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Jaffa

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Jaffa (ופי) is an ancient port city in Israel, now part of Tel-Aviv. Built by Japheth, son of Noah, after the Great Flood, Jaffa was the place where Andromeda was saved from the sea monster Cetus by Perseus (according to Strabo, Josephus and Pausanias). When the Jews came out of Egypt, Jaffa was one of the cities given to the Tribe of Dan (hence the modern term "Gush Dan" for the center of the coastal plain).

As all ancient cities in Israel, Jaffa was conquered, destroyed and rebuilt countless times by Egyptian Pharaohs, Jewish kings David and Solomon, Assyrian king Sennacherib, Alexander the Great, Roman emperor Vespasian, Saladin, King Richard the Lionheart, Egyptian sultan Baibars, Ottoman sultan Selim I, Napoleon, the British general Edmund Allenby, until finally becoming a part of the modern state of Israel.

The tall tower in the center of the picture is St. Peter's Church, built in the 19th century on the remains of a Crusaders fortress. The small minaret on the right is the oldest (circa 16th century) mosque in Jaffa called Al-Bahr (the Sea Mosque).

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