tends to believe the police and many Jaffans cannot afford a lawyer when arrested. So the accusation of "attacking a police man"  sticks.  And people have done jail time for that offence.

Only this time the police made a small mistake. The highly educated and well employed brothers have no record, are from a strong family of movie making fame. And then there is that dog corpse. 


In addition, the arrest was carried out right in front of press photographer Muhamad Babai's home so there is evidence to the contrary.

In this case every one in Jaffa knows the accusation is yet another attempt by the police to justify their performance in Jaffa. The accusation won't stick this time, i expect.

But what if the brothers were not of Ajami fame, as happens so often? What if it had happened in some dark corner and not in front of Babai's camera?

How many others have been arrested,. tried and found guilty of crimes they never committed?

Black forces in a not so orange orange grove

When demolished, a home makes an awful sound. Yesterday it went on for hours, the slow demolition process of the second floor of the Dake home. Large yellow machines slowly crunched away at the building. Huge blocks of falling concrete demolishing the garden in the same go.
The people watching on helplessly. Their possessions, clothes, furniture, kids' schoolbooks etc. out in the dust.

Two years ago some 100 people barricaded themselves on the roof of the Dake home in Jaffa's Dake orange grove and prevented its demolition. Yesterday the Dake family were less, much less lucky, when Ron Huldai's municipality goons demolished their home under the "protection" of hundreds of blimp led ninja-style clad special forces policemen.

In the early hours masked policemen entered the Dake home and arrested the men of the family and told the family's women to start packing. Literally hundreds of policemen, special forces and border police blocked off all roads to the Dake grove and the close surroundings.

Whole streets were closed to the public, even to those living there and wishing to go back home. The operations were led from a special command tent where police men kept track of the ground forces by means of a camera studded blimp high up in the air.

To understand the true impact of the demolition of the Dake house is is important to back in history.

The Dake family were the proud owners of a huge orange grove prior to 1948, the Naqbe, just south of Jaffa. 

In the grove were the large family home, storage facilities, guard houses, a pump house etc.

After 1948 the family stayed on. They lived in the grove and over time, as the family expanded, more houses were added. 

The municipality did not bother to make a zoning plan for the grove, although it is on municipal territory. As a result, it is impossible to receive a building permit for anything, not even for repairing your house: as there are no zoning plan definitions for the area, there is no buroicratic procedure possible for getting a building permit.

Yet the Dakes, who own the land, needed homes, so they constructed those without a permit.

The municipality never provided any services in the grove, there are no roads, no waste disposal, no kinder garden (by now there are a few hundred people, including many children, living in the grove). The sewage system is horrid and floods every now and then and until a few years ago every winter the grove was flooded. Only after a young child drowned inside his home, the municipality did something about the flood drains.

The lack of a zoning plan has been going on for some 60 years now. The Dakes cannot build anything on their land and live in poverty. When they try to build the municipality arrives and destroys. The houses  are rebuilt, making use of cheap materials or recycling some of the rubble in the construction of the new house, as all know it is only a matter of time until the next demolition.

After the municipality took out a demolition order on the flat he built for his son, Moussa Dake decided to fight back. He lost in the Tel Aviv peace court, but won an incredible victory in the regional court, where the judge criticised the municipality for 60 years of planning neglect. The Dakes felt victorious and the verdict was f major importance as it had implications for many other areas in the country as well.

But the municipality appealed to the high court of justice and won. The verdict in this case was formalistic and did not even try to deal with the serious criticism and legal concerns of the regional court's verdict.

The Dakes appealed once more, but the municipality decided not to wait for the court's decision and yesterday, in spite of the request to wait until the verdict, the goons went about their ugly business.

Moussa had become a symbol and the legal fight he put up was being followed by many involved in planning and housing rights.

  

And a little more

Hell, two very loud volleys of automatic gun fire really close by just now.
Coming from a slightly northern direction as in "the other side of the building", as in my building, the one i live in.

Violence by the authorities, no one seems to care very much

Hikmat is 2 weeks old, a tiny little girl, red faced and well wrapped up.

