GIAFFA (Heb. Jāphō, Gr. 'Ιὔππῃ, Ar. Jāfā “the beautiful”). — City of Palestine on the Mediterranean coast, mentioned in the list of Thutmosis III and in the el-Amārnah letters. Although assigned by Joshua to the tribe of Dan (Ios. 19, 46), it was dominated by the Philistines, devoted to the worship of Derceto, who fixed the episode of Andromache and Perseus upon the rocks of the bay.
In the port of G., the timber required for the construction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem was unloaded, sent by King Hiram of Tyre (II Par. 2, 15), and five centuries later the timber needed for the rebuilding by Zorobabel (Eid. 3, 7). From G. the prophet Jonah set sail for Tharsis (Ios. 1, 3). After having been subject to the sovereignty of the Assyrians, Sidonians, and Greeks, the city was conquered in 142 by the Maccabees (I Mach. 10, 75; 11, 6; 12, 33), but in 66 Pompey incorporated it into the province of Syria. It lost much of its commercial importance when Herod created the new port of Caesarea.
In the early period of Christianity it had a flourishing community; St. Peter raised Tabitha there from the dead (Act. 9, 36), and in the house of Simon the tanner he had the vision that led him to welcome the Gentiles into the Church (Act. 10). In A.D. 66 Cestius Gallus destroyed it after killing more than 4,000 Jews there (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Iud., II, 18, 10). It arose again with the advent of the Crusaders and once more became the principal port of Palestine. Godfrey of Bouillon rebuilt its walls in 1100 and declared it a county subject to the king of Jerusalem. Around the Crusader castle, which could still be seen until the 19th century, the upper city developed, a typical example of an Oriental city, with low houses, narrow streets, and restricted but always extremely crowded bazaars. To the right and
left of the old city, the new city developed amid orange groves, the principal commerce of G.