Wadi Nisnas (; ) is a predominantly Palestinians neighborhood in the city of Haifa, with a population of about 8,000 inhabitants.[ Being different in Haifa]
Etymology
'
Wadi' is the
Arabic language word for valley, and 'nisnas' means
mongoose, with the Egyptian mongoose being indigenous to the region.
[ Wadi Nisnas: Haifa's hidden gem]
History
Wadi Nisnas was developed at the end of the nineteenth century as a
Arab Christians neighborhood outside the walls of Haifa.
1948 Palestine war
During the 1948 Palestine war, as part of the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, the vast majority of Haifa's Arab population fled or were expelled from the city, many during the battle of Haifa. The remaining Arab population was relocated to Wadi Nisnas in a process that has been described as "
ghettoization".
[Benny Morris (1988). "Haifa’s Arabs: Displacement and Concentration, July 1948". Middle East Journal, 42(2), 241–259. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4327736][Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006)]
Present day
The current Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics census estimates that 66% of the Wadi Nisnas population are
Christians, 31.5% are
Muslims, and the rest are
Jews.
Cultural references
Wadi Nisnas is the setting for the 1987 novel,
A Trumpet in the Wadi by
Sami Michael and a 2002 award-winning film with the same name. It centers on the love story between a young Israeli Arab woman and a new Jewish immigrant from Russia.
[Sami Michael, Trumpet in the Wadi. New York:Simon & Schuster, 2003, translated by Yael Lotan. ]
See also
-
German Colony, Haifa
-
Paris Square (Haifa)
-
Wadi Salib
