page_title: Haifa
section_title: Ottoman period
hierarchical_section_title: Haifa / History / Ottoman period
caption_attribution_description: English: The German colony in Haifa. עברית: המושבה הגרמנית בחיפה
context_page_description: Haifa is the third-largest city in Israel – after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – with a population of 285,316 in 2019. The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the second- or third-most populous metropolitan area in Israel. It is home to the Baháʼí World Centre, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a destination for Baháʼí pilgrims.
  Built on the slopes of Mount Carmel, the settlement has a history spanning more than 3,000 years. The earliest known settlement in the vicinity was Tell Abu Hawam, a small port city established in the Late Bronze Age. In the 3rd century CE, Haifa was known as a dye-making center. Over the millennia, the Haifa area has changed hands: being conquered and ruled by the Canaanites, Israelites, Phoenicians, Persians, Hasmoneans, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Crusaders, Ottomans, and the British. Since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, the Haifa Municipality has governed the city.
  As of 2016, the city is a major seaport located on Israel's Mediterranean coastline in the Bay of Haifa covering 63.7 square kilometres. It lies about 90 kilometres north of Tel Aviv and is the major regional center of northern Israel.
context_section_description: Haifa was apparently uninhabited at the time the Ottoman Empire conquered Palestine in 1516. The first indication of it's resettlement was given in a description by German traveller Leonhard Rauwolf, who visited Palestine in 1575. In 1596, Haifa appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the Nahiya of Sahil Atlit of the Liwa of Lajjun. It had a population of 32 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, summer crops, olives, and goats or beehives. Haifa was subsequently mentioned in the accounts of travelers as a half-ruined impoverished village with few inhabitants. The expansion of commercial trade between Europe and Palestine in the 17th century saw Haifa's revival as a flourishing port as more ships began docking there rather than Acre.
  In 1742, Haifa was a small village and had a Jewish community composed mainly of immigrants from Morocco and Algeria which had a synagogue. It had 250 inhabitants in 1764-5. It was located at Tell el-Semak, the site of ancient Sycaminum.
  In 1765, Zahir al-Umar, the Arab ruler of Acre and the Galilee, moved the population to a new fortified site 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometres) to the east and laid waste to the old site. According to historian Moshe Sharon, the new Haifa was established by Zahir in 1769. This event marked the beginning of modern Haifa. After al-Umar's death in 1775, the town remained under Ottoman rule until 1918, with the exception of two brief periods. 
  In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered Haifa during his unsuccessful campaign to conquer Palestine and Syria, but he soon had to withdraw; in the campaign's final proclamation, Napoleon took credit for having razed the fortifications of "Kaïffa" (as the name was spelled at the time) along with those of Gaza, Jaffa and Acre.
  Between 1831 and 1840, the Egyptian viceroy Muhammad Ali governed Haifa, after his son Ibrahim Pasha had wrested control over it from the Ottomans. When the Egyptian occupation ended and Acre declined, the importance of Haifa rose. 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. The British Survey of Western Palestine estimated Haifa's population to be about 3,000 in 1859.
  Haifa remained majority Muslim throughout this time but a small Jewish community continued to exist there. In 1798, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov spent Rosh HaShana with the Jewish community of Haifa. In 1839 the Jewish population numbered 124. Due to the growing influence of the Carmelite monks, Haifa's Christian population also grew. By 1840 approximately 40% of the inhabitants were Christian Arabs.
  The arrival of German messianics, many of whom were Templers, in 1868, who settled in what is now known as the German Colony, was a turning point in Haifa's development. The Templers built and operated a steam-based power station, opened factories and inaugurated carriage services to Acre, Nazareth and Tiberias, playing a key role in modernizing the city.
  The first major wave of Jewish immigration to Haifa took place in the mid-19th century from Morocco, with a smaller wave of immigration from Turkey a few years later. In the 1870s, large numbers of Jewish and Arab migrants came to Haifa due to the town's growing prosperity. Jews constituted one-eighth of Haifa's population, almost all of whom were recent immigrants from Morocco and Turkey who lived in the Jewish Quarter, which was located in the eastern part of the town. Continued Jewish immigration gradually raised the Jewish population of Haifa, and included a small number of Ashkenazi families, most of whom opened hotels for Jewish migrants coming into the city. In 1875, the Jewish community of Haifa held its own census which counted the Jewish population at about 200. The First Aliyah of the late 19th century and the Second Aliyah of the early 20th century saw Jewish immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe, arrive in Haifa in significant numbers. In particular, a significant number of Jewish immigrants from Romania settled in Haifa in the 1880s during the First Aliyah period. The Central Jewish
caption: German Colony in the 19th century
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