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Further to our previous posting on the special relationship between the American Colony and the new Yemenite Jewish community in Jerusalem at the end of the 19th Century, we present a group portrait illustrating the relationship.
The photo, taken in 1904, appears to show one of the Colony's founders, Anne Spafford, sitting next to a "Gadite" elder.
A "Gadite" elder?
The photo is part of an album in the Library of Congress collection that belonged to Anne's daughter, Grace. - AUG5
How the American Colony Adopted Yemenite Jews in 1882 -- As Told by Bertha Spafford Vester, a Leader of the Colony
In previous features we discussed why the American Colony photographers dedicated so much film to the Yemenite Jews of Jerusalem.
Why so many pictures of Yemenite Jews? (American
Colony Collection, circa 1910)
Today we present the words of one of the key figures of the American Colony, Bertha Spafford Vester, daughter of the founders of the Colony, Anne and Horatio Spafford. Bertha took over the management of the American Colony enterprises after her parents' death. She described her life in her fascinating book, An American Family in the Holy City, 1881-1949.
She provided one chapter to the Colony's special relationship with a group of "Gadites" who arrived in 1882. It was believed they were descendants of the tribe of Gad.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Gadites entered our lives a few months after our arrival in Jerusalem, and until [the 1948] civil war divided Jerusalem into Arab and Jewish zones, with no intercourse between except bullets and bombs, they continued to get help from the American Colony.
Yemenite school at Kfar Hashiloach. Yemenite village
in Silwan (Central Zionist Archives, Harvard, circa 1910)
One afternoon in May 1882 several of the Group, including my parents, went for a walk, and were attracted by a strange-looking company of people camping in the fields. The weather was hot, and they had made shelters from the sun out of odds and ends of cloth, sacking, and bits of matting. Father made inquiries through the help of an interpreter and found that they were Yemenite Jews recently arrived from Arabia.
They told Father about their immigration from Yemen and their arrival in Palestine. Suddenly, they said, without warning, a spirit seemed to fall on them and they began to speak about returning to the land of Israel. They were so convinced that this was the right and appointed time to return to Palestine that they sold their property and turned other convertible belongings into cash and started for the Promised Land. They said about five hundred had left Yena in Yemen. Most of them were uneducated in any way except the knowledge of their ancient Hebrew writings, and those, very likely, they recited by rote. As appears, they were simple folk, with little knowledge of the ways of the world outside of Yemen, and that is the same as saying "the days of Abraham."
View of Kfar Shiloah in Jerusalem, outside of Jerusalem's
Old City. Note the caves, first homes for Gadite newcomers
(Central Zionist Archives, Harvard, 1898)
When they landed in Hedida on the coast of the Red Sea, they were cautioned by Jews not to continue their trip to Jerusalem and that if they did so it would be at peril of their lives. Some of the party were discouraged and returned to Yena. Others were misdirected and were taken to India, The rest went to Aden, where they embarked on a steamer for Jaffa, and came to Jerusalem before the Feast of Passover.
"Arab (sic) Jew from Yemen" (circa 1900)
They told about the opposition and unfriendliness they had encountered from the Jerusalem Jews, who, they said, accused them of not being Jews but Arabs. One reason, they said, for their rejection by the Jerusalem Jews was because they feared that these poor immigrants would swell the number of recipients of halukkah, or prayer money. Early in the seventeenth century, as a result of earthquakes, famine, and persecution, the economic position of the Jews in Palestine became critical, and the Jews of Venice came to their aid. They established a fund "to support the inhabitants of the Holy Land." Later on the Jews of Poland, Bohemia, and Germany offered similar aid. This was the origin of the halukkah. The money was sent not so much for the purpose of charity as to enable Jewish scholars and students to study and interpret the Scriptures and Jewish holy books and to pray for the Jews in the Diaspora (Dispersion), at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and in other holy cities of Palestine. The halukkah, as one could imagine, was soon abused. It only stopped, however, when World War I began in 1914 and no more money came to Palestine for that purpose.
Library of Congress caption: "Photograph shows a
Yemenite Jewish man standing in front of Siloan village.
1901 (Source: L. Ben-David, Israel's History - A Picture
a Day website, Sept. 11, 2011)"
In 1882, when the Yemenites arrived, those who had benefited from the generosity of others were unwilling to pass it on.
