Several weeks ago, we received a note from reader Rivka Regev:
Our original caption:"Lepers, presumably in
Jerusalem, (Library of Congress, circa 1900)"
I saw the feature you did on "Lepers" of Jerusalem. It was excellent. I have only 2 small comments:Your first photo is labeled "probably" in Jerusalem. It isabsolutely; it's to the west of the original Hansen compound ("Jesus Hilfe"). The patients are sitting in what we now call the western Moon Grove, and I would be very happy to show you in person where it is. That photo is probably from 1908.Secondly, I am sure you know that the "lepers" were not suffering of what was described in the Bible. Therefore, I find it important to avoid the L word and stick to "Hansen's Disease."We asked Rivka how she had such expertise on the Hansen hospital. When she explained her father was the in-house physician at the hospital for decades, we appealed to her for additional photos and an article to accompany them. We thank her for the following feature and encourage readers to view her Internet site http://ganneimarpeh.brinkster.net/page33.htmlA Riddle Solved at the Historic Hansen Hospital in Jerusalem
By Rivka Regev
Dr. Moshe Goldgraber, the author's father, in front of Hansen
Hospital, 2002 (Photo courtesy of the author and Michel Horton)Dr. Moshe Beer Goldgraber 1913-2007, was born in Zamosc, Poland, studied medicine in Padova, Italy, took his final exam in August 1939, went straight to a shipyard, and got on a freight ship to Palestine. Two weeks later Germany took over Poland. He lost his whole family to the Nazis.
One day at the end of 1964 he went to hear a lecture at Hansen [“Lepers”] Hospital in Jerusalem. Dr. Goldgraber became involved in research and soon became the attending on-call physician (a specialist in internal medicine, among other specialties) at Hansen Hospital from 1965 until the last patients left in 2000.
The hospital's Jesus Hilfe nursery (circa 1907, from the
author's collection)Beyond all that, my father, Dr. Goldgraber was the only one who took care of the Hansen Gardens from 1965-2003.I grew up living in the “small house,” built in 1893, on the hospital grounds.
Beginning in 2003,Since 2005, I wanted to find remnants of a mule-drawn machine that appeared in this photo dated approximately 1912. The scene shows a plant nursery situated below the great rainwater collecting cistern that was built from 1898. I thought the machine might be a mill to grind something. I hoped that by unearthing it, either old seeds or grains would lead to some answers. After groping in the earth that had already become a therapeutic garden of herbs for five years, our volunteers hit the jackpot in November 2010. Seven sides of the hexagon that we sought were perfectly intact and formed a structure that was half a meter deep.
Mule drawn pump at the Hospital (1912, from the
author's collection)
The volunteers and their discovery (courtesy of
the author and Michael Horton )More digging began from the other side of the terrace wall at an outlet of the cistern itself. There, the hand carved pavement stones created a very large rectangular opening (looking like a great planter) which had filled with soil and deep rooted plants over the years.For more information, see the author's website http://ganneimarpeh.brinkster.net/page33.htmlWhen the two tunnels finally connected the riddle was solved. This was not a mill to grind olives or oats (they grew plentifully in the historic gardens). This was a pump that drew out water and forced it into metal pipes that lead first up to the small water tank visible in the old photo just above the right corner of the cistern. Then, using mule power, the water was pushed up about five more meters and about 40 meters away into the hospital's kitchen!This was the way to supply rainwater to a vibrant and active hospital in a pre-electric and pre-water faucet era!
We welcome scanned 100-year-old pictures of Eretz Yisrael from your private collections or your great-grandparents' albums.- JAN5
Funny, It Doesn't Look Like a Mountain or Hell -- Vintage Photos from Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley
The archives at the University of California - Riverside contains thispicture, but clearly the caption "Mount Tabor" was wrong.
Original caption: "Mount Tabor, Palestine, Scene of Barake Caeup [sic]." In
fact, it is the pool and cattle market in Jerusalem's Hinom Valley.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock,
University of California, Riverside)
This is a picture of "Gei Hinnom" (the Hinnom Valley) in Jerusalem, beneath the walls of the Old City.
Today, few residents or tourists know about the history of the area called "Breichat HaSultan (the Sultan's Pool), except for the occasional concert in the amphitheater.
As we researched the picture, however, we discovered that the pool and cattle market were the frequent focus of photographers a century ago.
The Hinom Valley - Breichat HaSultan amphitheater today
(Go Jerusalem)
The Valley of Ben-Hinnom is mentioned repeatedly in the Bible, serving as a border between tribes of Judah and Benjamin.
From biblical times it had an infamous reputation as the site of human sacrifices to Molech. The evil perpetrated there made the name "Gei Hinnom," or Gehenna, synonymous with Hell.
A dam was built across the valley, possibly at the time of the Second Temple, with a road on top that passed between Mt. Zion and the opposite hill (eventually Mishkenot HaSha'ananim). The reservoir created by the dam measured 169 meters by 67meters, with a depth of 12 meters. The road became one of the principle routes to Jerusalem from the south. Suleiman the Magnificent built a sabil fountain on the dam, and it still exists today.
