- The first film made in the Holy Land (1897)
This site generally focuses on the 22,000 still photos taken a century ago by photography pioneers, particularly the American Colony Photography Department in Jerusalem, and archived in the Library of Congress.
But in our research we also uncovered and published some of the earliest films taken in Palestine under Turkish and British rule. We now present them all in one place and encourage readers to forward other early films they may have uncovered.
1897 -- The first film (above) was made in 1897 by the Frenchmen Auguste Lumière and Louis Lumière. It shows a train leaving the Jerusalem train station. More information can be found here in an earlier posting.
[Do not adjust the sound on your computer; this is a silent movie.]
1913 -- This incredible hour-long 1913 film was lost for decades and recently found. It was prepared for the 11th Zionist Congress which met in Vienna in August 1913. Four months earlier, in April, a film crew left Odessa by ship to prepare a film on the Life of the Jews of Palestine that would be shown at the Congress. The producer, Noah Sokolovsky, spent two months filming the cities, holy sites, and agricultural communities of Eretz Yisrael.
In 1997 the original film negative was found in France. The film is narrated in Hebrew by Israeli actor and singer Yoram Gaon. More information was posted here last year.
If readers know of a version with an English narration or subtitles please let us know.
1917 -- This rare film from the http://youtu.be/zw-d07p_FTw Yaakov Gross collection commemorates the entry into Jerusalem of General Edmund Allenby, commander of the British war effort in Palestine against the Turks and Germans. The clip includes Allenby talking to T. E. Lawrence ("of Arabia) and Rabbi Jacob Meir, chief rabbi of the Sephardi community.
Allenby and Rabbi Meir
The film shows Allenby meeting with senior officers outside of the Jaffa Gate, including the Turkish commander of the Jerusalem police force who remained in the city to maintain order. Allenby made a point of walking into the Old City, and not riding, in deference to the city's holiness.
View additional photos of Allenby's entrance into Jerusalem here.
1918 -- This film clip was discovered in an Amsterdam Jewish family's collection and it represents clips of Jerusalem scenes. It is believed to have been taken in 1918, after the British captured Jerusalem from the Turks.
For more information, view this posting.
1921 -- A historic meeting was held in Jerusalem between local leaders and the British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel and the Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill. This film clip shows Rabbi Joseph Chaim Sonnenfeld, leader of the ultra-Orthodox community, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, chief rabbi of Palestine, and Rabbi Jacob Meir, chief rabbi of the Sephardi community taking their leave from the British officials. To the left of the doorway stands Emir Abdullah of Transjordan. Note the faint recognition between Kook and Abdullah. Later, Sonnenfeld met Abdullah in Amman.
See more on this historic meeting here.
1925 -- French banker Albert (Abraham) Kahn commissioned photographers to take tens of thousands of pictures around the globe, including the British Mandate of Palestine. The film clip below was done for Kahn by Jerusalem photographer Camille Sauvageot. The film below shows the Old City's gates, Jewish prayer at the Western Wall, Christian processions on Good Friday, and Muslims on the Temple Mount.
More details on Kahn and his film can be found here.
Special credit goes to Israeli film collector and archivist Yaakov Gross. Visit his wonderful collection of films here. - NOV1
The Balfour Declaration Was Issued 95 Years Ago -- In 1925 Balfour Arrived to See the Jewish State in Formation --Updated from last year's posting
The government of Great Britain issued the Balfour Declaration 95 years ago this week, on November 2, 1917. The document in effect served as the birth certificate for a Jewish national home.
Balfour's reception in Tel Aviv (April 1925) British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour's declaration was in the form of a letter to a leader of the British Jewish community. It stated:His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. 
Balfour speaking at the founding of Hebrew University.
Behind him sit Chaim Weizmann and Chief
Rabbi Avraham Kook
The British Army had just captured Be’er Sheva (October 31) after months of trying to break through the Ottoman army’s Gaza-Be’er Sheva defense line. The British goal was to push north and capture Jerusalem by Christmas.In April 1925, Lord Balfour arrived in Palestine to lay the cornerstone for Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus. He was received as a hero in Tel Aviv and Rishon LeZion.
Balfour about to lay the Hebrew
University cornerstone
The three British giants of Palestine attending the 1925
opening of Hebrew University, from left to right: Lord Allenby
(commander of British forces in Palestine 1917),
Lord Balfour, and Sir Herbert Samuel, first British High
Commissioner of the Mandate
Balfour visiting "Jewish Colony" 1925 
Balfour welcomed by the Rishon LeZion Jewish
community and here
In the Arab community his visit was marked with black flags and a commercial strike.