This morning the police broke the door to the small house she lives in, tear-gassed the place, her room included. Then they carried out a violent search, basically taking the place apart. They didn't find a thing, as her young parents know well. There is a relative living not far way who's involved in things better not mentioned.  They carry the same family name, so perhaps that is how the police justify themselves. 
In any case, little is left of the small home, the wooden ceiling partially removed, holes made in the wall, all electricity points removed, cooking stove and new fridge damaged beyond repair, after the police finished their search. Nothing was found, the damage done is huge: the bathroom basically taken apart, sewage pipes connecting the toilet all broken, the shower cubicle taken apart, all taps leaking. Furniture broken, but all of that is nothing compared to the traumatized children, who woke up choking on tear-gas.  When i visited the family today the sligtly older kids were still crying, scared of any stranger entering what was left of their home.
Hikmat was the only one peacefully sleeping, perhaps she's forgotten, who knows what goes on inside baby heads.

But Hikmat not the only one who suffered violence from the authorities over the last few days.

Ask Abu Isa, whose son is laying unconscious and brain damaged attached to life support machinery in Tel HaShomer hospital. The kid was beaten up by two "security goons guards" employed by the municipality to guard the beach park. What the guards didn't notice is that there was a witness to their acts. A witness who called the police and whose testimony put the guards under arrest.

The witness' testimony makes it clear the boy and his friend (who was released from hospital in the mean time) did not start the fight. In fact they begged to guards to stop.

he amazing thing is that the security company tried to cook up a story and went to the park's storage room manager in order to convince him to file a complaint there had been a break-in and stuff had been stolen the night of the violence. Thankfully the store room manager refused to do so but it makes one wonder; what if there had been no witness and what if the manager had been a little more "compliant"?  Violence by the authorities has become almost too common to mention in Jaffa.

Hamude Shakra, victim, yet another murder victim in Jaffa.

Yesterday i wrote about the murder of a man in Jaffa, not realizing i know the victim and his family quite well. His mother and sisters are friends and i had coffee at their place only a week ago, chatting away about this and that. Hamude's young son playing around in the living room. 

The personal side of the story isn't interesting. However, i suddenly realized this is all so close by. So many young men in Jaffa have been murdered over the last few years. In a few cases i knew them personally, had seen them grow up from sweet kids to awkward teenagers to young men, sometimes angry young men, involved in things better not to be involved in.

I know their families and, in the current case, I can only try to imagine what Hamude's mum and sisters and young wife must be going through. The police state he was involved in shady car deals and i realize that may well  be true. But he was their son, husband or brother, father to a little son who probably doesn't  understand too much as yet.

I remember him always tinkering at this or that car, close to the family's home. Music nearby, preferably loud. Friends sitting around waiting for their car to be fixed. Hamude's legs sticking out from below the car or his back bent over the hood fixing something, while joking in a loud voice. Playing around with his son, a big smile on his face, the kid happy and excited.

This is Jaffa, this is Ajami and things often don't go here they way they should go for young guys: finishing high school, going on to further studies, starting your career or trying to figure out what you should be doing in life, trying out this and that, travelling around a little, taking up a cause. Life isn't like that in Ajami, or perhaps only for a few, the lucky few.

The public school system in Ajami is terrible. And your family doesn't have the money for private education or  private teachers when you fall behind. Often you don't have the books you need, because your family cannot afford to buy them. You don't go on school trips because your family hasn't yet paid for last year's trip . (yes i know it's illegal to exempt kids from their school trips because of a debt but say that to any Jaffa school principal, or just come and see how many kids are left behind when the buses take off, half empty). At some point you drop out, thinking it makes more sense to try and make some money, not to live in poverty. But finding a job is difficult when you have little schooling. And it's quicker and easier (or so it seems) to make quick money on the streets.

Hamude loved cars and spent much time repairing them, his own, his friends',  the neighbours, turning old wrecks into driving things. Slowly moving up from wreck to something far better. Cars play a big role in Jaffa's young men's status game.