Photo of the Hinom Valley cattle market taken from the dam
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of
Photography at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)
Suleiman's fountain on the dam (Library of
Congress, circa 1937)
Road to Jerusalem station showing the Hinnom Valley, the Sultan's Pool, and the sabil. (circa 1895)
(Library of Congress collection)
A sheep market was located on the opposite side of Jerusalem's Old City at Herod's Gate, which can be viewed here.
After the 1948 war between Israel and its Arab neighbors, the valley was a desolate no-man's zone between Jordan and Israel.
Cattle market (1900, Library of Congress, also in
University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book
Library and the Arizona Historical Society
Library, Tempe)
Sultan's pool. Note the buildings built on the right and
behind the bridge/dam (Wikipedia Commons)
Click on pictures to enlarge, click on captions to view the original picture. 0Add a comment
- JAN1
Remarkable Vintage Pictures of Jewish Communities, Part 2 -- More Treasures from the University of California-Riverside Collection
Constantinople's Jewish Quarter, 1898
We were certain we recognized this photo from a feature on the Library of Congress archives we posted two years ago. We thought it was a quaint picture of a man and dog in the Jewish Quarter of Constantinople (Istanbul today).
Street scene, Jewish Quarter of Constantinople, 1898 (Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California
Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)
But when we enlarged the photo, using the Keystone-Mast Collection's excellent "zoom" tools, we realized that there was much more than what met the eye. The University of California photo, we discovered, was not identical to theLibrary of Congress picture. The two were taken seconds apart, and there are differences. Moreover, upon examining the photos, we saw that almost a dozen residents of the street were watching what may have been a confrontation between the man and dog. (Rabies vaccinations in Constantinople began only in 1900.)
Look at the bottom left corner of the picture above, and you will see the back of a head and women standing in a doorway. In the LoC photo you see that the head has turned; it's a young boy's face. From many other windows women are watching the street scene below.
A head and three women (UCR) 
The boy's
face (LoC)
Woman in a window 
Women looking from
window
A girl in the doorway, a woman at the window 
Two figures watching from a distant window
A woman, possibly with children, appears to be
scurrying across the street (LoC)
Constantinople: The name of the Turkish city was changed from Constantinople to Istanbul in the 1920s, which explains the location in the caption on this 1898 photo.The Jewish community in Turkey dates back millennia. Tens of thousands of Jews from Spain found refuge in Turkey in 1492. The Ottoman Empire which ruled the Middle East for 400 years usually provided a safe haven for its Jewish residents, with occasional outbreaks of anti-Semitic episodes.Today, the Jewish community in Turkey numbers approximately 20,000, mostly in Istanbul. The new Islamic policies of the current Turkish government may result in Jewish emigration, according to some observers.0Add a comment
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An ancient Jerusalem synagogue, destroyed in 1948 Enter your email address in the right sidebar
1View comments
"Native ploughing with his wife and donkey, Palestine" (original caption)
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of
Photography at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)Virtually every vintage collection that we've analyzed contains a picture of an Arab farmer in Palestine plowing with a rudimentary plow pulled by an ox and an ass.
"Thou shall not plow with an ox and an ass together."
לא תַחֲרֹשׁ בְּשׁוֹר וּבַחֲמֹר יַחְדָּו
Deuteronomy 20 (Library of Congress, circa 1890)
Why?
"Thou shall not muzzle an ox in its threshing"
לֹא תַחְסֹם שׁוֹר בְּדִישׁוֹ
Deuteronomy 25 (circa 1900)
We suggest that the photographers, many of whom were well-versed in the Old Testament,focused on agricultural prohibitions found in the Bible. The photographs, slides, and postcards were usually sold to a Bible-reading public.
"Plowing with an ox and an ass" (April, 1929, Torrance
Collection, University of Dundee)
The photographers illustrated the prohibition "Thou shall not plow with an ox and an ass together" (Deuteronomy20) and provided pictures of the prohibition "Thou shall not muzzle an ox in its threshing"(Deuteronomy 25).
The photograph above in the UCR collection went one step further, showing an Arab farmer using his ass and wife to pull the plow.
Plowing with a cow and and an ass (circa
1900) See also here (Library of Congress)
Peasant plowing (circa 1900)
(New York Public Library)
"Plowing with an ox and ass" -- the original caption. (Credit: RCB Library, 1897)
1View comments
- DEC27
Remarkable Pictures of Jewish Communities in the Middle East More Treasures from the University of California-Riverside Collection
The Jews of Iraq
Jewish scribes at the “Tomb of Ezekiel” near Babylon, Kefil,
Mesopotamia (Iraq) (Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of
Photography at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)
The vast Keystone-Mast Collection at the California Museum of Photography contains many photographs of Jewish communities -- now extinct -- from across the Muslim world.
