Hassan Bek Mosque

Hassan Bek Mosque sits on the Tel Aviv beachfront, directly opposite the Dolphinarium, beside the site of the former Arab neighborhood of Manshiyya.[2] A 1978 Dan Hadani Archive photograph, preserved by the National Library of Israel, was captioned “Hassan Bek Mosque between Jaffa and Tel Aviv.” The same page states that Jaffa and Tel Aviv were administratively unified in 1949 under the shared name Tel Aviv–Jaffa, after which Tel Aviv became the principal city.[4]

The National Library of Israel notes that the area around the mosque was formerly an extension of Jaffa that was destroyed by artillery in 1948, making the mosque's survival all the more notable.[3] Archival photographs held at the Library of Congress document the mosque and its namesake in the context of World War I-era Jaffa, with one album covering photographs mostly from 1917 listing “Hassan Bey (Hasan Bek) of Jaffa and the Hassan Bek mosque” among its subjects.[5][6]

The mosque takes its name from Hassan Bek, also rendered Hassan Bey or Hasan Bek, an Ottoman governor of Jaffa.[1] A Jewish Political Studies Review article dates his rule of Jaffa to 1914–1916, while a 1921 Zionist Organization report quoted by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs called him the “Commandant of the Jaffa district.”[7][8] A 2020 Ynet opinion article describes him as Jaffa's military governor and says that in 1915 he planned a mosque in his own name.[9]

Accounts of the mosque's construction materials differ. One account says it was built using forced labor and materials, including stones prepared for a Hadassah hospital in Tel Aviv and confiscated from the Shlush brothers' factory.[2] A separate account says Hassan Bek seized stones that Dizengoff had prepared for the hospital.[9] The Jewish Political Studies Review states that confiscated marble stones and gravestones were used in the mosque's construction. It adds that historians have suggested the gravestones may have come from Muslim as well as Jewish cemeteries, presenting this as a suggestion rather than a verified conclusion.[7]

No source in the available record specifies the mosque's original construction date.

The mosque stands in Manshiyya, the mixed Arab-Jewish neighborhood where some of the most violent episodes of the May 1921 Jaffa riots unfolded.[10] Two Jewish workers' marches clashed in Manshiyya on May 1, 1921, and by the end of that first day 27 Jews had been killed and more than 100 wounded.[10] The wider riots claimed a toll of at least 100 dead — Jews and Arabs killed in nearly equal numbers — and left 150 Jews and 75 Arabs wounded.[10]

During the 1948 War of Independence, Manshiyya became a battlefield following the UN partition plan of 1947. Arab snipers fired toward nearby Jewish neighborhoods, with the mosque's minaret reported as one of the firing positions.[11] Etzel fighters captured Manshiyya during Passover 1948 at heavy cost, and the capture was said to have hastened Jaffa's surrender.[12] When Manshiyya fell, fighters raised a flag on Hassan Bek Mosque's minaret; a worn and stained flag from that event was later preserved at the Etzel Museum, whose director showed it to a journalist years afterward.[12]

Haganah forces captured Jaffa on May 13, 1948.[11] The area around the mosque — formerly an extension of Jaffa — was largely destroyed by artillery during the fighting, leaving the mosque as one of the surviving structures from Ottoman Jaffa.[3] One personal account from a Ynet article includes the author's childhood recollection of seeing a sniper near the mosque's minaret who fired and missed; this is presented as personal memory rather than an independently sourced account.[12]

Government-appointed committees administered waqf properties in several Israeli towns, collected rents, and used the proceeds for religious projects, primarily mosque maintenance. An encyclopedia identifies the reconstruction of Hassan Bek Mosque as the Jaffa Waqf committee's most famous project.[13]

In the 1970s, a private developer purchased the mosque site from the Waqf committee and planned to redevelop it as a luxury commercial center.[14] The government led by Prime Minister Menachem Begin viewed the conversion of the mosque into an entertainment venue as politically sensitive.[14] Finance Minister Yigal Hurvitz subsequently expropriated the mosque from the developer and repaid in full the amount the developer had paid for the rights.[14] The 2021 retrospective account also describes the Waqf committee of that era as alleged to have been corrupt, without identifying the source of that allegation.[14]

The mosque today is frequented by Israeli Arabs from nearby Jaffa and functions as an active place of Islamic worship on the Tel Aviv waterfront.[1] The Islamic Movement in Jaffa is identified in one report as the organization to which the mosque belongs.[15]

During Ramadan in 2019, a Eurovision Village pavilion stood directly opposite the mosque on the Tel Aviv beachfront. Worshippers said the parties and amplified music disrupted prayer and Ramadan observance; one described hearing noisy songs inside the mosque, while another said worshippers were forced to close the windows and doors against the noise.[1] A Tel Aviv municipality spokeswoman responded that the city respected the Islamic religion, community, and institutions, and noted that nearby synagogues were similarly affected by crowd pressure from the event.[1]

In August 2005, Muslim worshippers arriving for evening prayers found a pig's head in the mosque courtyard, wrapped in a keffiyeh bearing a reference to the Prophet Muhammad.[15] Police opened an investigation, and representatives of the Islamic Movement filed a complaint; worshippers said they had installed security cameras on police advice.[15] A 34-year-old man and a 31-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of committing the act; they told investigators they had wanted to provoke unrest and delay the disengagement plan.[16] The man's detention was extended while the woman was released to house arrest.[16] Both were ultimately charged with religious insult and released in September 2005 after a judge ruled there was no risk they would repeat the act.[17][18]

Following the June 2001 Dolphinarium terrorist bombing nearby, an angry crowd attacked worshippers at the mosque, who barricaded themselves inside until police arrived.[15] On October 5, 2015, unknown assailants attacked the mosque again; no further details about the nature of the attack, the damage, or any arrests were reported.[19][20]