Father was interested in the Gadites at once. Their story about their unprovoked conviction that this was the time to return to Palestine coincided with what he felt sure was coming to pass the fulfillment of the prophecy of the return of the Jews to Palestine.
Also, Father was attracted by the classical purity of Semitic features of these Yemenite immigrants, so unlike the Jews he was accustomed to see in Jerusalem or in the United States. These people were distinctive: they had dark skin with dark hair and dark eyes. They wore side curls, according to the
Mosaic law: "Ye shalt not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." Otherwise their dress was Arabic. They had poise, and their movements were graceful, like those of the Bedouins. They were slender and somewhat undersized. Many of the women were beautiful, and the men, even the young men, looked venerable with their long beards. They regarded as true the tradition that they belonged to the tribe of Gad. They believed that they had not gone into captivity in Babylon, and that they had not returned at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild the temple. For thousands of years they had remained in Yemen, hence their purity of race and feature.
Yemenite Jewish family circa 1900
The thirty-second chapter of Numbers tells how the children of Gad and the children of Reuben asked Moses to allow them to remain on the east side of Jordan, which country had "found favor in their sight." It goes on to tell how Moses rebuked them, saying, "Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?" Then Moses promised them that if they would go armed and help subdue the country, then "this land shall be your possession before the Lord."
In the thirteenth chapter of Joshua, "when Joshua was stricken in years," he gives instructions that the Gadites and the Reubenites and half the tribe of Menasseh should receive their inheritance "beyond the Jordan eastward even as Moses the servant of the Lord gave them."
In the Apology of al Kindy, written at the court of al Mamun, A.D. 830, the author speaks of Medina as being a poor town, mostly inhabitated by Jews. He also speaks of other tribes of Jews, one of which was deported to Syria. Would it be too remote to conjecture that the remnants of these tribes should have wandered to and remained in Yemen? I know there are other theories about how Jews got there, and about their origin, but Father believed that "Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad," and the Group did everything in their power to help these immigrants. We called them Gadites from that time.
Yemenite Jews circa 1900. Why are they near mailbox belonging to the German postal service? (Library of Congress) 
Yemenite rabbis, "some of the first immigrants"
(Central Zionist Archives, Harvard)
They were in dreadful need when we found them.
Some of them had died of exposure and starvation during their long and uncomfortable trip; now malaria, typhoid, and dysentery were doing their work. They had to be helped, and quickly. No time
was lost in getting relief started. The Group rented rooms, and the Gadites were installed in cooler and more sanitary quarters. Medical help was immediately brought. Mr. Steinharf's sister, an Orthodox Jewish woman, was engaged to purchase kosher meat, which, with vegetables and rice or cracked burghal (wheat) she made into a nutritious soup. Bread and soup were distributed once a day to all, with the addition of milk for the children and invalids. One of the American Colony members was always present at distribution time, to see that it was done equitably and well.
Translation of the Gadite prayer kept in the Spafford Bible:
Prayer of Jewish Rabbi offered every Sabbath in Gadite synagogue,
June 27?: He who blessed our fathers Abraham, Isaac & Jacob,
bless & guard & keep Horatio Spafford & his household & all that
are joined with him, because he has shown us mercy to us & our
children & little ones. Therefore may the Lord make his days long...(?)
and may the Lord's mercy shelter them. In his and in our days may
Judah be helped (?) and Israel rest peacefully and may the
Redeemer come to Zion, Amen.
The Gadites had a scribe among them who was a cripple. He could not use his arms and wrote the most beautiful Hebrew, holding a reed pen between his toes. He wrote a prayer for Father and his associates, which was brought one day and presented to Father as a thanksgiving offering. They said that they repeated the prayer daily. I have it in my possession; it is written on a piece of parchment. The translation was made by Mr. Steinhart.
This amicable state of affairs continued for some time. Then the elders, who were the heads of the families, came as a delegation to Father. They filed upstairs to the large upper living room, looking solemn and sad, and smelling strongly of garlic. They told Father that certain Orthodox Jews, the very ones who had turned blind eyes and deaf ears to their entreaties for help when they arrived in such a pitiable state, were now persecuting them under the claim that they were violating the law by eating Christian food. Some of the older men and women had stopped eating, and in consequence were weak and ill. They made Father understand how vital this accusation, even if false, was to them, and they begged him to divide the money spent among them, instead of giving them the food.