We believe most of the undated pictures in the University of California - Riverside Archives were taken between 1898 and 1930
"Jewish Cobblers Repairing Shoes for
Arabs, near Mosul, Mesopotamia"
Using pictures we found in the Library of Congress archives two years ago, Israel Daily Picture has already explored many of the Jewish communities in Iraq, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, and Turkey. Click on the country to view earlier postings.
Today, we present the UCR's vintage pictures of the Jews of Iraq. Suffering from pogroms, persecution, and confiscation of property, most of the Jews of Iraq left the country by 1951. The "Jews of Iraq" is Part 1 of a series that will include vintage pictures of Jews of Egypt, Syria and Turkey.
Click on the pictures to enlarge. Click on the captions to view the original pictures.
Jews of Mosul (Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection,
California Museum of Photography at UCR)
Inside Ezekiel's Tomb (circa 1931, Library
of Congress). Also view Israel Daily Picture
feature on Ezekiel's Tomb
Persian ceiling of ancient synagogue at
Ezekiel's Tomb (Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection,
California Museum of Photography at UCR)
"Principal Street, Baghdad, Where the Jews and
Moslems Throng, Mesopotamia." Prior to World
War II, 80,000 Jews lived in Baghdad.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum
of Photography at UCR)
"Tomb of Ezra, Mesopotamia. Near Koma, on the
Shatt-el-Arab, (lower Euphrates. and Tigris). East over
lower Tigris to Shrine dear to Jews."
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum
of Photography at UCR)
"Picturesque homes of wealthy Jews along the
Tigris River in North Baghdad, Mesopotamia."
Note the woman in the window and the boat, a
"kufas" row boat on the Tigris. (Credit: Keystone-Mast
Collection, California Museum of Photography at UCR)
"Jewish families of the well-to-do at the wharf,
Baghdad, Mesopotamia." (Credit: Keystone-Mast
Collection, California Museum of Photography at UCR)
Building a "kufas" boat. Click here to see
how many people fit in a kufas.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum
of Photography at UCR)
For more information on the Jews of Iraq and the Tomb of Ezra visit Point of No Return, Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries.
In 2003, a U.S. Defense Department analyst, Harold Rhode, uncovered a vast cache of ancient Jewish documents in the flooded basement of the Iraqi Intelligence Headquarters. He led an effort to save the historical documents and bring them to the United States for restoration. The restoration has been completed, but Iraqi Jews around the world are protesting the U.S. Government's plan to return the documents to the Iraq government.0Add a comment
- DEC25
Exploring the Keystone Photo Collection at the University of California - Riverside -- The Anatomy of a Photograph
David Street, inside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City. The picture appears to have been taken prior to 1898
when the moat on the right was filled in and the road widened to allow entry of the German emperor.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)
Welcome to David Street just inside the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City. Like today, it was a center for tourism over 100 years ago which explains the hotels, the signs in English, the sale of photographs, and a tourist office.
Traffic jam on the expanded David Street in 1898
(Credit: Library of Congress)
No date is provided for the picture in the UCR files, but looking at another picture probably taken during the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm in 1898, this scene predates the visit.
We found one of the photographs on sale of particular interest. (See the bottom left of the photo at the top.) We've seen that picture before -- in the Library of Congress collection.
Photographs for sale in the 1890s. 
Jew of Jerusalem The Library of Congress dates the
picture as being taken between 1900 and 1910. It was
almost certainly taken in the 19th century, however.
A sign on the street advertises "Bonfils," one of the leading photographers in the Near East at the end of the 19th century. Many of his pictures appear in Israel Daily Picture.
Photographs for sale to tourists 
The Keystone collection photo from UCR also shows a prominent sign for the Cook's World Ticket Office, the leading travel agency for tourists and pilgrims to Palestine and Syria in the 19th century. The bottom sign offers guides and camp equipment.
For more information on Cook's role in investment and development of tourism in Jerusalem and Jaffa, read Ruth Kark's From Pilgrimage to Budding Tourism: The role of Thomas Cook in the rediscovery of the Holy Land in the 19th Century.
Strangely, Cook's signs cannot be seen in the photograph of the German emperor's arrival. Cook had supplied dozens of large tents for the emperor's entourage, but the signs were covered over.
The name "Assad C. Kayat" appears on a sign in the UCR photo. Ruth Kark's book on Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Jerusalem shows a 1903 check from the Jewish banker, Jacob Valero, to Kayat, but we have not discovered his profession or why he hung a sign in the Old City.1View comments
- DEC23
Re-posting - A Special Feature for Our Christian Readers -- Christmas in the Holy Land 100+ Years Ago
Entry of pilgims into Bethlehem at Christmas time (circa 1875) by photographer Félix Bonfils (Library of Congress)
The town of Bethlehem plays a major role in the Christian faith. There, Christians believe, Jesus was born some 2,000 years ago, and they celebrate his birth on Christmas.