And quite obviously the majority do not have the money to buy these cars, unless on credit schemes which over time will put them and their families in throttling debt and poverty. Ownership of a car with a loud and powerful stereo system is the big thing for many young men here. 

It's easy to sink into street dynamics, in some cases it's unavoidable, it happens without you wanting or choosing it. If your brother is in, you are in. If your friend is in, you are in. That's how it works. Easy to get on, hard to impossible getting out. The laws of the street result in much pain and hard statistics. Hamude's has many sisters and brothers, some of them still very young kids. I fear for their future. It's a cycle and unless it is somehow (HOW?) broken, how can they get out?

Some two years ago someone shot at the family's home and that wasn't for the first time. Then someone aimed his gun at a car Hamude's brother was sitting in, wounding a friend but the brother got away unhurt this time. 

Hamude's funeral is today at 12.00. 

Murder in Jaffa

About an hour and a half ago an as yet unidentified man apparently in his late twenties was shot and killed in the area close to the Wolfson Hospital. Initially he appeared to be wounded lightly but upon arrival in the hospital he died of his wounds.
The drive-by shooting took place in a car wash place in south Jaffa.
The police claim the victim "is known to them", but what does that exactly mean in Jaffa?

The Metropolitan Public Transport Plan

It's very ambitious, has no budget attached nor a time table; the grand plan for the metropolitan  public transport reorganization. 900.000 People a day use public transport to get to Tel Aviv Jaffa and move about in it. Several companies, buses, trains, taxis and communal taxis are all part of it. 

Stations and Tel Aviv's "new" central bus station are some of its of its several existing and planned hubs (Wolfson Hospital junction being one of the newly planned hubs).

The idea is to have a few quick central and very frequent super bus-lines on special tracks  serve the city in cooperation with the train system and the metro (if and whenever the red line will be finished, under planning since the early 1970-ies, so allow me to cast a little doubt at the municipal hopefulls) will bring people into the city, smaller (and much less frequent buses- expected waiting time 20 minutes)  buses will take them around within the neighbourhoods. A minibus will serve Ajami neighbourhood (today there is no bus touring the inner streets of the 'hood) .

The central lines passing through Jerusalem Boulevard will be moved to Shlavim Street, currently a mostly deserted and unpleasant area of car workshops, garbage dumps and shady places. Not a residential area and i cannot easily imagine anyone waiting in that deserted spot for some 20-30 minutes for a local minibus to arrive to take them into the neighbourhood.

The new plan assumes cooperation between the different companies operating within the area between Netanya in the north, Modi'in in the east and Ashdod in the south. to share their timetables and ticketing system as well information services. 

The program was presented today to the municipal council as a given, to be implemented as of July 2010 in 4 stages over a period of two years. Without a budget and a detailed time table that is a little hard to imagine.

For Jaffa the message is clear: bad transport as a low frequency to an irrelevant unlived in area. 

The Ajami minibus is a good idea, however.

Oh and did i mention the new bus stops with their metal chairs that become sort of VERY hot during the summer months. They are very stylish, but i doubt if the designer has been making much use of a bus stop. Three chairs is also not a whole  lot when people will have to wait 20 minutes for their minibus to arrive. And metal chairs in the sun will not be very comfortable.


But then without a budget and a clear implementation table i have my doubts.


Another question s of course the ever rising cost of public transport. Bus tickets in Tel Aviv cost 5.80 NIS as of the beginning of this month. When the minimum hourly wage stands at 20 NIS an hour and many people need to take more than one bus to their place of work, that's very expensive.

No, that ain't fireworks

Just a volley of automatic gunshots made me sit up and feel very scared last night. This time it was really really close by. No screaming right afterwards, so it must have been a warning volley. For whom and what? No idea, although i  can make a guess.
Nothing in the news later on, but then, unless there are dead they don't bother to publish, shooting being nothing new here.
I used to live on the top floor, so i always felt somewhat protected from shots going into the wrong direction by mistake. Having moved to the bottom floor has somewhat taken away that -perhaps false-sense of security. Happy New Year Ajami is what one could call it, i guess.