Everyone knows how much more economical it is to make a large quantity of soup in one cauldron than in many individual pots; how ever, their request was granted. A bit more money was added to the original sum, and every Friday morning the heads of the Gadite families would appear at the American Colony and be given coins in proportion to the number of individuals to be fed.
Yemenite Rabbi Shlomo (1935)
They explained to Father that they were trying to learn the trades of the new country and hoped very soon not to need assistance. They had been goldsmiths and silversmiths of a crude sort in Yemen, but Jerusalem at that time had no appreciation or demand for that sort of handicraft. One by one the elders came to tell us they had found work, to thank, us for what we had done, and to say they needed no further help. Father was impressed with the unspoiled integrity of these people.
The Colony continued giving help to the original group of Gadites in decreasing amounts until only a few old people and
widows remained. But these came regularly once a week. Their number was swelled by newcomers and we still shared what we could with them: portions of dry rice, lentils, tea, coffee, and sugar, or other dry articles. After the British occupation of Palestine and the advent of the Zionist organization, with its resources and vast machinery to meet pressing necessities, after forty years our list of dependent Gadites was taken over by them. Even then, individuals continued to come to the doors of the American Colony to ask our help.
Yemenite Rabbi Avram (circa 1935)
One night in June 1948 the American Colony had been under fire all night between the Jews west of us and the Arab legionaries east of us. In the morning a Yemenite Jew lay dead in the road be fore our gates. I recognized Hyam, a Yemenite from the "box colony" near the American Colony. He was one of those who had been receiving help from us for years.
For all this relief work the American Colony was using the money of its members.
The chapter continues with the story of a con-man, Mr. Moses, who stole an ancient scroll from the Yemenites while they were still in Yemen. The Yemenite community in Jerusalem discovered him in Jerusalem and requested that the American Colony help secure the scroll for them.2View comments
Ruins of ancient Shiloh (circa 1870, Palestine Exploration Fund, taken by British Sgt. Henry Phillips) 
Shiloh today (picture by David Rabkin, 2006) 3View comments
- AUG1
Before There Was Jerusalem, There Was Shiloh -- The Site of the Tabernacle When the Israelites Arrived in the Holy Land
And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and set up the Tabernacle there, and the land was subdued before them. (Joshua 18:1)
Interior of old Temple at Shiloh (1908, Library of Congress). The
building is now closed.
When Joshua brought the children of Israel across the Jordan River he was really leading a new nation, born in Egypt and Sinai but forged for 40 years in the furnace of the desert.
Their journey had started hundreds of years earlier when Jacob's sons, grazing their flocks near Shechem (Nablus), sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Their descendants returned to the same area in Samaria bearing Joseph's body for burial in Shechem. They chose the nearby village of Shiloh as the resting place for the Tabernacle which housed altars, the menorah, the ark of the Covenant and more.
There the Tabernacle would remain for almost 400 years, the place for pilgrimages and sacrifices. In Shiloh, Joshua drew lots to divide up the land among the Israelite tribes. Eli the High Priest officiated.
Ruins of Shiloh (circa 1910, Library of Congress)
A woman named Hannah came to Shiloh to pray for a son and promised he would serve the Lord if he was born. Samuel was born to Hannah. He served in the Tabernacle and was the prophet who anointed Saul and then David as kings. David shifted his capital first to Hebron and then to Jerusalem.
Archaeologists today have little doubt that the area known as Sailun was the location of biblical Shiloh. Evidence
of early synagogues, churches and mosques can be found there.
Tourists/pilgrims at Shiloh (1891, with permission of the New Boston Fine and Rare Books)
In the Talmudic period and the Middle Ages Shiloh was a destination for pilgrims.
We recently discovered online an antique book, "A Month in Palestine and Syria, April 1891," posted by the New Boston Fine and Rare Books. The book includes a travelogue and several dozen photographs of tourists and pilgrims. They also visited Shiloh.
Unfortunately, the antique book shop does not know the name of the photographer or author. We would welcome suggestions from our readers.
Today, religious pilgrims are usually found in the south, in a place called Jerusalem.
