City Of Acre Research Articles

The role of adaptive reuse in historic urban landscapes towards cities of inclusion. The case of acre

PurposeCities are facing challenges that dramatically affect their social and physical landscapes, leading to the increase of urban segregation and polarization. One response to these challenges is adaptive reuse, yet, in heterogeneous communities, these adaptations are often a source of conflict, because local actions often lack an integrative approach, leading to further exclusion. In this paper the authors explore the potential of adaptive reuse of urban heritage as a planning tool to support inclusiveness and heterogeneity.Design/methodology/approachThe city of Acre is used as a case study, where different scenarios for urban heritage are proposed and tested among stakeholders through interviews. These aim to explore how adaptive reuse processes can lead to the inclusion or exclusion of certain groups and how design interventions in historic urban landscapes challenge the way the current disconnected historic and urban layers interact.FindingsThe paper presents the commonalities and differences between the interviewees' perceptions on Acre's functioning, their idea of inclusiveness and other aspects related to urban design. Moreover, it highlights the existing conflicts of interest, value prioritization and the adequacy of the proposed scenarios, serving as a way to verify the accuracy of the scenario building process.Originality/valueTesting an urban design tool related to adaptive reuse of urban heritage in a real and extreme case, based on the guidelines of the Historic Urban Landscape Recommendation; and critically analysing the sources of conflict and value systems to address inclusion in heterogenous settings.

Minority gentrification: Re-evaluation of class and ethno-nationalism intersectionality

The dominant stream of political geography research links ethnic or racial marginalization and class-based marginalization resulting from gentrification processes. This study presents a new phenomenon of “minority gentrification:” gentrification led by Arab entrepreneurs and business owners in the city of Acre which challenges the dominant research narrative and emphasizes the complexity of the relationship between class and ethnonational identity. Based on a qualitative research method including in-depth interviews with Arab business owners and lower-income Arab tenants, as well as analysis of policy documents and press articles, this study offers the term “stratified marginalization” to describe the relative advantage of Arab and business owners over lower-income Arab tenants. Simultaneously, it describes the trap in which they find themselves between their ethnonational and class identities and the explanations they provide for the gentrification process. Finally, the study describes the tension between Arabs from different classes as a result of gentrification. The research findings contribute to a re-evaluation of class and ethnonationalism intersectionality in a way that recognizes the benefits of gentrification for the middle-class ethnic entrepreneurs on the one hand, and the multiple margins of the lower-class ethnic tenants on the other.

Shaping the Acre region in Mandatory Palestine 1917–1948: environmental conditions and conflicting colonial interests

This article examines the formative impact of environmental conditions on spatial policies in the Palestine of the British Mandate government. The article focuses on the Bay area extending from Acre to Haifa, whose southern part was a centre of Mandatory and Zionist economic and urban development, while its northern part, the city of Acre and its environs, was a target of limited urban development and attention from the Mandatory authorities. Moving away from common national dichotomies in the study of modern Palestine’s history, this article identifies the environmental conditions and conflicting interests pursued by the various agencies that played key roles in the Mandatory government’s urban and rural development policy considerations.

9 Resisting and Remaking Heritage Work: An Archaeology of the Surface in Acre's Old City

ABSTRACTThe Old City of Acre (‘Akka) is home to a predominantly Palestinian community within the larger Israeli municipality of Acre. Bounded by late eighteenth and early nineteenth century land and sea walls, the Old City's dense mix of Ottoman and Crusader‐era architecture sits on a peninsula less than one square kilometer in area on the Mediterranean coast. In 2001, the World Heritage Committee designated the Old City as a UNESCO World Heritage site, intensifying the Israeli state project of developing the city as an international tourist attraction. This chapter examines contemporary interventions on the surfaces of the Old City by way of photographic surface survey. Documented surface interventions include residents’ deposition of bread for animals to eat and fishermen to use as bait and surface adornments that reflect local aesthetic values. An archaeological analysis draws attention to an expansive repertoire of local care practices. Residents selectively appropriate the language and work of “heritage” to represent their own histories and serve their own aspirations against the grain of the state project, offering an alternative theorization of heritage that insists on maintaining ‘Akka as at once a historic and livable space.

