the city.. the people.. the foods.. and the history

Historic educational tours in Haifa city

There’s a term becoming more and more common in the world, “History Geek”. A group of people who love history and information in a certain historical field.

The study of history has an importance beyond useless knowledge of the past.

Bahai Gardens in Haifa, Israel. Tourist Attraction

History geeks are people who love history, who like to read about history and relive it. Why is it important to learn about history? To learn from the mistakes of the past, and also from the lessons of the past, and build a better future.

I am not a historian, as opposed to a researcher whose main job is to delve into the history of a specific area or event or place and write extensive articles about them, I am one of the people who Love reading those research articles written by historians. The experts will be able to tell you in detail what happened here and there, I can tell you a lot of details about a number of events that took place throughout the city of Haifa, cute, nice, funny, and a little less funny stories, stories from history, and some that have implecations on the present, and a taste for the future.

Alternative history

In alternative history we deal with the writings and the verbal history of the people of the place, a history that might not be expressed in the history books. When talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Haifa played an important role, and it too experienced influential events. which are remembered by the locals, but did not receive the status they deserve in the pages of Israeli or Palestinian national Naratives.
“Precisely because once again there is no single clear meaning for history and for every story we propose, alternative stories can be proposed, precisely because of the difficulty in knowing a world or society that is different from our own – the history profession is a distinct educator for critical thinking, for posing questions about basic assumptions and accepted concepts” – Professor Michael Head
It is said that history is told by the victors, and in this way a part of history disappears or disappears from the mainstream writings.

You know that feeling when standing in front an old neglected building and wondering to yourselves, What was here? What was this building?”
The Haifa of pre-1948 is a very different city from the Haifa of today. Together we will delve into the history of the city of Haifa. We will open folded pages of the city’s history, to talk about the Nakba of the city and its people in 1948, what came before and what followed.
On our tour in Haifa, which you have never known before, we will tour many places and stop at many stations that tell the story of Haifa. Sites that were of great importance in the past, but today stand as evidence of bygone times, ignored and absent in the tours given to tourists coming to the city.
In those “official” tours, or by local tourguides, they focus on telling the story of Haifa – the city of coexistence, which is a term I detest. Haifa knew conflicts, strikes, and fighting, but it also knew moments of familiarity and solidarity between the two peoples living in this sphere. Today it is a source of pride for co-living – my favorite term.
Since the founding of Haifa in 1751 or 1752 (there is still debate about the exact date), through the development of the city of Haifa, from a small fishermen’s village on the western side of the city, to a city that was transformed into a marina, a vibrant seaport, and a protected city in its new location, “New Haifa” as it was called, during the reign of Dahir al-Omar al-Zaydani – the ruler of the Galilee in the eighteenth century, until the siege of Acre by Napoleon Bonaparte and his campaign, impacted the development of the city of Haifa, through the British mandate over Palestine and Haifa in particular, the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the development of the large commercial port and the petrochemical industries, railway The Hejaz train, the development and growth of the Red Haifa City, then the Nakba and what is known in Israel as the “War of Independence”, and even Haifa in our current era.
Haifa is a city full of locations with historical importance, and on our tour of Haifa Pre-1948 we will focus on the downtown – New Haifa, or Old Haifa!
Let’s schedule a tour?!

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