Group from the American Colony visiting the
"sacred circle" in Shiloh (1937, Library of Congress)
Ancient Shiloh today (photo courtesy of Yisrael Medad)
Click on pictures to enlarge.
Click on caption to view the original picture.2View comments
The source of the 140 year old pictures of Jews from Turkestan and Samarkand (posted here and here) has been found.
Mulka (circa 1870)
An incredible collection in "The Turkestan Album" was purchased by the U.S. Library of Congress from a Jewish book dealer in New York City in 1938. Other copies are found in the National Library of Uzbekistan and the National Library of Russia.
According the Library of Congress, the album was assembled after "the Russian imperial government took control of the area in the 1850s and 1860s." The Album's "Ethnographical Part offers individual portraits and daily life scenes of [tribes] Uzbeks, Tadzhiks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, [Jews[ and others."
The Library's introduction to the collection explains, "Konstantin Petrovich Von Kaufman (1818-1882), the first governor general of Russian Turkestan, commissioned the albums to acquaint Russians and Westerners with the region."
Among the 1,200 pictures in the albums are pictures of the Jewish life cycle -- marriage, circumcision, and death -- as well a pictures of Jewish synagogues, sukkot, and schools. The album includes a dozen portraits of Jewish women and girls, presented here. Many have variations of Jewish names such as Rachel, Malka, Leah, Sarah, Zippora, and Miriam.
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on the name in the caption to view original picture.
Banu ai 
Laula
Sara (and her nose ring) 
Mariam 
Sipara
Lia 
Ina 
Mazal
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Barely a week after Tisha B'Av (the 9th of Av), the day of mourning among Jews for the calamities that befell them on that date throughout history, Jews celebrate Tu B'Av, the 15th day of the month. It is probably the most popular date in the year for Jewish weddings.
The groom Barukh and the bride Khanna, two
separate portraits joined (c 1870)
In Israel it's commemorated as a "Love Holiday" like today's commercial Valentines Day or, for aficionados of Al Capp's Li'l Abner comic strip, it's sort of like "Sadie Hawkins Day," a propitious day for matchmaking.
The wedding of Barukh and Khanna, circa 1870. The bride and
groom are beneath a tallit serving as the chuppa (canopy).
Channa is the tiny figure under a "burqua," according to the
original caption. The man in the center is extending a cup of wine
as part of the ceremony -- sheva brachot, according to the
caption. The two mothers, wearing turbans, are on the sides
of the bride and groom.To commemorate Tu B'Av on July 22 ...Last year we uncovered pictures in the Library of Congress files showing Bukhari Jewish life in Samarkand some 140 years ago. We posted pictures showing Jewish children in school, family life, a sukka, and more.Today, we re-post photos from another group of pictures, the wedding of Barukh and Khanna around 1870.Later this week we will present a gallery of young women in the community, and provide the background of the politicalchanges that resulted in this pictures being taken.
Signing the ketuba, the marriage contract. The bride (peaking
out from under her burqua) and the groom are already under the
tallit, with their mothers on either sideClick on the pictures to enlarge.
Click on the caption to view the original.
A party for the women and girls on the eve of the wedding. Click here
to see Barukh sitting with the menBukhari Jews, from what is today the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, may be one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. According to some researchers, the community may date back to the days of the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile. Over the centuries, the community suffered from forced conversion to Islam and from Genghis Khan's pillage and destruction of the region. Around the time these pictures were taken the Bukhari Jews began to move to Israel. They established an early settlement in the Bukharan quarter of Jerusalem.
The Bukhari Jewish families discuss the dowry prior to a wedding
(circa 1870). The caption identifies the two bundles
behind them as the dowry
Original caption: "A group of people escorting the bride and groom (the couple on the far left) to a house" Dedicated to M & S on the birth of their son, Ro'i Naveh
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- JUL16
A Tisha B'Av Special: Are These the Beams of the Temple? Is this the Gift from King Hiram of Sidon to King Solomon?
King Solomon requested from King Hiram of Sidon: 'Hew me cedar-trees out of Lebanon for thou knowest that there is not among us any that hath skill to hew timber like unto the Sidonians.' And Hiram sent to Solomon, saying: 'I have heard that which thou hast sent unto me; I will do all thy desire concerning timber of cedar, and concerning timber of cypress. My servants shall bring them down from Lebanon...' (I Kings 5)
Are these carved beams from the Jewish Temple?