Deterioration of Sandstone in the Historical and Contemporary Sea Walls upon the Impact of the Natural and Man-Made Hazards

The contemporary sea walls built in the pedestrian seashore zone in the City of Acre, Israel, were sided with porous calcarenite sandstone, so-called ‘kurkar’. Kurkar stone has been broadly used as a durable building material in Acre and Jaffa, the Eastern Mediterranean offshore cities, since ancient times. Therefore, the contemporary urban architectural plans obligate kurkar siding in the modern structures erected beside the Old City of Acre. However, a rapid deterioration of kurkar siding had occurred in the contemporary sea walls during only a few years. In contrast, the Historic walls built of kurkar dimensional stone have been still sound. The current study has evaluated the factors and causes of kurkar deterioration in the modern seawalls. It was revealed that the main reason for deterioration was adhering the kurkar siding with cement mortar and the next exposure of adhered siding to the humid and salt-enriched offshore environment with high air pollution.

The making of a mixed municipality in Israel: the case of Acre

This article discusses the birth of the municipality in the city of Acre after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Hitherto a predominantly Arab city, Acre became a mixed city following the Palestinian exodus and the Jewish immigration wave. However, despite the sizable Jewish community, Acre, like other Arab-majority cities in the newly-established Jewish State, was placed under military rule. The article examines archival material to draw out the local power struggles in Acre until the lifting of the military rule in the city and the election of its first mayor in October 1951 and explores the intricate interrelations between the local actors and the central government. Acre thus serves as a case study for an analysis of the tactics used by Mapai, Israel’s ruling party, to combat its political rivals in the Arab sector—most notably the Israeli Communist Party—and exert its hegemony over Israel’s Arab minority.

Narratives of Eastern Mediterranean and Atlantic European cities

We have selected seven contributions for this issue of Spool, four from the Eastern Mediterranean basin (Istanbul, Beirut, Acre and Jaffa) and three from Atlantic Europe (Bodo, Matosinhos and Gafanha da Nazare). Roula El Khoury and Paola Ardizzola address the post-civil war reconstruction of Beirut in Lebanon and reveal how neoliberal models of development resulted in a generic city. Adem Erdem Erbas uses the Istanbul port heritage area in Turkey to showcase how GIS helps to consider underground cultural inventory from a historic landscape perspective within the framework of the conservation plans. Ana Jayone Yarza Perez explores the potential of adaptive reuse evaluation procedure in the Old City of Acre, Israel, as a means to deal with development and gentrification in this World Heritage site. Komal Potdar explores the historical evolution of the old town, cultural geography, and the current state of exclusion and gentrification in Jaffa, Israel. She underlines the need for discourse on socio-spatial analysis and assessment for decision-making processes for urban heritage design. Diego Inglez de Souza and Ivo Pereira de Oliveira reconnect architectural history with social and industrial accounts as a strategy for understanding the relationship between infrastructure, fishing, and urbanisation by studying the emblematic case of Matosinhos, Portugal. Andre Tavares seeks to trace the links between fluctuations in the natural cod resources, the technologies used by fishermen to catch and process the fish, and the development of coastal landscapes and the urban form of the fishing port Gafanha da Nazare, Portugal. And finally, Fatma Tanis uses an interview with architect Daniel Rosbottom from DHDR to provide insight into situated architecture in port cities by addressing a library and concert hall project realised in Bodo, Norway.

It Makes Me Laugh: “What Makes Elderly Arab Women of the Acre Elderly Club Laugh?”

This paper examines the importance of humor in the life of the elderly Arabic women. The Arab sector in Israel in general and in the city of Acre in particular has experienced many changes since the establishment of the State of Israel. Modern living has entered the Arab society and affected the structure of the extended and the nuclear Arab family. The increase in education level had led to integration in work both by Arab men and by women. In comparison to Western society, which emphasizes self-fulfillment, personal development and happiness, the Arab society, on the other hand, emphasizes the collective and harmony of the individual in relation to one’s cultural and historical origin and surrounding. Welfare authorities in Israel provide varied services for the elderly; one of the most common services is the elderly day care centers, which have evolved greatly in the last decade. These centers provide social and therapeutic frame, meeting the elderly wide range of needs in order to preserve the social and economic independence of the elderly generation. These kinds of centers have evolved significantly also in the Arab sector, creating social supportive frame for the Arab seniors mentally and socially. These senior centers that rather been called “second home” have become big community centers both for elder and young people foe joint activity such as: workshops, teaching and touring. For the young generation, it is a platform for aiding the community and volunteering, in fact, it has become the most popular place for volunteering, and thus, makes the center more fascinating and intriguing. This research examines what makes elders laugh and the manner it is expressed in their life, through the qualitative method of researching, by semi-structures interviews at the Senior Center in Acre, in order to examine the phenomenon in depth.