Jaffa for Gaza Demonsration

"Stop the siege of the Gaza Strip" was the main message in yesterday's demonstration in Jaffa, where over 1000 people, Palestinian and Jewish Israelis. marched through Jabaliyah and Ajami neighborhoods from the public housing estate at south Kedem Street (aka "the Jungle") to the Ajami Mosque. The demo had been organized by the Jaffa popular committee in coordination with several other organizations.

One year ago Israel started its murderous atteck on the Gaza Strip, which resulted in some 1500 dead, many of them civivlians, women and children, over 5000 wounded and a total destructon of the Gaza infrastructure and many homes. Complete neighborhoods were demolished.

The continued siege of the Gaza Strip has created an additional catastrophe, when basic medicine, food, fuel for the power station and the sewage treatment and water cleaning plants, school books etc. cannot be imported.

The Gaza Strip has become a prison camp for its inhabitants. Many families cannot meet, as some of the family memebers are ni the West Bank, others in the strip. Students stucjk in the West Bank cannot go home, others, who were accepted into higher education programs are not able to leave. People cannot recveive life saving medical treatment available outside of the Gaza Strip at a mere 40 minutes car ride.

Many of the Gaza Strip's residents have Jaffa roots, their families forced to leave the city in 1948. Many are connected by family ties, so whatever goes on in Gaza, is important in Jaffa and the other way around. The peaceful Jaffa demonstration opens a week of world wide activities in support of the people of Gaza

The crime of being poor as defined by the Tel Aviv municipality

Yafo Gimmel is located at the very southern end of Jaffa, almost Bat Yam. Nowhere close to any of the fancier locations much in request by the gentrifyers and real estate investors looking of yet another option to make a lot of quick money.

Long concrete blocks with many entrances, "shikunim" as we call them. No elevators, small box-like flats stacked one on top of the other. You always know what the neighbors are at, the walls are thin.

When Jaffa's lovely old buildings were demolished some 40-30 years ago, many of their Jewish inhabitants received public housing flats in the large estates of "Yafo Gimmel" and "Yafo Daled", thinking they had made the deal of their lifetime. No longer would they have to share the same kitchen and bathroom with several other families in Ajami's old crumbling mansions of pre-naqbe age. Instead they would have their own little kingdom with the unknown luxury of a private kitchen and shower. Very small, that's true, and not too well contructed, but it was their own, rented for a relatively low monthly fee from the public housing company.

Over time, those who did well moved out and new migrants from the ex-Soviet Union and very recently, Ethiopia, took their place. The public housing company sold them their flats for a thieving  very "reasonable"  price and all felt they, once more , had made a good deal; they had become home owners. 
Of course the tiny and by now quite old homes were (and are) heavily morgaged and the monthly payments weigh heavy on the population many of whom have become unemployed and dependent on ever shrinking social security payments or on minimum wages. Food isn't always secure. Medicine cannot always be bought when necessary. Very few children have all the school books they need, but at least their families own their own homes. And that gave many of the people living in the Yafo Gimmel's Saharon street a (false) sense of security.

The public housing company's maintenance standards had always been low (and that is an understatement) and the construction level of the buildings was less than shoddy to start with. And the poor homeowners pay all their money to meet with the morgage requirements, leaving very little for necessary home repairs.

Two years ago the municipality defined a large block in Saharon Street, with close to 100 flats devided over 10 entrances, as "dangerous" and the demanded the home owners carry out immediate extensive (and very expensive) repairwork to the crumbling structure.

In the past this sort of work would have been taken care of by the Neighborhood Renewal Project ("Shikum Shkunot" שיקום שכונות) and the inhabitants would have had to pay only part of the cost against a friendly loan certified by the project. Yet but the Neighborhood Renewal project was fazed out in Jaffa (well, officially it still exists, its total annual budget for all of Jaffa standing at 20.000 NIS for 2009 which is being used as a partial salary for some educational work in the center of Jaffa as far as i know) .