Arab commercial strike
in reaction to Balfour's visit
(1925)
Black flags flying on Arab house
Would the State of Israel have come into being without the Balfour Declaration in 1917? Perhaps. The Jews' return to Zion was well under way -- well before the Holocaust. The building of an infrastructure for a state had begun.
But, the Balfour Declaration laid the legal and political foundation for the state's acceptance by the world community, as explained by writer Michael Freund in the Jerusalem Post:When the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, approved the Mandate for Palestine in July 1922, it formally incorporated the Balfour Declaration. In the preamble, it stated that, "the Principal Allied Powers have also agreed that the Mandatory should be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on November 2nd, 1917, by the Government of His Britannic Majesty, and adopted by the said Powers, in favor of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." The Mandate, which was approved by more than 50 member nations, also noted "the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine."
Unfortunately, some of the pictures presented here were already in stages of disintegration when they were digitalized by the Library of Congress. They are presented without cropping the damaged sections.0Add a comment
The Library of Congress archives houses 22,000 pictures of Jerusalem and the Holy Land taken by the American Colony photographers between the 1890s and 1946.
Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem (credit: George Eastman House)
But, we recently discovered more of the American Colony photographs in the George Eastman House collection. We were particularly impressed with a collection of "transparencies ... with applied color." What we call today "slides" were shown with a lantern. The color was painted in.
Why might the picture look strange to viewers of this blog? Because we recently published the picture in black-and-white in a feature on Jewish shopkeepers in the Old City, but that picture was not reversed as this color one is.
Jaffa Gate The Library of Congress dates this picture
between 1898 and 1946. Based on the carriages outside the
gate, the photo was probably taken before the breaching
of the Jaffa Gate in 1898 and creation of a road.
The American Colony's Elijah Meyers was a photographer
prior to the creation of the Colony's photographic
department in 1898 and he may have taken this picture.
Look at the shop adjacent to the gate in
the accompanying enlargement.Enlargement: The shop is a millinery store selling hats. The men
inside and outside are Jewish merchants or customers. The
signs show hat models and a store name in Hebrew.2View comments
- OCT28
Jerusalem Commemorates the Visit of the German Emperor 114 Years Ago An Exhibit on the Visit Opens Tomorrow in the Tower of David Museum
The Kaiser Arrives, and the Rabbis Turn Out. How Jerusalem's Jews Greeted the German Emperor in 1898
The welcome arch constructed by Jerusalem's Jews in honor
of the German Emperor Wilhelm II
The Tower of David Museum in Jerusalem opens an exhibit tomorrow on the German Emperor's visit to the Holy Land 114 years ago. In honor of the exhibit, we reproduce here a posting from last year
The German Emperor's visit to Jerusalem on October 29, 1898 was a major historic event, reflecting the geopolitical competition between the German Empire, Russia, France and the British Empire. Emperor Wilhelm II and his wife were received with open arms by the Ottomans collapsing under the weight of centuries of corruption and still reeling from the aftermath of the costly Crimean War of the 1850s.
Wilhelm II and Augusta Viktoria
Preparations were undertaken throughout Turkish-controlled Palestine: roads were paved, waterworks installed, electrical and telegraph lines laid, and sanitation measures -- seen today as basic -- were implemented. The Turks even breached the Old City walls near Jaffa Gate to construct a road for the Emperor's carriages.
Interior of the arch. Note the curtains hanging.
The visit was photographed extensively by the American Colony photographers. The popularity of the Emperor's pictures led to the establishment of the Colony's photographic enterprise and eventually the 22,000 pictures that were donated to the Library of Congress.
The Jews of Jerusalem were caught up in the excitement. Some of the Jews with ties to Europe were actually under the Emperor's protection. Others expected to benefit from the Emperor's largess. And still others wanted the opportunity to recite a rarely said blessing upon seeing a king, according to David Yellin, a Jerusalem intellectual who described the visit in his diary.
Sephardi Chief Rabbi,
Yaakov Shaul Elissar
The Jewish community constructed a large and richly adorned welcome arch to receive the Emperor. The arch was located on Jaffa Road (near today's Clal Building) and bore the Hebrew and German title, "Welcome in the name of the Lord."
The Library of Congress collection offers viewers the ability to enlarge the photos, and once enlarged, the details under the arch are amazing. The chief rabbis of the time are easily recognizable, the arch is decorated along the top by Torah crowns, and it is clear that the arch is lined by the curtains from Torah arks, parochot.