Christmas procession in Bethlehem (circa 1900)
But when is Christmas?
Bethlehem hosts Christmas services for Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations on December 25. This year, Coptic, Greek and Syrian Orthodox Catholics will celebrate in the Church of the Nativity on January 7, and the Armenian Orthodox on January 6.
Most of the photographs on this page were taken by the American Colony Photographic Department before and after World War I when the British captured Palestine after 400 years of Ottoman rule. Other pictures are from collections at Chatham University and the Irish Catholic Church.
The name "Bethlehem" is derived from the Hebrew "Beit Lechem -- House of Bread," and its fields of grain are mentioned in the Book of Ruth as where Ruth gleaned her wheat for her mother-in-law Naomi and where she met her eventual husband, Boaz. According to the Bible, Ruth's great-grandson David was born in Bethlehem where he was anointed as king.
Church of the Nativity and Manger Square (circa 1898). Note
the unfenced cemetery on the left. View here the square and
cemetery approximately 20 years later, under British rule
The Church of the Nativity was built in 339 CE by King Constantine and his mother, Helena, over the grotto believed to have been the site of Jesus' birth.
Throughout history the Church was destroyed and/or rebuilt by various conquering armies -- the Samaritans, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans and British.
The Grotto beneath the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The man on the right is believed to be the
photographer, David Brown. Note the Turkish soldier on duty inside the Church (Credit: RCB Library, 1897).
In 1948, Bethlehem was conquered again, this time by the Jordanian Legion. Jordan ruled Bethlehem and the West Bank until 1967 when the territory was captured by Israel. In 1995, under the terms of the Oslo Accords, Israel transferred Bethlehem to the Palestinian Authority.
Bethlehem was traditionally a Christian town, built around the basilica, and tourism was the most important industry. In recent years, however, the proportion of Christians in Bethlehem has dropped from 85 percent in 1948 to 54 percent in 1967, and now to about 30 percent. Some analysts point to tensions between resurgent and aggressive Islamists and the Christian community, a phenomenon pressuring other Christian communities across the Middle East, with the exception of Israel.
British and French soldiers guarding the Church of the
Nativity (circa 1918)
Seasons Greetings!
Turkish soldiers drilling in the square outside of the Church of
the Nativity in Bethlehem (circa 1900)
Interior of the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher (hand-painted, Chatham
University Library, circa 1895)
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem
(hand-painted, Chatham University Library, circa 1895).
Note the ladder in the window, known as the "Immovable
Ladder" since Christian denominations have an
understanding that "no cleric of the six ecumenical
Christian orders may move, rearrange, or alter any property
without the consent of all six orders." (Wikipedia)
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on captions to view the original photo.
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- DEC21
Introducing a Major Collection of Vintage Photographs: If the Library of Congress Archives Was Our "Mother Lode," the University of California Museum of Photography Is the "Father Lode"
With the realization that responsible librarians and archivists are using new technologies to digitize their vintage photographic treasures,Israel Daily Picture continues its search for major collections of 100+ year-old pictures of Palestine, and especially of the Jewish community in Eretz Yisrael.
Original caption: "Jew at Wailing Place,"
circa 1900. The UCR collection contains
at least 20 photos of Jews at the Western Wall.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California
Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock,
University of California, Riverside)
Recently, we found historical treasures in unexpected places -- ChathamUniversity, the Church of Ireland, the library of Oregon State University, Emory University, and the archives of the University of Dundee, Scotland, Medical School, to name a few.
Today, we introduce you to the incredible collection of glass plates and film negatives in the University of California - Riverside Museum of Photography where many of their 250,000 stereoscopic plates and 100,000 negatives are now online. This posting is Part 1 of several future features.
Since the Library of Congress' American Colony collection served as our "mother lode" of photos, we refer to the UCR's immense collection as the "father lode." Indeed, many of the photographs found in other collections are but copies, often in poor condition, of the vintage pictures at UCR.
Israel Daily Picture has just begun reviewing the UCR's collection. We found that many of the pictures are not captioned, dated, or analyzed. The Jews of Palestine -- as well as Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia were often the subjects of the photographers' work.
According to the UCR Museum, its -
Original caption: "Wayside Railroad station," 1933.
Enlarging the photo (see below) shows the station is at
Zichron Yaakov, a Jewish settlement formed in 1882.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography
at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)
"Keystone-Mast Collection is the archive of the Keystone View Company of Meadville, PA (active from 1892-1963). As a collection, it is the world's largest body of original stereoscopic negatives and prints providing an encyclopedic view of global cultural history.""The Keystone View Company was founded by amateur photographer, B. L. Singley of Meadville, Pennsylvania, in 1892. ... Stereography's popularity was the novelty of experiencing explicit three-dimensional detail in a stereo card and the potential for card owners to frequently revisit views of world events in private or during social gatherings. Stereographs were to 19th century generations, what television and the Internet are to contemporary culture, and enabled armchair observers to have vicarious experiences in faraway places.
