Abouelafia Bakery Jaffa is a famous bakery, which was founded in 1879 by the Abulafia family and is owned by them to this day. The bakery is one of the oldest businesses in the Holy Land! You can found it in an arched building on Yefet Street, near Clock Square in Old Jaffa. The bakery sells a variety of Arabian-style pastries, including pitas, mankish, pretzels, sambusaks, pizzas, as well as sweets such as baklava and knafa.

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The bakery was first opened in 1879 by Massoud Abulafia and over the years gained a reputation in the city of Jaffa and its surroundings and became one of the city’s recognizable symbols. Beginning in 1969, the bakery began the custom of closing the bakery during Israeli holidays in honor of its Jewish customers and became famous throughout the country thanks to this custom.

Additional branches were opened in 2007 in Rishon Lezion by Khamis Abulafia and his son Tarek, on Ibn Gvirol Street in Tel Aviv, owned by Said Abulafia, son of Ahmad, the eldest of the brothers, and in 2000 on the Herbert Samuel Promenade in Tel Aviv. The bakery branches are controlled by the five brothers from the Abulafia family – Ahmad, Sami, Khamis (until his death in 2020 from the Coronavirus); Khaled Walid, and their children. In 2017, additional bakeries were opened in Petah Tikva and in the Tel Aviv port.

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The family-owned Jaffa bakery works to promote peace and dialogue between Jews and Arabs. It is open 24 hours a day, but since the establishment of the State of Israel, the bakery has closed on Passover and Yom Kippur, as a tribute to Jewish customers. One of the Brothers, Khaled was also shot by a Jew in 2002; apparently for nationalist reasons; and in response; the family donated $ 100,000 to the restoration of the Jewish synagogue in Clock Square in Jaffa. In addition, Brother Khamis previously served as a reporter and is considered a fan of Israel on Egyptian television and media; as well as presenting a program on Radio Tel Aviv that called for coexistence and good neighborliness between Jews and Arabs in the city and in general.