Torah crowns and breastplate
on top of the arch
Click on a picture to enlarge it.
Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem,
Shmuel Salant
Click on a caption to view the original picture.
The enlargements show that one curtain came from the Istanbuli synagogue in the Old City, another was donated by the Bukhari community, and a third belonged to Avraham Shlomo Zalman Hatzoref, a student of the Gaon of Vilna and a builder of Jerusalem who arrived in Eretz Yisrael exactly 200 years ago. We can deduce that the thirdparochet came from the Hurva synagogue which Hatzoref helped to fund (actually arranged for the cancellation of the Ashkenazi community's large debt to local Arabs). For his efforts he was killed by the Arabs in 1851. Hatzoref is recognized by the State of Israel as the first victim of modern Arab terrorism.
Curtain from the
Istanbuli synagogue
Curtain from the Bukhari community
The curtain lists several names besides Hatzoref. Their names are followed by the Hebrew initials Z'L -- of blessed memory. The fact that Hatzoref's name is not followed by Z'L suggests that the curtain was made prior to his death in 1851.According to the New York Times account of the visit, two Torah scrolls were also on display in the Jewish arch, but they are not visible in the photographs.
Photo montage of Herzl
and the Emperor at
Mikveh Yisrael school
Two individuals who should have been under the arch were not there. The first was Theodore Herzl who came to Palestine in order to meet with the Emperor and encourage him to express his support for a Jewish homeland to his Turkish allies. Yellin reported that Herzl was not invited by the local Jewish leadership, some of whom were opposed to the Zionist movement on religious grounds. Others were fearful that Herzl's message would anger the Turkish government. Herzl met the Emperor later at his compound on November 2 and at the Mikveh Yisrael agricultural school.
Hatzoref's parochet, suggesting it came
from the Hurva Synagogue
Also absent was the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, Rabbi Chaim Yosef Zonnenfeld. According to some accounts, Zonnenfeld believed that the German nation was the embodiment of Israel's Biblical arch-enemy Amalek, and he ruled that no blessing should be recited upon seeing an Amalekite king.
Another astonishing element of the picture is the finery worn by the Orthodox Jews lining the streets, including silk caftans and fur shtreimels. Did they dress up for the German Emperor?
Ultra-Orthodox Jews in their Sabbath finery, standing along the
Emperor's parade route
Actually no, this is how they dressed on Shabbat.
Yes, the German Emperor arrived on Saturday, and the Jewish community turned out for him and displayed their synagogue treasures in his honor.
View other postings and pictures related to the German Emperor's visit to Palestine in 1898.
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- OCT25
Here's the Proof -- The American Colony Photographers Focused on Agricultural Prohibitions Found in the Bible
Editor's note, Oct 30: upon reviewing the files in the Eastman collection, we would like to raise the possibility that the word "illeg." on the file could also be a shorthand for "illegible."
Original caption: "Threshing, Floor (illeg.)"
(Credit: George Eastman House, circa 1900)
Earlier this year we posted this feature on agriculture in the Holy Land 100 years ago. We wondered why the photographs seemed to focus on Arab agriculture in Palestine, and we presented a theory that they were documenting Biblical prohibitions and violations.
We recently found this American Colony picture (top right) in the George Eastman House collection. Its caption notes the "illeg." nature of muzzling animals during threshing. The theory is no longer theoretical.
The American Colony photographers were religious Christians and probably knew the Bible from beginning to end.
"Thou shall not plow with an ox and an ass together."
לא תַחֲרֹשׁ בְּשׁוֹר וּבַחֲמֹר יַחְדָּו
Deuteronomy 20 (photocrome, circa 1890)Some of their pictures reflected religious themes, such as women working in the field in the tradition of Ruth, or young shepherds near Bethlehem.
They also focused on one area of Biblical prohibitions -- the care of farm animals. Many pictures portray mismatched animals pulling a plow, and one picture shows a muzzled cow threshing wheat.
Plowing with a cow and a camel (circa 1900) 
"Thou shall not muzzle an ox in its threshing"
לֹא תַחְסֹם שׁוֹר בְּדִישׁוֹ
Deuteronomy 25 (circa 1900)
Plowing with a cow and and an ass
(circa 1900) See also here
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
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- OCT24
Rachel's Tomb -- We Present a Special Album of Pictures to Commemorate the Death of the Matriarch Rachel about 3,600 Years Ago
Expanded version of a November 2011 posting. Updated with newly found pictures.