... The collection is a composite of several stereographic publishing companies. By 1920,the Keystone View Company cornered the market by acquiring the negative collections of all major stereograph publishers such as B. W. Kilburn, H. C. White, Underwood and Underwood, and C. H. Graves."
The sign over the railroad station at Zichron Yaakov 
Jews of Mosul, Mesopotamia (Iraq) circa 1900
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California
Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock,
University of California, Riverside)
Original caption: "Cavern beneath the Sacred Rock Mosque
of Omar, Jerusalem" (circa 1900). The "sacred rock" is the
foundation stone on which the Jewish Temples were built.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California Museum of Photography
at UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside)
Original caption: "A Jewish synagogue, Jerusalem"
(circa 1900). The synagogue is the Churva
synagogue, completed in 1864, and destroyed by
the Jordanian army in 1948. It was rebuilt in 2010.
(Credit: Keystone-Mast Collection, California
Museum of Photography at UCR ARTSblock,
University of California, Riverside)
We wish to express our thanks to the librarians and archivists at the California Museum of Photography at the UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside, who granted us permission to present their collection. In accordance with their request, we do not reproduce the photographs at the highest resolution. We encourage readers to view the original pictures in high resolution at the links provided under each picture.1View comments
Just 10 years after the first Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk, the first aircraft landed in Jerusalem on December 31, 1913, flown by a Frenchman, Marc Bonnier. The flight was part of a seven-week tour of the Mediterranean that began and ended in France.
Bonnier lands in Jerusalem, 1913. The man on the far right appears
to be the mayor of Jerusalem, Salim Hussein el-Husseini. Note
the unidentified Jewish man on the left. (Library of Congress)
On May 1, 1914, Turkish aviators Salim Bey and Kemal Bey landed their aircraft in Jerusalem. After that flight, military aircraft began to fill the skies over Palestine.
Turkish plane in Jerusalem, 1914
The early aircrafts' biggest military advantage was its ability to provide reconnaissance data of enemy troops' deployment. In that regard, the plane's advantage was slightly more than the observation balloons used by armies two centuries earlier. But quickly machine guns and bombs were added to the planes, and air combat and ground support changed the nature of modern warfare.
German reconnaissance flight over Ramla, 1915 (Australian
War Memorial)
Turkey utilized aircraft to provide intelligence during its 1916 attack on the Suez Canal and to observe British troops' two attempts to capture Gaza in early 1917.
By the fall of 1917, German and Turkish aircraft had to be stopped from reporting back on British commanders' plan to unleash a flank attack against Be'er Sheva. The challenge was met by British and Australian planes, and the Turks at the Be'er Sheva garrison and in Gaza were caught unprepared.
German planes near Gaza
Turkish anti-aircraft guns, 1917
Aerial photo of Jerusalem taken by German pilot in 1917. (Library of Congress)
Click here for another view. By the end of 1917, Jerusalem was in British hands.
German and Turkish officers at the
funeral of a German pilot in Nazareth (Desert Column)
Memorial plaque in Jenin for
fallen German pilots 
German plane captured by Australian soldiers, 1917.
Pilot is behind the plane's left wing. (ANZACS.org)
Australian aircraft in Palestine, 1918 (Australian
War Memorial)
The Library of Congress and the Australian War Memorial provide many photographs of the combat aircraft, the men who flew them, and the graves of those who fell.
Click on the photos to enlarge. Click on the captions to see the originals.
Do you want to see every edition of the Israel Daily Picture? Enter your email address in the box in the right hand column and click on "submit."0Add a comment
- DEC16
R.I.P. Actor Peter O'Toole, But Here's the Real "Lawrence of Arabia" With addition of photo of Lawrence with General Allenby in Jerusalem
The real T.E. Lawrence, Hero of World War I (Wikimedia) 
Peter O'Toole as T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia"
H/T: AA
Winston Churchill, Lawrence, and Prince Abdullah meeting
in Jerusalem (Library of Congress archives, 1921)
The death of actor Peter O'Toole this week reminded many of his remarkable 1962 film "Lawrence of Arabia" depicting the World War I exploits of a British officer, T. E. Lawrence.
Lawrence is credited with uniting Arab tribes in Arabia against the ruling Ottoman Empire and, through the use of guerrilla tactics, assisting the British war effort to defeat the Turks.
While the film succeeds in portraying the Arab revolt as an important aspect of World War I, it takes some liberties in the facts, starting with the physical differences of O'Toole (6 feet 3 inches - 190 cm) and Lawrence (a diminutive 5 feet 3 inches - 160 cm). The film also does not present the full extent of Lawrence's diplomatic activities.
Lawrence (left) in conversation with British commander
Edmund Allenby when he entered Jerusalem after its
surrender in December 11, 1917. (Screen capture)
The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 divided up the Middle East between colonial powers, France and Great Britain, contrary to promises made by Lawrence to his Arab allies. But after World War I, Lawrence became a publicly acclaimed hero, and he successfully pressed for the granting of territories to his Hashemite allies from the Arabian Hedjaz. Syria (and then Iraq), would be ruled by King Feisal, and Transjordan would be ruled by Emir Abdullah.
