There's No Price Like Home

Even when offered millions for their houses in Tel Aviv’s historic port district, few Arabs in Jaffa will sell to Jews

A Jewish developer recently made an unsolicited offer for Nouha Siksek’s beachfront home in Jaffa, Tel Aviv’s historic port. With land prices surging in the city and the run-down neighborhood undergoing a major face-lift, he was prepared to pay millions of dollars for the two-story house, planning to raze it and build an apartment tower with views of the Mediterranean. Siksek said no. “I’m not interested in the money,” says Siksek, 69, sitting with fingers intertwined on her black leather couch, a mural of the Dome of the Rock—one of Islam’s holiest sites— on the wall behind her. “Where would I go?” she says. “My father was buried here. My uncles were buried here. I want to be buried here with them.”