Can art breach boundaries? Segregation and hierarchy at a fringe theatre festival in the Israeli mixed city of Acre

This study explores the relationship between art and urban boundaries using the case study of a fringe theatre festival in the Israeli mixed-city of Acre. While mixed cities today are understood as agglomerations of enclaves, maintained and reinforced by boundaries, urban designers and artists have used art as a culture-led regeneration strategy through which these boundaries may be breached. This study undermines the shared assumption of both fields: that art has the power to breach boundaries, by juxtaposing a city’s artistic activity with its segregation patterns and boundaries. Using super-positioning, the findings of two research methods have been integrated: urban research and ethnographic field work. The article shows that although the artistic activity in question is rooted in an avant-garde radical desire to subvert socioeconomic structures, it actually produces new versions and interpretations of the same segregations and boundaries in both space and society.

Religious urban decolonization: new mosques/antique cities

ABSTRACTThis article explores the changing nature of urban landscapes and everyday life in the context of indigenous religion within settler-colonial societies. We argue that against the rationalization of modern cities in which marginalized and minority groups are generally muted, religion, particularly within settler-colonial societies, increasingly becomes a way of claiming the city. Our empirical case study is the reconstruction, inauguration, and daily use of the Lababidi mosque in the ethnically mixed city of Acre (northern Israel). By analysing the renovation process, we focus on the unique strategies by which the Muslim community challenges the hegemonic logic of modern city planning. We show that urban spaces and landscapes in Acre are becoming increasingly influenced by the religious claims and religious buildings of indigenous communities, to challenge the prevailing colonizers’ urban planning and logic. Our case study shows that the struggle over religious sites is fought on all urban fronts and influences a variety of issues within the multi-cultural multi-ethnic city. This struggle does not end with the simple demand for more democratic urban procedures, but is also a mechanism that marginalized urban citizens can use to challenge the prevailing colonial-settler logic and its domination of the urban landscape.

Reference Values of Lead in Blood and Related Factors Among Blood Donors in the Western Amazon, Brazil

The aim of this study was to (1) determine the reference value of blood lead levels (BLL) in a sample of blood donors of Rio Branco, the capital city of Acre, in the Western Brazilian Amazon, and (2) explore factors influencing lead (Pb) exposure levels. Between 2010 and 2011, blood samples were collected from universal blood donors attending the Central Hemotherapic Unit in Rio Branco with a total number of 1196. Information on characteristics of 1183 donors was obtained through questionnaires. Blood Pb concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry with detection limit of 0.003 μg/L. Association between BLL and participant characteristics was examined by linear regression analysis. Reference values of BLL were calculated as the upper limit of the 95% confidence interval of the 95th percentile. Reference values of BLL were 109.5 μg/L for men, 70.7 μg/L for women, 88.9 μg/L for younger individuals (18–29 yr), 115.3 μg/L for older ones (≥30 yr), 94.2 μg/L for nonsmokers, and 164.5 μg/L for smokers. Levels of BLL were significantly higher in males, subjects older than 29 yr, non-whites, smokers, regular consumers of manioc flour, and donors practicing any activity related to paints, ceramics, pottery, fishing, or firearms. Subjects with higher education, higher income, vitamin intake use, and drinkers of bottled water displayed lower BLL. In general, BLL in men and women from Rio Branco were higher than those described in other adult populations. Prevention of exposure of this population to local sources of Pb needs to be addressed.