Lawrence can be seen in a film commemorating the surrender of Jerusalem in December 1917. According to the Imperial War Museum synopsis accompanying the film:
The General entered Jerusalem on 11 December, accompanied by his staff (T. E. Lawrence ["Lawrence of Arabia"] among them), French and Italian officers, and various other international representatives.
The Weizmann-Feisal meeting brokered by Lawrence
In the course of his work with the Hashemites, T. E. Lawrence introduced Feisal to Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann in December 1918 and served as their interpreter. According to historian Martin Gilbert, Weizmann recorded in his notes, "Feisal explained that 'it was curious there should be friction between Jews and Arabs in Palestine.'" [Weizmann would later become Israel's first president.]
Gilbert continued: "On January 3, 1919, Feisal and Weizmann met again in London, to sign an 'Agreement between the King of the Hedjaz and the Zionists.' Lawrence, who was once again the guiding hand in this agreement, hoped that it would ensure what he, Lawrence, termed 'the lines of Arab and Zionist policy converging in the not distant future.'"
"On March 1, 1919 Lawrence, while in Paris as the senior British representative with the Hedjaz Delegation, drafted and then wrote out in his own hand a letter from Feisal to the American Zionist Felix Frankfurter. In this letter, Feisal declared, 'We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.'”
Lawrence in the front seat, Samuel in
the back at the meeting in Transjordan (1921)
According to the Library of Congress' description of these hand-colored pictures, "The photographs show meetings between Arab, Bedouin, and British officials around April 17-27, 1921, at Amir Abdullah ibn Hussein's camp at Amman, Jordan. During these meetings British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel proclaimed Amir Abdullah as the ruler of Transjordan, under British protection."
The new British High Commissioner to Palestine,
Herbert Samuel, flanked by Lawrence and
Abdullah (hand-colored, 1921)
Lawrence was a key player in the meeting.
One of the photographers at the Amman meeting was John Whiting, a member of the original "American Colony" family and member of the Colony's photographic department. He was also a member of British intelligence and almost certainly had contact with Lawrence.
In 1922, the British split off Transjordan from the Mandate of Palestine. In 1946, the Mandate of Transjordan became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In the 1948 war with Israel, Jordan occupied the "West Bank" of the Jordan River and annexed it in 1950. The annexation was not recognized by the vast majority of the world's countries, including the members of the Arab League.0Add a comment
Jerusalem under blanket of snow. View from the Christian Quarter showing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
Mosque of Omar on the Temple Mount and Mt. of Olives. (circa 1900)
Strong rain, winds and snow storms are hitting the Middle East this week. And snow is falling today in Jerusalem, the Golan and parts of the Galilee.
We present here pictures of snow in Jerusalem taken early in the 20th century and found in the Library of Congress collection.
British soldiers at the Western Wall (1921)
Children of the "American Colony" (1921). These pictures were hand-colored and found in a Colony family album. 
Children of the "American Colony" playing in the snow (1921)
"Snow-balling" on Jaffa Road in Jerusalem (1942)
Australian soldiers and Arabs "snow-balling" (1942) 0Add a comment
- DEC11
On this Day, December 11, Gen. Edmund Allenby Entered Jerusalem after the British Rout of the Turkish-German Army in 1917. Re-posting an earlier feature
Photographers accompanied the Imperial British Army forces throughout the battles of World War I in Palestine, starting at the Suez Canal in 1915 and continuing through the capture of Damascus in 1918.
Allenby entering Jerusalem December 11, 1917
Turkish Camel Corps in Be'er Sheva (1917, Library of Congress archives)
The grand scale of the fighting in Palestine is not fully recognized today even by historians, with attention often focused on the European front. One statistic may put the fighting into perspective: The British army suffered more than half a million casualties; the Turks even more.
The Israel Daily Picture site has presented hundreds of pictures of the fighting between the British Imperial Forces and the Turkish and German forces on the battlefields of Sinai, Gaza, Be'er Sheva, and Jerusalem. Most of the photographs, such as those on this page, were found in the U.S. Library of Congress' American Colony collection.
Click on a picture to enlarge.
Click on the caption to view the original picture.
Austrian army troops approaches Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate (1916) 
Turkish troops preparing to attack the Suez Canal 1915
We present below a film from the British Imperial War Museum of British Commander Edmund Allenby's entrance into Jerusalem on December 11, 1917.