(Israel Antiquities Authority)
To commemorate Tisha B'Av today, the day Jews around the world mourn the destruction of the two Jewish Temples in Jerusalem, The Times of Israelrepublished an article Did Ancient Beams Discarded in the Old City Come from the First and Second Temples?by Matti Friedman.
Friedman reveals: "Under a tarp in one little-visited corner of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem lies a pile of rotting timber that would hardly catch a visitor’s eye." He reports that some of the beams date back 2,000 and even 3,000 years.
More beams are in storage in the Jewish community of Ofra and in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem. Friedman suggests that they were removed during renovations on the Temple Mount after the 1927 earthquake destroyed parts of the al Aqsa Mosque.
We publish here, perhaps for the first time, 85-year-old pictures of the beams recently digitalized and posted online by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
At least two photographers gained access to the excavation site -- one from the American Colony Photography and Robert Hamilton from the British Mandate Archeological Authority. This publication presented their photos in Eureka! Pictures Beneath the Temple Mount Now Online earlier this year. The feature included pictures of mosaics, chambers, and staircases that could date back to the Temple.
Chamber, column and staircase under
the al Aqsa mosque. "Ancient entrance
to the Temple," according to the Library
of Congress caption (1927)
Hamilton "photographed, sketched, excavated and analyzed" what he saw, according to Nadav Shragai, a scholar on Jerusalem sites, writing in Yisrael HaYom last year. But Hamilton promised the Islamic Authorities, the Waqf, that he would make "no mention of any findings that the Muslims would have found inconvenient" such as findings from the time of the Jewish Temples.
When the British left Palestine in 1948 the British Archeological Authority became the Israel Archeological Authority. The Rockefeller Museum and its archeological treasures came under Israeli control when the IDF reunited Jerusalem.
Could these pictures from the Israel Archeological Authority show the beams of the Jewish Temples?
"Principal beams" (IAA)
Click on pictures to enlarge.
"Principal beams"
Click on caption to view the original.
Carved wood panels 
Panels and other timbers 1View comments
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Among the tragedies that befell the Jewish people during the month of Av was the 1929 massacre in Hebron. Never before seen photographs of the destruction were found in the Library of Congress archives' American Colony collection.
The destruction of the Avraham Avinu Synagogue in Hebron in 1929On Tisha B’Av, the day of calamities in Jewish history, we present the pictures.Today’s leaders of the Hebron Jewish community reported that they had never seen the photos before.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
Background to the Hebron massacre. After the British army captured Palestine from the Turks in late 1917, the relationship between the British and the local Arab population was characterized by tension that sporadically erupted into insurrection over the next 30 years.
Enlargement of scroll showing
Deuteronomy 1: 17
The Arabs of Palestine were led by the powerful Husseini clan who controlled the office of the Mufti as well as the Mayor of Jerusalem. For decades the clan had opposed European colonialism, the growing power of foreign consulates in Jerusalem, Christian and Jewish immigration and land purchases. After the 1917 Balfour Declaration expressed support for “a national home for the Jewish people,” the Mufti, Haj Amin el Husseini, added “Zionists” to his enemies list. The clan leveraged its power and threats of violence to win over Turkish and British overlords, to challenge the Hashemite King Abdullah, and to hold off competing clans such as the Nashashibi, Abu Ghosh, and Khalidi clans.
Hebron synagogue and "jumbled
Torah scrolls" on the floor
[Haj Amin el Husseini fled Palestine to escape British jail and eventually found his way to Berlin where he assisted the Nazi war effort. He died of natural causes in Beirut in 1974.]On Yom Kippur 1928, Jews brought chairs and screens to prayers at the Western Wall. This purported change of the status quo was exploited by the Mufti to launch a jihad against the Jews. Husseini’s campaign continued and escalated after a Jewish demonstration at the Kotel on Tisha B’Av in August 1929. Rumors spread that Jews had attacked Jerusalem mosques and massacred Muslims. The fuse was lit for a major explosion. 
Synagogue desecrated
Starting on Friday, August 23, 1929 and lasting for a week, enraged Arab mobs attacked Jews in the Old City in Jerusalem, in Jerusalem suburbs Sanhedria, Motza, Bayit Vegan, Ramat Rachel, in outlying Jewish communities, and in the Galilee town of Tzfat. Small Jewish communities in Gaza, Ramla, Jenin, and Nablus were abandoned.