At least 100,000 Jews -- mostly women -- are expected to visitRachel's Tomb later this week. The burial site, located between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, has been venerated by Jews for centuries.
"And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Efrat, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day." Genesis 35:19-20
Saturday, the 11th of Cheshvan in the Hebrew calendar, is traditionally observed as Rachel's yahrzeit -- anniversary of her death some 3,600 years ago. Rachel's husband Jacob buried her on the side of the road, and according to the prophet Jeremiah, Rachel later wept as "her children" were exiled from the land of Israel. Rachel is considered a special figure for prayers and entreaties.
"30 men ('3 minyans') from a Jerusalem old age home praying for
the well-being of friends and donors and other brethren from the
House of Israel in the Diaspora next to the gravestone of Mother
Rachel of blessed memory." (Stephanie Comfort -- Jewish
Postcard Collection)
In 1622 the Ottoman governor of Jerusalem permitted Jews to build walls and a dome over the grave. [For historical background on Rachel's grave see Nadav Shragai.]
Rachel's Tomb (circa 1890-1900) (Credit: Library of Congress,
Detroit Publishing Co. photochrom color)
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
All photos are from the American Colony collection in the Library of Congress unless otherwise credited.
Visitors to Rachel's Tomb (circa 1910). Note the carriages in
the background and Jewish pilgrims under the tree (see
enlargement below). (Oregon State University collection)
For several hundred years a local Bedouin tribe, the Ta'amra, and local Arabs demanded protection money from Jews going to Rachel's grave. In the 18th and 19th century the Arabs built a cemetery around three sides of the shrine in the belief that the proximity of the deceased to the grave of a holy person -- even a Jew -- would bestow blessings on the deceased in the world to come. Muslims even prepared bodies for burial at Rachel's grave.
In the 1830s, Jews received a firman [decree] from Ottoman authorities recognizing the Jewish character of the site and ordering a stop to the abuse of Jews there. In 1841, Sir Moses Montefiore secured permission from the Ottoman authority to build an anteroom for Jewish worshippers. During the 1929 Muslim attacks on the Jews of Palestine, the Muslim religious council, the Waqf, demanded the site.
Jewish pilgrim
in picture aboveFor 19 years of Jordanian rule on the West Bank (1948-1967), Rachel's Tomb was off limits to Jews. After the 1967 war, Israel reclaimed control of the site. In 1996 and during the Palestinian intifada in 2000-2001 Rachel's Tomb was the target of numerous attacks. The Israeli army built walls to protect worshippers and their access to the site.
Rachel's Tomb 1895 
Rachel's Tomb 1898 
Rachel's tomb (circa late 19th century) by Adrien Bonfils,
son of pioneer photographer Félix Bonfils (Credit:
George Eastman House collection) See also here
Rachel's Tomb (1891) (credit: New
Boston Fine and Rare Books)
Students from Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Jerusalem praying inside
Rachel's Tomb (Circa early 20th Century)
(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
Rachel's Tomb (1908) (Credit: Omaha
Public Library)
Students from the Gymnasia visiting Rachel's Tomb. Presumably, the school is
the Gymnasia HaIvrit Herzliya, the first Hebrew high school in Palestine, founded
in 1905. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons, circa early 20th Century)
Aerial photograph of Rachel's Tomb (1931) 
British (Scot) soldiers stopping Arab in
weapons search, Rachel's Tomb 1936In October 2010, UNESCO declared that the holy site was also the Bilal bin Rabah mosque and objected to Israeli "unilateral actions" at the shrine. Bilal bin Rabah was Mohammed's Ethiopian slave and muzzein who died and was buried in Damascus. The claim that the site was a mosque was first made in 1996.
2View comments
- OCT22
Picture of al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem also Shows Grandeur of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue -- Destroyed in 1948
The Library of Congress archives lists this picture as "al-Aqsa," taken by the American Colony photographers sometime between 1898 and 1946.
Al-Aqsa colonnade and a structure on
the right
To be more exact it is the "Colonnade of Omar" located between the al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of Rock, and it was probably taken in the early 1930s when the American Colony photographers focused their lenses on the rebuilding of the al-Aqsa after its partial destruction in the 1927 earthquake.
But we noticed something else in the picture, the prominent building on the hill to the right of the colonnade.The building is the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, also known as the Nissan Beck Synagogue, named for its founder. A Hassidic synagogue in the Old City, it was located near the equally prominent Hurva Synagogue founded by students of the Vilna Gaon who differed with the Hassidic movement on many issues.
