page_title: Acre, Israel
section_title: Israel
hierarchical_section_title: Acre, Israel / History / Israel
caption_attribution_description: Acre English: acre city hall עברית: בניין עיריית עכו
context_page_description: Acre, known to locals as Akko or Akka, is a city in the coastal plain region of the Northern District of Israel.
  The city occupies an important location, sitting in a natural harbour at the extremity of Haifa Bay on the coast of the Mediterranean's Levantine Sea. Aside from coastal trading, it was also an important waypoint on the region's coastal road and the road cutting inland along the Jezreel Valley. The first settlement during the Early Bronze Age was abandoned after a few centuries but a large town was established during the Middle Bronze Age. Continuously inhabited since then, it is among the oldest continuously-inhabited settlements on Earth. It has, however, been subject to conquest and destruction several times and survived as little more than a large village for centuries at a time. Acre was an important city during the Crusades, and was the site of several battles. It was the last city held by the Crusaders in the Levant before it was captured in 1291.
  In present-day Israel, the population was 49,380 in 2019, made up of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Baha'is.
context_section_description: Acre was captured by Israel on 17 May 1948, displacing about three-quarters of the Arab population of the city (13,510 of 17,395). Throughout the 1950s, many Jewish neighbourhoods were established at the northern and eastern parts of the city, as it became a development town, designated to absorb numerous Jewish immigrants, largely Jews from Morocco. The old city of Akko remained largely Arab Muslim (including several Bedouin families), with an Arab Christian neighbourhood in close proximity. The city also attracted Baháʼí worshippers, some of whom became permanent residents in the city, where the Baháʼí Mansion of Bahjí is located. Acre has also served as a base for important events in Baha'i history, including being the birthplace of Shoghi Effendi, and the short-lived schism between Baha'is initiated by the attacks by Mírzá Muhammad ʻAlí against ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. Baha'is have since commemorated various events that have occurred in the city, including the imprisonment of Baháʼu'lláh.
  In the 1990s, the city absorbed thousands of Jews, who immigrated from the Soviet Union, and later from Russia and Ukraine. Within several years, however, the population balance between Jews and Arabs shifted backwards, as northern neighbourhoods were abandoned by many of its Jewish residents in favour of new housing projects in nearby Nahariya, while many Muslim Arabs moved in (largely coming from nearby Arab villages). Nevertheless, the city still has a clear Jewish majority; in 2011, the population of 46,000 included 30,000 Jews and 14,000 Arabs.
  Ethnic tensions erupted in the city on 8 October 2008 after an Arab citizen drove through a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood during Yom Kippur, leading to five days of violence between Arabs and Jews.
  In 2009, the population of Acre reached 46,300. In 2018 Shimon Lankri, was re-elected mayor with 85% of the vote.
caption: Acre city hall
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