The attack in Hebron became a frenzied pogrom with the Arab mob stabbing, axing, decapitating and disemboweling 67 men, women and children. At least 133 Jews were killed across Palestine. In 1931, there was a short-lived attempt to reestablish the Jewish community in Hebron, but within a few years it was abandoned until the IDF recaptured Hebron in 1967.The British indulged the Arabs and responded by limiting Jewish immigration and land purchases.
Large common grave of Jewish victims. Later the grave
was destroyed
Today in Hebron: A recent service in the rebuilt
Avraham Avinu Synagogue0Add a comment
Jewish men sitting on the ground at the "Wailing Wall" (circa
1935). From the Library of Congress collection.A version of this article appeared in the Jerusalem Post Magazine, July 27, 2012The ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av --Tisha B'Av -- is the day in the Hebrew calendar when great calamities befell the Jewish people, including the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, the fall of the fortress Beitar in the Jewish rebellion against Rome in 136 CE, and the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. The day is commemorated with fasting, prayers and the reading of Lamentations. In Jerusalem, thousands pray at the Kotel, the Western Wall.
"Devout Jewish women" at the Wall (circa
1900). View another photo of devout
women hereThe American Colony photographers frequently focused their cameras on the worshipers at the "Wailing Place of the Jews." The Colony founders who came to Jerusalem in 1881 were devout Christians who saw the return of the Jews to the Holy Land as a sign of messianic times.Of the dozens of pictures at the Kotel there are several of elderly men and women sitting on the ground or on low stools, customs of mourning practiced on Tisha B'Av.
"A Jewish beggar reading at the Wailing Wall" (circa 1920).
Note others sitting on the ground. The day is almost
certainly Tisha B'Av and he is probably reading the
book of Lamentations.
Jews straining to see the Western Wall (circa 1929) 
"Jews' wailing place without mourners.
Deserted during 1929 riots."
See another view hereOther pictures presented here show the very narrow and confined area of the Kotel over the ages until Israel's army captured the Old City in 1967 and enlarged the Kotel plaza.
The tragedies that occurred to the Jewish nation are also evident in the pictures of the deserted plaza after Arab pogroms in 1929. The area was deserted, of course, during the 19 years of Jordanian rule of the Old City when Jews were forbidden to pray at the site.A story is told of Napoleon passing a synagogue and hearing congregants inside mourning. To his question who they are mourning, he was told they were weeping over the destruction of the Jewish Temple 1,800 years earlier. Napoleon responded, according to the legend, "If the Jews are still crying after so many hundreds of years, then I am certain the Temple will one day be rebuilt."Dedicated in memory of Chaim Menachem ben Levi2View comments
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A version of this posting appeared in The Jerusalem PostMagazine on June 29, 2012
4th of July commemoration in Jerusalem with flags and toy guns
(circa 1905). Note the Swedish flag; some of the American
Colony members were originally Swedish. Hand-colored picture
The founders of the American Colony in Jerusalem in 1881 were proud of their American roots. The group of utopian, millennialist Christians were later joined by Swedish-American and Swedish believers.The American Colony set up clinics, orphanages, cottage industries and soup kitchens for the poor of Jerusalem, earning favor with the Turkish rulers of Palestine. Their concern for all citizens of Jerusalem was evident in the shelter and assistance they provided to destitute Yemenite Jews who arrived in Jerusalem in 1882.
Founders of the American Colony
circa 1905. The founders' adopted son
Jacob, born a Jew, is on the top left
When World War I broke out, the American Colony's photographers were able to work on both sides of the conflict.At the start of World War I and before the United States joined in the war effort,American aid to the Jews of Palestine was crucial for their survival. In October 1914, the U.S. Navy's North Carolina delivered $50,000 for the Jews' relief. In some cases the funds were administered through the American consul general in Jerusalem so that the money would not be confiscated by Turkish authorities.
4th of July pageant, with man and woman dressed as Uncle Sam and the Statue of Liberty (circa 1905). Hand-colored picture
The British army, under General Edmund Allenby, captured Jerusalem in December 1917. Seven months later, in 1918, Allenby was the guest of honor at the American Colony's July 4th celebrations.