Street‐naming, tourism development and cultural conflict: the case of the Old City of Acre/Akko/Akka

Extensive research has been conducted on place names because they are one of the most significant markers of the intimate relationship between people and territory. Several studies on street names have already noted the use of place names as a form of symbolic capital in order to create and sell place distinctions for the purposes of prestige and profit. The literature, however, has not yet adequately addressed a different motivation in place‐naming: the promotion of places for the purpose of tourism development. Furthermore, research in this field has yet to examine the ways in which local residents interpret and contest official street names with their own oral system of naming, focusing instead on the process of selecting and affixing place names and the cultural conflicts that arise from these political decisions. This article explores place‐naming in the Old City of Acre (Israel) in light of tourism development processes, focusing not only on the motivations for the naming but also on the responses of local residents to the naming and to the struggle on the symbolic identity of the city that develop as a result. The first section of the article examines the historical process of bestowing official street names in the Old City of Acre as well as the existing system of place names used by the local Arab inhabitants of the Old City. The article's second section studies the reactions and attitudes of the local population in the Old City to the relatively recent initiative of the Acre Development Company to assign official street names, chosen in the past, to the streets and alleys of the Old City.

Human intestinal parasites in crusader Acre: Evidence for migration with disease in the medieval period

The aim of this research is to highlight the role of ancient parasites as evidence for human migration in past populations. The material analysed was soil sediment from the excavation of a medieval cesspool in the city of Acre, in Israel. Archaeological stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of a fragment of animal bone from the cesspool confirm its use in the 13th century CE, during the crusader period. At that time Acre was located in the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem. Soil samples from the cesspool were analysed and eggs of the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides) and fish tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium latum) were identified. The fish tapeworm has only been found in the mainland Near East once before, in a latrine of the crusader Order of St. John (Knights Hospitaller). It has been absent in all earlier cesspools, latrines and coprolites so far studied in the region. In contrast to its rarity in the Levant, the fish tapeworm was common in northern Europe during the medieval period. The presence of fish tapeworm eggs in a crusader period cesspool in Acre suggests its use by crusaders or pilgrims from northern Europe who travelled to the Levant carrying these parasites in their intestines.

Dysentery in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem: an ELISA analysis of two medieval latrines in the City of Acre (Israel)

Dysentery was a significant cause of ill health during medieval times according to written sources of the period. However, it has been very difficult to detect the organisms that cause dysentery in archaeological samples from latrines and cesspools. This is because the cysts of the enteric parasites that cause dysentery are very small and usually fragment in the soil, in contrast to the robust ova of parasitic intestinal worms. This study uses a monoclonal enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique to identify the fragments of those enteric parasites that cause diarrhoea. Samples were taken from two excavated medieval latrines in the city of Acre. Coins and radiocarbon dating suggest that the latrines were in use during the thirteenth century CE. Positive results were noted for Entamoeba histolytica and Giardia duodenalis, while Cryptosporidium parvum was negative. This is the first time that either of these parasites have been identified in the Middle East using these methods.

Intestinal parasitic worm eggs from a crusader period cesspool in the city of Acre (Israel)

This study investigates the contents of a medieval cesspool from the city of Acre ('Akko) in order to determine which intestinal parasites were present in the population. Coins and other finds in the cesspool suggest that it was probably in use during the thirteenth century. This is only the second latrine from the Crusader period to have undergone such intense analysis. We have identified the eggs of two species of parasitic intestinal helminth ova in the cesspool debris. The most common worm eggs present were of the whipworm (Trichuris trichuria), while moderate numbers of beef/pork tapeworm eggs (Taenia sp.) were also identified.We discuss the implications of these findings for our knowledge of intestinal parasites in the Middle East, of medieval food preparation and hygiene, and of the affects of the parasites upon the health of those living in the crusader period.

Reading & Writing

Reading & Writing

School–Family Partnership for Coexistence (SFPC) in the City of Acre: Promoting Arab and Jewish Parents' Role as Facilitators of Children's Literacy Development and as Agents of Coexistence