The inhabitants of the block did not carry out the necessary repairwork. They simply don't have the money to do so.

In addition, many of them simply don't speak the same language (Russian and Amharic are more popular here) and in any case it is difficult to organize such a large group of inhabitants (over 90 densely populated flats).

So the burocrats of the municipality thought they had a good solution. One that tends to work quite well in North Tel Aviv: a law suit. One that usually forces the refusenik home owner into compliance.

The Tel Aviv - Yafo municipality criminally sues every single adult inhabitant of the block!

"Criminal"? one wonders. Yes, not carrying out a repair order of this type is a criminal offence, as the criminally inclined homeowner endangers all those living in the building or passing near by. It might collapse if the repairs will not be carried out.

The option of criminally suing repair refusing home owners was made to force slum landlords into taking care of the buildings they own. That law was not made in order to abuse poor people who were tricked into building their homes from a public housing company that wanted to get rid of property on which they would have to spend much money. The real slum landlord is the public housing company (partially municipality owned) that made a lot of money selling the flats, instead of spending it in repairing those very same flats.

Today at 5 p.m. "Break the Siege" demonstration in Jaffa, from 163 Kedem Street

The Jaffa Committee for Gaza invites you The Jaffa Committee for Gaza invites you

To join the "Break the Siege" demonstration

Today, saturday, Dec. 26th at 17:00, from Kedem 163, Jaffa

One year ago the Israeli attack on the Gaza strip began; 1440 people were killed, over 5000 wounded, most of them civilians and many among them were children. This on top of the large scale destruction of infrastructures and houses in the strip.

Over 70,000 residents became refugees following the attacks. Notwithstanding the popular worldwide movement denouncing the war and demanding of Israel that it lifts the siege on Gaza – Israel continues on with its policies. The siege remains, and its victims are countless; children, elderly, sick, hundreds of families whose houses were destroyed during the war and who cannot rebuild and overall one and a half million Gaza citizens who live in the world’s greatest prison.

As response Gaza civil society’s call, an international protest movement was established to call for a lift of the siege on Gaza. Activists from all over the world have joined thousands of Palestinian activists from Gaza, the West Bank and Israel.

As a follow up to the protest against the war which took place in Jaffa, we invite you to join the demonstration in Jaffa in order to add our voice to those of our international colleagues who also object to the siege.

Saturday, 26/12/09

The demo will begin at 17:00 from Kedem st. 163 and will end in Gaza park (Gan HaShanyim) (Yefet 74)

Another Ajami home demolished today

The terra coloured one story building at the corner of HaOgen and HaToren streets in Ajami, next to the "Hasan Arafe" school, housed an extended family. The father, who in the past led the struggle against the demolition plan of his home,  is currently imprisoned.  As a result, the municipality had a relatively job.

The land next door to the home (currently in use as a parking lot for the teachers and parents of the nearby Hasan Arafe  primary school) used to belong to the waqf but as often happens in these cases, it was sold "somehow" to a wealthy newcomer and in any case, the municipality wants to construct another unnecessary road on part of the plot where until today a family used to live. Who cares if a they loose their home as a result?

A part of the home is still there, open like a dolls' house towards the street.A large piece of green cloth offers scant protection against the cold night and prying eyes of all those passing by.

Another family pays the price of Ajami's gentrification.


Street gossip says the guy who bought the plot next door pressured the municipality into quickly carrying out the demolition, because he wants the planned road to be constructed ASAP, before he starts his own building plans. If indeed this story is true, one wonders how he thinks he can live there, next to the people whose home he caused to be demolished.

Phoenix Torcina

About 2 weeks ago "Torcina" was more or less demolished on court orders.Usually demolitions are carried out by police protected bulldozers. The bill for which is later presented to the unhappy previous owner of the building/current owner of the rubble pile.
Mr. Torcina decided he would do his own demolition, in order to save paying the municipal bulldozing bill and salvage some of the building materials for recycling. And "recycling" he did.