According to the Imperial War Museum synopsis accompanying the film:
General Allenby walking through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City of Jerusalem. Click HERE to view the video
The General entered Jerusalem on 11 December, accompanied by his staff (T. E. Lawrence ["Lawrence of Arabia"] among them), French and Italian officers, and various other international representatives. At the Jaffa gate he was greeted by a guard of Commonwealth and Allied troops; dismounting, he and his comrades entered the city on foot, as instructed. Allenby had been less than fifteen minutes in the city. After 400 years of Ottoman rule, Jerusalem had passed into British hands..0Add a comment
We present here Part 2 from the Church of Ireland Library's photographic collection of pictures taken by David Brown in 1897. View Part 1HERE
Carriage parking lot outside of Jerusalem's Old City's Jaffa Gate and beneath David's Citadel. The photo pre-dates
the opening made adjacent to Jaffa Gate to enable entrance of the German Emperor's carriage in 1898. View
inside Jaffa Gate HERE Credit: RCB Library, 1897).
The Church of Ireland's Representative Church Body Library's full collection can be viewed HERE.
The photos here are presented with the permission of the RCB Library.
Click on pictures to enlarge; click on the captions to view the original photo. Subscribe to receivewww.israeldailypicture.com in your email by entering your address in the right sidebar.
On the road to the Jerusalem train station with Jaffa Gate and David's Citadel in the background. Other 19th
Century photographers also used this same perspective for a landscape picture of Jerusalem.
(Credit: RCB Library, 1897)
Rachel's tomb between Jerusalem and Bethlehem (Credit: RCB Library, 1897) View a previous feature on
Rachel's tomb HERE
Money changer in Jerusalem (apparently Jewish). A picture of money changers was also a standard photo taken by
photographers visiting the Holy Land, perhaps because of the New Testament story of Jesus and the money changers.
View an earlier posting on money changers and their unique tables HERE. (Credit: RCB Library, 1897)
"Plowing with an ox and ass" -- the original caption. This is another standard picture by 19th century photographers,
apparently because of the Biblical prohibition "Thou shall not plow with an ox and an ass together" (Deuteronomy XX).
View a previous posting on photographing Biblical prohibitions HERE. (Credit: RCB Library, 1897)
Responsible Archivists Preserve Their Photographic Treasures
The Golden Gate of the Old City. The sealed gates, the closest to the location of the Jewish Temples, face the
Mt. of Olives. View a previous posting on the Golden Gate, also known as Sha'ar Harachamim, HERE.
(Credit: RCB Library, 1897)0Add a comment
In 2011, Rev. Stephen White brought to Dublin several old cardboard boxes found in the old Church of Ireland Killaloe deanery in Limerick. He delivered them to Dr. Susan Hood, the archivist for the Church of Ireland's Representative Church Body Library.
What a treasure looks like. Boxes of lantern slides -- the precursor to
photographic slides and slide projectors
Dr. Hood understood she had
just received a photographic treasure: hundreds of century-old "lantern slides" of sites in Ireland, India, and the Holy Land.
Coming ashore at Jaffa Port (Credit: RCB Library, 1897). Note the
Turkish flag flying
Dr. Hood deserves credit for preserving the images, digitizing them last year and posting them on the RCB's homepage.
We thank her for granting us permission to publish the RCB photographs.
Last year, Dr. Hood and BBC undertook an investigation to discover the name of hitherto anonymous photographer. They were able to identify him as David Brown, a soap manufacturer from Donaghmore who was also an amateur photographer. In 1897 he joined a pilgrimage led by his brother in law, a Presbyterian minister from Northern Ireland.
We present here Part 1 of the RCB Library Collection.
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on the caption to view the original.
Damascus Gate (Credit: RCB Library, 1897) View inside Damascus Gate HERE
View Herod's Gate HERE
View Lions Gate HERE
Jews praying at the Western "Wailing" Wall. The day is a Sabbath or Jewish Festival since the men are wearing
their Sabbath finery, including fur hats. The photograph is very unusual since in virtually all of the other 19th
century pictures at the Wall men are not wearing their customary prayer shawls (talitot) perhaps because of a
Jewish prohibition of carrying objects on the Sabbath, or because of the harassment of Muslim authorities.
(Credit: RCB Library, 1897)
Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The man on the right is believed to be the photographer, David Brown. Note
the Turkish soldier on duty inside the Church. (Credit: RCB Library, 1897). A Turkish soldier was also on guard
in Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus). See below.
Joseph's Tomb (Credit: RCB Library, 1897). Certain
pictures, such as this one, were almost obligatory to
all visiting photographers assembling a travelogue.
Turkish guard inside Joseph's Tomb (Library
of Congress 1900)
Next: Part 2 of the Irish Church collection
A "hides market," according to the RCB's Library caption, but no location is given. Actually, the photo is taken
in Jerusalem at the entrance of the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. Looming over the complex
on the hill is the Tifferet Yisrael Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter (Credit: RCB Library, 1897). The
synagogue was destroyed along with the Jewish Quarter in 1948.
To read more on the Church of Ireland RCB Library collection and its discovery click HERE andHERE and HERE
2View comments
We are always on the lookout for libraries and archives digitizing their collections of photographs of the Holy Land from the 19th and early 20th centuries. In future weeks we hope to present vintage pictures from Ireland, Arizona, and California archives.
