Acre or Acca or Acco

Entering old Acre

   Welcome to Acre, an ancient and a modern city in Israel on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea above Haifa, a bustling port city.  Acre is called "Acca" by the Palestinians, "Acco" by the Israelis.  It was a Palestinian city before the war in 1948 when Israeli troops attacked and took Acre, and 13,500 of the 17,400 Palestinian residents fled.

Mosque of Jezzar Pasha

   I'm staying in my friend Khitam's family house, which is really an apartment, in the old city, Khitam, Ahmad and some of Khitam's friends.  We're a little crowded but I think that I, as "the elder," have the best space for sleeping.  I also catch the morning sun at around 5:30 which means an early rise unless I'm very tired.  It also warms the room and lets in the sounds of this 18th century waking up.

Inside the mosque

   This city goes way back.  It was a major city of the Muslim world before the Crusaders take it in 1104.  Saladin, the great Muslim leader, took it back in 1187 and then the Richard I of England led Crusaders back to conquest in 1191.  The Knights Hospitallers took over the city in 1229 and in 1517, the Ottomans conquered the city and it became part of the Ottoman Empire which lasted until the First World War.
   It's a great city to wander in, day or night.  During the day, there are the old markets, many of them now stocked with goods from China!  However, there are still sweets and pomegranate juice freshly squeezed, and hummus and baba ghanouj  (crushed eggplant and tahini) and scarves and...and...  It's not a big market, compared to Jerusalem and Damascus and Aleppo, but it's lively and very "old Arab."

Old Acre/Acca

   The old city is still a Palestinian city, with over 90% of the population Palestinians.  It has the feel of an Arab city.  The streets of this 18th century city are a warren of turns and doorways and shops.  In 1750, the walls of the city were begun, and later in the same century, Jezzar Pasha, a powerful and popular leader, began developing the city and the mosque bearing his name was built.

City walls in the old harbor

   The narrow streets are busy with shoppers, and, in the summer, with tourists, although it is very hot in the summer.  With the sea nearby and a modern city outside the 18th century walls of the old city, Israeli tourists also come to visit.  We have seen buses of young people wandering inside the walls.

Fish in the market

Two boys putting out a net in the harbor

   The fish here is fresh and good.  Last night, we went out to eat at one of Khitam's favorite restaurants nearby.  We had fresh whole fish grilled, calamari lightly friend and shrimp grilled. It was all delicious.  Of course we had hummus and baba ghanouj again and four kinds of salad.  Khitam's sister Zada, who is in her mid sixties and a widow of twelve years, joined us.  Zada is a haji, which means she has made the pilgrimage to Mecca.  She wears a head scraf and a long dress that covers her to her shoes.  She is a strong handsome woman and sometimes I catch a clear resemblance between Khitam and Zada.  Zada is the youngest of five sisters.  There are also six brothers, so this is not a small family!  Yesterday in the market, we met four of her brothers, one of whom I had met Wednesday.  More on the family after tonight's wedding party, a small affair of 150 or so.

Wahib's shop

A show with nuts and stuff

   Because this is a walled and ancient city, you are constantly reminded of the past.  You can still see the city walls from the 18th century with their dry moat (a moat without water between the outer wall and an inner wall) and everywhere you look there are remnants of the past mixed in with the present.  I got interested in history by wandering through cities like Acre.  Before I went to the Middle East right after college 150 years ago, I thought history was a bunch of columns that you named "Doric, Ionic or Corinthian" and some dates.  Then I learned that history was stories of people who lived somewhere and if they lived here, they ate dates.
   Here you see it and feel it.  History isn't dry.  It may become dry in the classroom.  It requires imagination.  "What was it like then?  What did people do?  How did they live?  Why did they fight?"  Stories.  The buildings, the temples, the remains of markets, those are the reminders that people shopped and ate and studied and played and made art and sometimes made war and then started over again.  If we studied history more as the story of man, would we learn how to change our behavior so that we don't keep destroying the civilization we built?

Wedding photos in old Acre

   People come to the old part of the city not only to look and shop but also to get married or, in the case of the couple on the right, to be photographed.  We congratulated them - "mabrouk" - but they didn't understand the term.  A shopkeeper said they weren't the couple celebrating being married; they just came to be photographed.  They lived and were married outside the old city.  When we walked out of our "alley," we noticed a police car had come with them.  They were Jewish and Khitam guessed the police came to make sure nothing happened to them.  Khitam shook her head at that.  "What's going to happen to them here?  Nothing."
   That night, there was a very long very loud wedding party in the square for a couple from the old city.  The music blasted and teenagers in the States would have recognized the vibe.  What they would have found strange was the men sitting on one side of the square, the women on the other, and only the women dancing.  Everybody was having a great time.  The style was different but the celebration had the same "vibe."  And the music?  Too loud, as it would have often been in the States.