Introduction to Special Issue: Decolonizing Haifa: Urban Transformation and the Politics of Return

Late in the summer of 2024, one of the authors of this introduction (EM) boarded a bus from the neighborhood of Bat Galim to Hadar HaCarmel in Haifa. Sitting across from her was an elderly Jewish woman who, clearly seeking conversation, began complaining about changes to the bus’s schedule, her neighborhood, and the city in general. “It’s all Arabs here now,” she said without reservation, “we always lived with them. I grew up with the Arabs who live by Saint George’s church, but now . . . now they are everywhere.” She linked Palestinian growing presence to the loss of the city’s Jewish character, pointing to loud music played on Shabbat and disregard for Yom Kippur observances. It was nighttime. The bus climbed through old Stanton Road, now called Shivat Tsion (literally: Zion’s Return). The road was built during the British Mandate to connect Palestinian downtown with the Jewish settlement up the mountain. “Look!” the woman gestured out the window, “Here was the mayor’s house, and we lived down there.” The mayor’s house belonged to Abed Al-Rahman Al Haj, Palestinian mayor of Haifa between 1920 and 1929. Today, it is one of the only remaining structures of Palestinian Wadi Salib and was recently sold to Jewish speculators. “You know, Arabs bought all the houses up here, and even in the Carmel,” the woman continued. “This is dangerous since, you know, Haifa used to be Arab.”