We can easily surmise that even in days of yore, sailors would be awe struck by the terrible storms which would rage in the bay of Haifa, as it lay nestling at the foot of Mount Carmel.

The port of Haifa is mentioned for the first time in the year 104 BCE when Talmi Laetirus, from Cyprus, was in charge of a strong army which arrived in the port of Shikmona, in order to fight against the then Jewish king, Alexander Yannai.

When the crusaders conquered Haifa in the year 1100, Haifa turned into a flourishing and very significant city, which was even used as the principal port for Tiberias, the capital of the Galilee area.

At the time of the Mamelukes, the city of Haifa went right down and attained the lowly status of a small, run down village, even though naval commerce and business never stopped their activities in the area. During the 18^th century, Haifa acquired the reputation as being a haven for pirates and sea brigands.

Modern Haifa owes its beginnings to the whim of Daher el Omer, the great ruler of Galilee, who destroyed the village as a result of a dispute that he was having with the people who were living there at the time. In 1758, Daher el Omer decided to rebuild the city again from scratch, in an area a little to the east of where Haifa had formerly been situated. It appears that his decision was largely influenced by his shipping and commercial requirements. For two thousand years up to that time, Acco had been used as the principal port for the entire area. However, through the course of the generations, that port had suffered more and more erosion. At the same time, shipping had developed considerably during the centuries and the dimensions of the vessels were now such that they could only anchor in deep waters.

The bay adjacent to Haifa contained water that was deep enough for this larger size of ship, whilst the Carmel served as a shield against the very strong south westerly storms. As a result of this, there developed, quite naturally, therefore, a situation in which more and more ships would come into dock in the safe and reliable quayside at Haifa rather than at Acco. Here the boats would be offered special service and assistance, which attracted people even more to the port of Haifa. For example, there was a very short jetty area as well as a brand new customs and tax building at their disposal. And it was no coincidence that these facilities had just been built in the modern small town of Haifa.

The first person to really understood the numerous and splendid possibilities of the town was Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl, the person who gave us the concept of political Zionism. He visited the Land of Israel in the year 1898 and has left us with a prophetic description of the future of Haifa in his famous book, Altneuland (literally: Old New Land), which he saw as the important port city that it was. The rapid growth of the city’s population, which was recorded in 1936 as being around one hundred thousand inhabitants, was definitely linked to the smooth and efficient way that the port of Haifa had been constructed.

In the year 1920, great hopes were raised for experiments in drilling. Two years after this, the engineer, Sir Frederick Palmer arrived in Israel, at the express invitation of the British Mandatory administration, in order to explore all the beaches in the Land of Israel. Fulmer confirmed that Haifa was the most suitable site for the location of a deep water port. On the 31^st October, 1933, the port was therefire declared officially open.

The port of Haifa has left a great impression and been the subject of wonderful chapters in the history of the people of Israel. This was the case during the era when Haifa served as the gate way for hundreds of thousands of clandestine immigrants, as well as for regular immigrants, who came to live in Israel and traveled here by sea at the time before the State of Israel was established, as well as after this date.

The Second World War slowed down the pace at which the port was being developed, but at the end of the Mandate period, in 1948, and with the establishment of the State of Israel, once again a renewed effort was made to carry on with the development and growth of this port.

The War of Liberation and the closing of the non sea borders to the Arab lands, caused Haifa to become indispensable in its role as the gateway of Israel to the wider world. The dynamic economic development of the young State made the rapid development of the port a matter of the very strictest urgency.