On Kedem street, opposite the Hasan Arafe School, "Torcina" had become an institution.

Water pipes, coffee, tea with nana (mint) in summer and maramiye (sorry, no idea what it is called in English) in winter, tales and sheshbesh, it had become the all male sanctum for Jaffa's intellectual crowd.

I didn't write about the demolition, because it was obvious. Torcina is not something to be destroyed. The flimsy glass and wood building was never much to look at. The dense smoke probably supported it from collapsing to begin with. As did the tall tales told by some of its more notorious famous clients.

Not a location for the faint nor the faint of heart. Books and stories were written in and about the place.

I mostly passed by saying hi to this one and waving to the other. Not a place for women. Why? No idea, it simply wasn't and isn't. But i pass by almost every day.

Usually demolitions in Jaffa are quite final. Not Torcina: The smoke goes on, the smell of sweet strong coffee and the stories told by this client or that one, Torcina is back again. Business as usual.

Playing with fire in the Ajami mosque

Yesterday morning a group of armed settlers entered the compound of the Ajami mosque (next to the Hasan Arafe primary school) in the framework of their tour of Jaffa.

One wonders about the true purpose of that visit. Was it to repectfully view the grave of Ibrahim Ajami? The ajami mosque, unlike some other beautiful Jaffa mosques, is not of great beauty. Not a place a tourist wold go out of his or her way to visit.

Thus, the armed settlers' visit raises serious questions as to their purpose. A  provocation?

The Jaffa community turned to the police and the municipality for protection against this kind of most unwanted "attention".

Drug related arrests and other trouble in Jaffa

Over the last few months the police used a drug-addict as their agent. A violent young man, an only son, pampered by his doting parents until it was too late.

A good football player, an intelligent boy, good-looking too. But something went horribly wrong. Violent towards friends as well as towards his sisters and then  his parents. Drug-addicted. Then drug-dealing himself. Home turned into hell. 

The police selected this unstable character as their agent. Last week the police informed the public they had arrested "28 drug-dealers"  in Jaffa. At least  some of them are addicts, not dealers. So several were released the same day, some the next. And indeed, some are still under arrest. 

One of them, in spite of his addiction a gentle man and a great father, was arrested in carried away hand and leg-cuffed in face of his terrified young children. Their home turned upside down in a search which turned up nothing. An addict yes. Someone who needs aid yes. But not a dealer. The police caused much harm to the family's meagre possessions. Some of it unrepairable. But the worst was the harm caused to the children.

And the big dealers were not touched, they continue driving around in their big cars.And selling, wholesale.  The smaller dealers as well. We all know them and they are still walking around. Who do the police think they're fooling? 

The house of the agent was torched.  

First of all a terrible punishment for his parents, those well meaning hard working people, and his sisters, nice girls.

The agent has been on a hit-list for a long time. He was shot at, about a year and a half go. Had been in hiding for quite some time. 

Maybe that's what turned him into an agent, the hope of a ticket to "elsewhere", a new name, some money. But we are talking about a seriously disturbed young man. An addict with few personal resources beyond a little personal charm. And quite paranoid to begin with. Now he has a real reason for feeling hunted. Police agents have a short life span in Jaffa and Jaffans have long memories. 

Asbestos is good for children's health

My friend E. lives in a small shack located next to several large houses and newly constructed villas in Ajami.

She has three young children.

Her much richer neighbors decided to do some home improvement and replace the asbestos roof of their home with a pretty tiled one.

Usually you rent a container and the demolition crew immediately remove the rubble. Especially when there is asbestos involved, the work is carried out by a specialist company and under stringent conditions.

E.'s neighbors are too stingy to do so and they simply dump their filth next to E's home, including a large amount of broken asbestos roof elements.

Whenever there is a southern wind, the asbestos dust is blown straight into the window of the children's' bedroom. The municipality refuses to act and the neighbors don't care, although they themselves have young children as well.

E. herself doesn't have the money to employ a company to remove the ever growing mountain next to her home. Her children love to play outside in the yard, but that has become dangerous. But then,. inside the house it is dangerous as well.

