51 Facts About Haifa

Haifa Bay is a center of heavy industry, petroleum refining and chemical processing.

Haifa formerly functioned as the western terminus of an oil pipeline from Iraq via Jordan.

Haifa is mentioned more than 100 times in the Talmud, a work central to Judaism.

Around the 6th century, Porphyreon or Porphyrea is mentioned in the writings of William of Tyre, and while it lies within the area covered by modern Haifa, it was a settlement situated south of Haifa-Sycaminon.

Haifa is mentioned by the mid-11th-century Persian chronicler Nasir Khusraw, and the 12th- and 13th-century Arab chroniclers, Muhammad al-Idrisi and Yaqut al-Hamawi.

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Haifa was located near the town of Shikmona, a center for making the traditional Tekhelet dye used in the garments of the high priests in the Temple.

Early Haifa is believed to have occupied the area which extends from the present-day Rambam Hospital to the Jewish Cemetery on Yafo Street.

Under Byzantine rule, Haifa continued to grow but did not assume major importance.

Prosperity ended in 1100 or 1101, when Haifa was besieged and blockaded by European Christians shortly after the end of the First Crusade, and then conquered after a fierce battle with its Jewish inhabitants and Fatimid garrison.

Under the Crusaders, Haifa was reduced to a small fortified coastal stronghold.

In 1265, the army of Mamluk sultan Baibars captured Haifa, destroying its fortifications, which had been rebuilt by King Louis IX of France, as well as the majority of the city's homes to prevent the European Crusaders from returning.

Haifa was apparently uninhabited at the time the Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine in 1516.

In 1596, Haifa appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Sahil Atlit of the Liwa of Lajjun.

Haifa was mentioned in the accounts of travelers as a half-ruined impoverished village with few inhabitants.

In 1742, Haifa was a small village and had a Jewish community composed mainly of immigrants from Morocco and Algeria which had a synagogue.

In 1858, the walled city of Haifa was overcrowded and the first houses began to be built outside the city walls on the mountain slope.

Haifa remained majority Muslim throughout this time but a small Jewish community continued to exist there.

In 1875, the Jewish community of Haifa held its own census which counted the Jewish population at about 200.

In 1909, Haifa became important to the Baha'i Faith when the remains of the Bab, founder of the Babi Faith and forerunner of Baha'u'llah in the Baha'i Faith, were moved from Acre to Haifa and interred in the shrine built on Mount Carmel.

The Jews of Haifa founded numerous factories and cultural institutions.

Haifa was captured from the Ottomans in September 1918 by Indian horsemen of the British Army armed with spears and swords who overran Ottoman positions.

Under the British Mandate, Haifa saw large-scale development and became an industrial port city.

Haifa's development owed much to British plans to make it a central port and hub for Middle-East crude oil.

British forces in Haifa redeployed on 21 April 1948, withdrawing from most of the city while still maintaining control over the port facilities.

Benny Morris said Haifa's Arabs left due to a combination of Zionist threats and encouragement to do so by Arab leaders.

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Tel Aviv gained in status, while Haifa suffered a decline in the role as regional capital.

In 2006, Haifa was hit by 93 Hezbollah rockets during the Second Lebanon War, killing 11 civilians and leading to half of the city's population fleeing at the end of the first week of the war.

Haifa is commonly portrayed as a model of co-existence between Arabs and Jews, although tensions and hostility do still exist.

Arabs in Haifa tend to be wealthier and better educated compare to other Arabs elsewhere in Israel.

Haifa is home to the second-largest Arab Christian community in Israel, many of them lives in the Arabic-speaking neighborhoods in the lowlands near the sea; neighborhoods such as German Colony, Wadi Nisnas and Abbas, are largely Arab Christian.

The Christian communities of Haifa are varied and included various denominations, the most prominent among them the Melkite Greek Catholic, followed by Greek Orthodox, Latin Catholics, Maronites, Armenian Orthodox, and Protestants.

The Christian Arab communities in Haifa tend to be wealthier and better educated compare to other Arabs elsewhere in Israel.

Haifa is the center of liberal Arabic-speaking culture, as it was under British colonial rule.

Haifa is situated on the Israeli Mediterranean Coastal Plain, the historic land bridge between Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the mouth of the Kishon River.

Haifa has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters .

Haifa has developed in tiers, from the lower to the upper city on the Carmel.

The oldest neighborhood in modern Haifa is Wadi Salib, the Old City center near the port, which has been bisected by a major road and razed in part to make way for government buildings.

The industrial region of Haifa is in the eastern part of the city, around the Kishon River.

Port of Haifa is the leader in passenger traffic among Israeli ports, and is a major cargo harbor, although deregulation has seen its dominance challenged by the Port of Ashdod.

The Haifa Municipality is seeking to turn the city into Northern Israel's tourist center, from where travelers can embark on day trips into Acre, Nazareth, Tiberias, and the Galilee.

The Haifa Cinematheque, founded in 1975, hosts the annual Haifa International Film Festival during the intermediate days of the Sukkot holiday.

Haifa is home to two internationally acclaimed universities and several colleges.

Two prestigious Arab schools in Haifa are the Orthodox School, run by the Greek Orthodox church, and the Nazareth Nuns' School, a Catholic institution.

Haifa is served by six railway stations and the Carmelit, currently Israel's only subway system .

In 2006, Haifa implemented a trial network of neighborhood mini-buses – named "Shkhunatit" and run by Egged.

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Haifa is one of the few cities in Israel where buses operate on Shabbat.

Haifa is the only city in Israel to operate a Saturday bus service to the beaches during summer time.

Haifa Airport serves domestic flights to Tel Aviv and Eilat as well as international charters to Cyprus, Greece and Jordan.

Maccabi Haifa Woman plays in Israeli Female Basketball Premier League 1 division.

Hapoel Haifa Woman plays in the 3 division, the team plays at Kiryat Eliezer Arena.

The Haifa Hawks are an ice hockey team based out of the city of Haifa.