Allenby at July 4, 1918 pageant 
Allenby (in uniform) at the American Colony reception
Click on the pictures to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the original.
A British army troupe performing at the July 4 festivities
Does R.E. stand for Royal Engineers?
Who Are These Actors?
The battle for Palestine in World War I was a long and bloody campaign pitting Turkish, German, and Austrian troops against the forces of Britain, India, Australia and New Zealand. The war, fought with infantry, cavalry, artillery, planes and tanks, was waged from the Suez Canal to Damascus. A special effort was made by the British commander, Gen. Edmund Allenby, to capture Jerusalem by Christmas 1917.
This curious photograph appears in a photo album assembled by the American Colony photographers, apparently taken at a Jerusalem party hosted by the Colony on July 4, 1918. Allenby was in attendance. The caption, "R.E. Concert Party" almost certainly identifies the characters as soldiers of the Royal Engineers of the British army.
The actors are part of the British army's theater and concert group, known as a "concert party" or a "Pierrot troupe" that entertained the troops during the war. The woman is a female impersonator, and the figure second from the left appears to be an actor portraying a Faginesque Jew with a long beard and sidecurls, black hat, bottle of wine and candlesticks.
For more history on the "concert party" during World War I see the Australian War Memorial Research Centre.1View comments
- JUN30
The Amazing Portraits of Shlomo and Sonia Narinsky -- Jewish Photographers Exiled by the Turks, Swept Up by the Nazis
Turn a virtual corner in the Library of Congress' digitalized photo archives and you never know what you'll find. It happened many times since the launch of this site two years ago, and it just happened again.
"A Spanish Jew [Sephardi] of Jerusalem"
(Library of Congress, circa 1921)
Within the vast collection of the American Colony Photographic Department Collection (roughly 1890 - 1946) we discovered amazing picture and postcard portraits taken by Shlomo and Sonia Narinsky. The photographs were sold by the American Colony's souvenir store located inside Jerusalem's Old City near Jaffa Gate. 
"A Vernomito (sic) [Yemenite] Jew
in Jerusalem" (circa 1921)
Born in the Ukraine in 1885, Shlomo Narinsky studied art in Moscow, Paris and Berlin before moving to Palestine where he set up a studio.
In 1916, Shlomo and his wife were exiled to Egypt by the Turkish rulers.
They returned to the Land of Israel after the British captured the territory in 1918.
"An Orthodox Jew of Jerusalem"
In 1932, the Narinskys opened a studio in Paris, but Shlomo was arrested when the Nazis captured France. He was later exchanged for a German spy caught in Palestine after the intercession of David Ben-Gurion and Yitzchak Ben-Tzvi.
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, father of
modern Hebrew (Wikiversity,
circa 1912)
A rabbi and his grandson (Ynet News)
They returned to Israel, eventually moving to Haifa where Shlomo taught as a photography teacher. He died in 1960, relatively unknown.
Shlomo Narinsky was also trained as a painter, and some of his photographs almost reflect the post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh's wheat field series.
Arab "sorting his wheat." Note the farmer's stance, angle
of his tool and the sky, and compare to Van Gogh's
painting. See also Narinsky's "Fishermen at Jaffa"
Click on the picture to enlarge.
Van Gogh -- Harvesting wheat in the Alpilles
Valley (1888)
Click on the caption to view the original picture. And don't forget to subscribe by entering your email address in the right sidebar box.5View comments
John David Whiting, born in 1888 in Jerusalem, grew up within the American Colony community the Old City. The Library of Congress records that he was a "tour guide, businessman, writer and photographer." He served as American Vice-Consul of Jerusalem from 1908-1910 and from 1915-1917.
John Whiting prior to 1917
Letter from "Lawrence of
Arabia" to Whiting. Click
to enlarge
Fluent in Arabic, he was also a British intelligence agent.
At the request of the Turkish leadership, Whiting photographed the terrible locust plague that struck Palestine in 1915, a task that allowed him to travel throughout the country on the eve of World War I. A letter from T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") to "My dear Whiting" after the British capture of Jerusalem thanks Whiting for his activity in support of the
British, including providing hospital care for soldiers: "Thank you for all you and yours did for me, when I blew in with my Battalion that first evening looking for places to guard etc!!"