A two-year (1998–2000) School–Family Partnership for Coexistence (SFPC) programme was implemented in Acre, a mixed Jewish-Arab city in Israel, to promote parents' role as facilitators of their children literacy development and to empower parents to advance coexistence and inter-group relations. The SFPC program was part of a five-year (1995–2000) holistic project, designed to bring about a systemic change in Acre. Two studies are presented. In the first (1999), 174 Arab parents and 111 Jewish parents of first-grade children responded to a 31 item Parents' Literacy Questionnaire (Horovitz & Hertz-Lazarowitz, 1998). In addition, interviews were conducted with mothers, teachers, and children. The questionnaire yielded seven factors related to home literacy and learning environment, and to School-Family Partnership. Findings indicated that Arab parents perceived themselves as more effective facilitators of literacy development of their children than Jewish parents. In the second study (2000), 120 Arab parents and 30 Jewish parents responded to a Parents' Inter-group Coexistence Questionnaire. The 34 items related to five domains: parents' exposure to media in Hebrew and Arabic; parents' acceptance of Arabs' definitions of identity; readiness for relations; contact; and equality demands. In comparison to the Jewish parents, the Arab parents were found to perceive themselves as more effective facilitators of coexistence. The discussion focuses on the gains of the holistic educational project for the parents, and for the children within the multinational, multicultural and multi-language community.

The limits of coexistence: identity politics in Israel

The city of Acre is a microcosm of Israeli society. Its citizens include veteran Jewish settlers and newer Jewish immigrants from both western and Arab backgrounds; indigenous Palestinian residents and newer internal Palestinian refugees; large Jewish and Palestinian working-class populations and a smaller Jewish and Palestinian elite. These various groups hold competing interests and visions of what it means to be a resident of Acre and how Acre fits into a broader Israeli national identity.Rebecca Torstrick's study focuses on the conditions that promote and hinder coexistence between Acre's Jewish and Palestinian citizens. Using a historical survey based partly on municipal archives, interviews with residents of a mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhood, a study of how children are educated about Jewish-Arab relations, and a look at local elections, the author explores the ways in which people jockey for power in this community.One of the main findings of the study is that Arab-Jewish coexistence in Acre works best when the national state does not intrude. State-controlled institutions promote particular identities for Israelis (both ethnic/racial and national) and attempt to use these constructions to limit the social relationships that develop within local communities to those that serve national interests. Thus the book argues that identities are not free floating fragments; they are embedded in institutional structures that channel the possibilities for social relations in particular directions.This book will be of interest both to a general audience and to scholars in political science, sociology, Middle Eastern area studies, anthropology, and cultural studies, as well as to analysts of conflict resolution.Rebecca L. Torstrick is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University-South Bend.

Crossroads: Imperial priorities and regional perspectives in the planning of Haifa, 1918–1939

At the end of World War 1, after the defeat of the Turks by the armies of General Allenby, Palestine (or Eretz Israel, as it was called by its Jewish inhabitants) came under British rule. The Military Government of 1917 was followed in 1920 by a Civil Administration (with Sir Herbert Samuel as the first High Commissioner), as a transitional stage prior to accepting a Mandate from the League of Nations to administer the territory on behalf of the international community. When Haifa was occupied, in 1918, it was a town of some 20 000 people — Moslems, Christians and Jews — the great majority of whom lived on that narrow coastal strip where the looming mass of Mount Carmel came down to meet the waters of Haifa Bay (or the Bay of Acre, as it was then known). For most of its history, Haifa had been secondary in importance to its neighbour at the northern end of the Bay, the historic city of Acre; and it was later to be overshadowed by the upstart, vibrant, new city of Tel‐Aviv, on the sand dunes 100 kilometres...

Rise Up! Rise Up, Crusaders!

The aim of this research is to highlight the role of ancient parasites as evidence for human migration in past populations. The material analysed was soil sediment from the excavation of a medieval cesspool in the city of Acre, in Israel. Archaeological stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of a fragment of animal bone from the cesspool confirm its use in the 13th century CE, during the crusader period. At that time Acre was located in the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem. Soil samples from the cesspool were analysed and eggs of the roundworm (Ascaris lumbricoides) and fish tapeworm (Diphyllobothrium latum) were identified. The fish tapeworm has only been found in the mainland Near East once before, in a latrine of the crusader Order of St. John (Knights Hospitaller). It has been absent in all earlier cesspools, latrines and coprolites so far studied in the region. In contrast to its rarity in the Levant, the fish tapeworm was common in northern Europe during the medieval period. The presence of fish tapeworm eggs in a crusader period cesspool in Acre suggests its use by crusaders or pilgrims from northern Europe who travelled to the Levant carrying these parasites in their intestines.