Page 32 - Holyland Magazine - 2009 Edition
P. 32
Once described by Mark Twain as
“a noble grove of orange trees in which
the Oriental city of Jaffa lied buried,”
today’s Jaffa is immersed in traditions,
preservation and cultural growth.
Pascal Hoffmann
Recorded history teaches us that the her mother's bragging, was chained to a Coast line of Tel Aviv from a lookout over
rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. The the Mediterranean Sea in Jaffa.
city of Jaffa, or Joppa, is one of the oldest young hero Perseus came to her rescue by
ports in the world. This is the harbor from slaying the monster and claimed her hand Toward the end of the Second Temple
which the prophet Jonah sailed to Tarshish in marriage. period (1st century CE) and following the
in an attempt to escape his mission from miracle in which Simon Peter healed Tabitha
God, only to be swallowed en route by the Some 3,000 years ago, these rocks were the seamstress (Acts 9), Jaffa became an
whale (Jonah 1:1-3:1). This event was also silent witnesses to the large rafts of cedar important site for Christian pilgrims. About
recorded in Matthew 12:39-41, when Jesus wood and pine floating down the coast from a mile from old Jaffa port to the southwest
says that Jonah spent three days and three Tyre in Lebanon, sent by King Hiram to stands the slender tower of the Russian
nights in the stomach of a great fish and that King David to build his palace in Jerusalem Orthodox Monastery surrounded by palm
he (Jesus) will remain in the grave for three (1 Chronicles 14:1). Later, in detailed trees. Built in 1860 by Russia, the
days and three nights. correspondence, King Solomon requests monastery is dedicated to St. Peter and has
wood for building the Temple in Jerusalem accommodations for Russian pilgrims.
Legend has it that the city was founded by and gets a reply from King Hiram: “I have Beneath the monastery’s courtyard is an
Noah’s son Japheth after the great flood, received your message and I am ready to underground chamber with numerous
and archaeological evidence attests to its do what you ask. I will provide the cedars recesses containing Jewish graves dating
conquest by Pharaoh Thutmose III in 1468 and the pine trees. My men will bring the from the first to the fourth centuries CE.
BCE. The name of the famed Pharaoh logs down from Lebanon to the sea, and According to tradition, one of the tombs is
Ramses II was found on the city gates and will tie them together in rafts to float them believed to be that of Tabitha, whom Peter
a replica of the gate’s lintels has been down the coast to the place you choose. raised from the dead.
erected in the original location, as it was There my men will untie them and your
in biblical times. men will take charge of them” (1 Kings 5:8-
10). The place of choice was Jaffa, the
Looking out to sea from Jaffa's observation closest port to Jerusalem.
point, you can see the rocky outcrops serving
as a natural breakwater. The craggy boulder
known as Andromeda’s Rock got its name
from the Greek myth of the beautiful maiden
Andromeda who, as divine punishment for
32 “But Peter ... said, Tabitha, arise… And she opened her eyes; and she sat up. And it was known throughout all Joppa; and many