From Whiting's photo diary: "Orthodox Jews returning from
Western Wall first day of Passover, March 26, 1937."
The picture was taken inside the Jaffa Gate. One man
covered his eyes to avoid being photographed.
Around the same time Whiting was filming locusts in Palestine, an acclaimed Jewish agronomist Aaron Aaronson was traveling around the countryside doing his agricultural research. Aaronson was the founder of the pro-British NILI spy network working against the Turks. Historians have not found a link - yet - between the two men.
In 1936 and 1937, Whiting traveled throughout the Middle East in Palestine, Transjordan, Lebanon and Syria. An album with 242 photos is in the Library of Congress archives, and several pictures from his "Diary" are reproduced here.
"Auto with brooms to sweep away tacks thrown by strikers."
(1936)
Whiting's trip coincided with the "Arab Revolt," and some of the pictures reflect the conflict.
Searches "immediately after bomb throwing at
Spinney's market. Searching all passing through
Jaffa Gate breach" (1936). Also here
Packing a stone from Solomon's Quarries for shipment
to the United States (1937)
Aftermath of flood in Syria, 1937. Mouaddamiyeh.
Covered corpse, and searching for more.
Jewish residents "Playing ball, Tel Aviv sands," March 1937 
"Tel Aviv. December 1936. Modern grocery shop (Feast
of Lights decorations)"1View comments
- With more than 300 photo essays published, and in preparation for a book, we would like to know which are your favorite photos and essays.
Write your favorites in the comment section below
Here are some of our favorites over the last two years:
Rabbi Kook
* Rabbi Kook, Chief Rabbi of Palestine, meets President Coolidge in the White House in 1924.
* The Jews of Jerusalem welcome the GermanEmperor in 1898.
The Emperor arrives
* The expulsion of the Jews of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1929, 1936, and 1948.
Expulsion 1929
* The first pictures of the Western Wall in the 1850s.
First pictures of the Kotel
* The German general who saved the Jews of Palestine from massacre in 1917.
German General
* The surrender of Jerusalem to British sergeants in World War I.
Surrender of Jerusalem
Enter your favorite photo essay in the comment section below
Why are these children marching?
* The mysterious picture of Jewish children marching - where, why, and when?
* First photographs of Rachel's Tomb, Tomb of the Patriarchs andTomb of Joseph.
Rachel's Tomb 
From Jew to Christian preacher
* The first Jewish photographer in Jerusalem. Why did he and his photographs disappear?
Contents of the Cigarbox
* The "Cigarbox collection" of photos returns to the Land of Israel.
Australian light cavalry
* The Australians capture Be'er Sheva in 1917.
Old Yemenite Jew
* The arrival of Yemenite Jewsin the 1800s-- "The Gadites"
* The secret photos taken under the Temple Mt in Jerusalem.
Under Al Aqsa mosque 
Jaffa Gate
* The gates of Jerusalem's Old City.
Hebron synagogue
* Photos after the 1929 massacre in Hebron.
* The Christian doctor in Tiberiaswho treated and photographed Jewish patients.
Doctor and elderly Jews
* The first Jewish communities outside of Jerusalem, and the new Jewish settlements in the Galilee.
Yemin Moshe 
Jerusalem child
* The little children of the Land of Israel.
* The Book of Ruth Re-enacted.
"Ruth" 100 years ago
Enter your favorite photo essay in the comment section below
Are you a subscriber? Just enter your email in the box in the right column8View comments
We will continue to scan and publish more photographs from the incredible collection we call the "Cigarbox Collection. " The pictures were taken and collected by the Austrian chemist Dr. Rudolph Avraham Seiden some 90 years ago.
The "Cigarbox Collection"
His son, Dr. Othniel Seiden, sent us the collection for study and publication.
This week we received a letter from Dr. Othniel Seidon:
I'm delighted beyond words with what you have done with my father's "Cigar Box Photos." The quality of reproduction and the research you have put into them is far beyond my expectations. Thank you for giving them such a wonderful home so they won't just be lost. -- Othniel Seiden.Dr. Seiden, we thank you, and we're honored to give tribute to you and your father who was a "Blue & White" pioneer, helping Jews reach the Land of Israel.
Monday, August 10, 2015
The American Colony and the Yemenite Jews in Jerusalem 1880
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