A photograph from the Emory collection published last month. We
enlarged the sign, but were unable to decipher all of the writing.
Why? Because the photos are valuable historical evidence of Jewish life in Eretz Yisrael 150 years ago, well before Theodore Herzl and the Zionist idea, years before the Holocaust and the State of Israel's establishment.
Moreover, as we research we often find pictures of better quality and with greater detail, such as these pictures of the money changer in the Old City.
The sign in the Emory collection
listing Rabbi Kook as the
rabbinic supervisor. To what?
The money changer?
The same picture -- not brown from age and without cropping. This photo will
appear in a future feature on a California university's collection. The full
sign in Hebrew and Yiddish shows an advertisement for cheese. Another
sign advertises a printing shop
The full sign advertises cheese
products made in Chedera with
the supervision of Rabbi Kook of
Jaffa. The ad promotes" spoiled
butter and cheese," which, when
fried, was considered a delicacy
Click on pictures to enlarge.
Click on captions to view the original.
The differences
between two pictures
"Jerusalem - Road to the Station." The road starts at the Jaffa Gate
and passes over the Hinom Valley and Sultan's Pool (Chatham
University Archives, circa 1895)
We recently published incredible hand-colored slides from Chatham University.
The adjacent picture, although scratched and dark, is a beautiful landscape scene of the area between the Jerusalem train station and Jaffa Gate.
Below it is a slide of the same picture from the Library of Congress' mint collection of pictures from the Holy Land. The initials P.Z. on the bottom left of the picture indicates that it was produced by at the Photochrom and Photoglob company in Zurich in the mid-1890s. According to the Library of Congress, photochrom prints are "ink-based images produced through the direct photographic transfer of an original negative on litho and chromographic printing plates.
Several hand-colored pictures have appeared in www.israeldailypicture.com in the last two years. We will publish a feature on the Library of Congress' photochrome collection in the near future.Road to Jerusalem station (Library of Congress collection) 0Add a comment
- The digitizing of vintage photographs continues in archives and libraries around the world. Last year the New York Public Library digitized its photographic collections and posted them online. The photos in the Library's Dorot Jewish Division include hundreds of 19th Century pictures of Jerusalem and Palestine.
Below we post several of the pictures taken in the first years of photography by pioneers such as Félix Bonfils and Auguste Salzmann. The images were captured by their early cameras while the region was under Turkish role, and years before World War I, the emergence of the Arab nationalist movement, Theodore Herzl's Zionist movement, and the creation of the State of Israel.
Rare picture of Jews at the Western Wall, with signature of Félix Bonfils (NYPL Digital Gallery,1894). Most early
photos of this area were taken at ground level and did not show the tiny area where Jews were permitted to pray
Inside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. Other collections possess this photograph, but few are of similar
quality and clarity. (NYPL Digital Gallery, circa 1870).
Another view of the inside of Jaffa Gate by Auguste Salzmann
(NYPL Digital Gallery, 1856)
Damascus Gate by Auguste Salzmann (NYPL Digital Gallery, 1856)
Zion Gate, also known as David's Gate,
by Salzmann (NYPL Digital Gallery, 1856)
Lions Gate, also known as St. Stephens Gate,
by Salzmann (NYPL Digital Gallery, 1856)
Jews praying at the Western Wall by Robertson, Beato & Co. (NYPL Digital Gallery, 1857)
Click on photographs to enlarge. Click on the captions to view the original pictures.
Responsible Archivists Preserve Their Photographic Treasures0Add a comment
- DEC2
More Amazing Photos by Shlomo and Sonia Narinsky -- Jewish Photographers Exiled by the Turks, Swept Up by the Nazis
"A Vernomito (Yemenite) Jew in Jerusalem"
(Library of Congress, 1921) See also "A
Spanish Jew of Jerusalem"
"A Bedouin in his happy mood,"
(Library of Congress, 1921)
A rabbi and his grandson (Ynet News)
We first introduced our readers to the Narinskys' photographs in July 2013.
Last week we were contacted by Laurent Phillippe who introduced us to his Jewish post card blog which contains more photos taken by the Narinsky's. We're happy to present them here and to encourage readers to visit Phillippe's site.
To recap, Shlomo Narinsky was born in the Ukraine in 1885 and 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.
Jewish woman (Phillippe collection, 1921)
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-Zvi. The Narinskys returned to Israel, eventually moving to Haifa where Shlomo taught as a photography teacher. He died in 1960, relatively unknown.
Laurent Phillippe's collection also includes many vintage postcards/photographs of Jewish life a century ago in North Africa and Europe.
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Jewish village of Yavniel established in the Galilee in 1901 (Phillippe collection, 1921) 
Beneath Mt.Tabor in the Galilee (Phillippe collection, 1921)
Monday, August 10, 2015
A Reader Shares Her Knowledge of Hansen's Hospital (for "Lepers") in Jerusalem
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