It appears no one really wants to take responsibility. If it was their kids living next door, would they be as careless?

Update: After an article in Yediot Tel Aviv the municipality arrived and took away the asbestos and other garbage. The municipal spokesman claimed E. had never informed the municipality it was asbestos, otherwise they would have come immediately, or so they claimed. Right. Daily phones and faxes by E. representative in the municipal council, Omar Siksik, were apparently not heard. In any case, the main thing, the asbestos was removed.

Jaffa mud takes hostages

Different streets in Jaffa were opened up in order to carry out major maintenance work. As usual, the archeologists go in first, then all the other relevant companies; electricity, sewage, water etc.

One huge construction and infrastructure company was working on 4 big projects in Jaffa, in four different locations, Stang.

Traffic jams, mud, we all got used to it.

About 5 weeks ago Stang went belly up and a court decree forbids the municipality to employ any other company in order to complete the works.

And Jaffans pay the price.

People with walking difficulties, young children and the elderly have trouble leaving their homes. At different locations the sewage is open and it is just a matter of time until some small child falls in. One of the open sewers is close to the Weitzman - AlZahara primary school complex. And yes, we informed the municipality, several times, by phone and in writing.

After the rainfalls of last week, the open sewage was flooded and could not easily be seen from the muddy streets.

In addition to the great inconvenience and health hazard, this is an accident waiting to happen. Court order or not, the municipality should take more responsibility. Jaffa residents are not hostages

A brainless monster for a boatless harbour

Israel Hadani, a fairly well known sculptor, designed a six meter high monster, a headless woman, legs-bound, a victim if there ever was a victim;  Andromeda.

Its shape reminds one of a rather unelegant doll of "Oscar" Award style, perhaps something to be placed on a car, not unlike the little sculpture on the hood of a Rolls Royce, but big, XXL.

The idea is to place poor brainless, eyeless and silenced Andromeda at the entrance to the Jaffa harbour close to the rock to which the mythical, beautiful princess Andromeda was chained as a tasty offer for a hungry sea monster, in order to save her city, Jaffa.

According to a Greek myth, Andromeda was a princess, the daughter of the king and queen of Jaffa. Andromeda was offered by her parents to a monstrous Medusa in order to save the city of Jaffa.

She was bound to a rock at the Jaffa harbour entrance, from which she was saved by Perseus, who killed the medusa.

The rock-formation at the harbour entrance is known until this very day as the "Andromeda Rock".

It's part of a very ancient, partially submerged, coral reef. The coral reef was important in the formation of Jaffa's natural harbour. It provided good protection for its ships, against storms and enemies. You really had to know exactly how to enter the tricky harbour in just the right way,  in between the unseen rockformations.

Part of the reef was turned, by the British, during the mandate period, into a breakwater protecting the harbour.

Our natural harbour is not deep enough for tall ships but still in intensive use by local fishermen, as they have been doing so for thousands of years.

At the end of the breakwater, a smallish cast iron beakon indicated the harbour entrance. Over the years, under the oxidizing influence of the saltwater waves, its iron rusted and it started to fall apart.

The 6 meter tall Hadani work is supposed to replace it. That's as tall as a two storey building. With bound legs more fitting the ambience of "the Dungeon" (a seedy S&M club in Old Jaffa) and lacking hands and a head as befitting an ultimate and totally defenceless victim.

I had the impression the Hadani sculpture had been completely cancelled as tasteless and unnecessary. But like a true Medusa, it raised its ugly torso once more and it seems they are going to pace the monster without any serious discourse on the need for it nor on its artistic value.

Frankly, there are enough headless monsters in the municipality. We don't really need another one at the harbour entrance.

The view of Jaffa from the sea is lovely and ancient. Why mess it up with yet another "wedding cake" monstrosity? Slowly but surely the fishermen are being kicked out. Our harbour is dying. Hadani's Andromeda is perhaps more than a symbol for the dying bride of the sea, Arus El Bahar, as Jaffa is known in Arabic..