Enlargement of the Tiferet Yisrael synagogue
(circa 1930)
Two domes -- The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue (left) and
the Hurva Synagogue (1900)
The same picture colorized. (George Eastman collection) 
"View of the Old City from the Temple Mount
with the Jewish Quarter in distance." Note the
two synagogue domes (circa 1900)
The synagogues' size, architectural prominence and commanding view were not popular among Muslims in the Old City; even the color of domes was reportedly a target of complaints.
With the outbreak of the 1948 war, the synagogues were used as refuge for the Jewish residents of the Old City as well as military positions for the Jewish defenders. When the Jewish Quarter surrendered to the Jordanian Legion the two synagogues were blown up. The Jewish Quarter and its religious institutions were razed.
British (Scot) soldier guarding the Jewish Quarter
and the Tiferet Yisrael synagogue in 1948,
prior to the end of the British Mandate.
(Source: Life Magazine archives)
The destroyed Tiferet Yisrael synagogue and a Jordanian
soldier. (Source: Wikipedia, 1948)
After the Israel Defense Forces captured the Old City in 1967, the Jewish Quarter and the Hurva synagogue were rebuilt. The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue has yet to be rebuilt.
For more information on the Old City synagogues, click here and here for earlier photo essays.
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on the link below the picture to view the original.
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- OCT19
A Cave under the Temple Mount's Foundation Stone? More Mysteries Documented in Ancient Pictures
For centuries, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem has been the focus of worshippers, scholars and explorers.
Descent under the "great rock" on Mt. Moriah (under the Dome of the Rock).
Woodcut in explorer Col Charles Wilson's book, Picturesque Palestine, Sinai
and Egypt. (1881, New York Public Library)
But few archaeologists have explored history's secrets hidden in the caves, tunnels and cisterns beneath the Hiram el-Sharif -- controlled by the MuslimWaqf.
The Israel Daily Picture site provided last week photos from the Library of Congress archives taken after a 1927 earthquake destroyed parts of the el-Aqsa mosque.
Interior of Mosque of Omar (Dome of the Rock) and the
Foundation Stone. (circa 1870, Bonfils, Library of Congress)
See also photo from American Colony Collection (circa 1900).
According to Jewish tradition the stone was the site for Abraham's
"binding of Isaac" and the location of the Temples' Holy of Holies.
Muslims believe it was from where Muhammad ascended to heaven.We were very curious when we discovered additional photos in the American Colony and Felix Bonfils collections showing the entrance to a cave beneath the "foundation stone" (even hashtiya in Jewish tradition) on which the Jewish Temples and the Mosque of Omar* were built.
The Temple Institute in Jerusalem provided details on the cave:
Beneath the rock is a hewn cave [some claim the cave is natural] seven-by-seven meters wide. In the cave's ceiling is a hole approximately half-a-meter in diameter, a sort of chimney going up.
Entrance to the staircase to the cave beneath the Foundation
Stone (Bonfils, circa 1870). See also American Colony photo
"Solomon's Prayer Place" can be
seen in the above woodcut to
the left of the staircaseA feature inNational Geographic suggested that the beneath the cave may be another chamber hiding the Ark of the Covenant: "Knocking on the floor of the cave under the Muslim Dome of the Rock shrine elicits a resounding hollow echo, [but] no one has ever seen this alleged chamber....Famed 19th-century British explorers Charles Wilson and Sir Charles Warren could neither prove nor disprove the existence of a hollow chamber below the cave. They believed the sound reportedly heard by visitors was simply an echo in a small fissure beneath the floor."
The cave under the Foundation Stone today (with permission
of Ron Peled, All About Jerusalem)The American Colony photos include a picture taken in the cave captioned "Solomon's prayer place under rock of Mosque of Omar [i.e., Dome of the Rock]." The prayer niche is more likely an ancient Muslim Mihrabpointing to Mecca.
*According to National Geographic, "the dome, called Qubbat as-Sakhrah in Arabic, is not a mosque. Rather, it is a shrine built over the rock."2View comments
This summer the Yisrael HaYom newspaper reported on archaeological artifacts found by a British scholar after part of the el-Aqsa mosque collapsed in the 1927 earthquake that struck Palestine. Reporter Nadav Shragai revealed that items from the period of the Second Jewish Temple were found but that their publication was suppressed.
"Hulda Gates" on the southern side of Jerusalem's Old City. The picture
shows the sealed "Triple Gate" (circa 1900)
"Robert Hamilton, the director of the antiquities department during the Mandatory period in pre-state Israel, reach[ed] an agreement with the [Islamic] waqf that would allow archaeological investigation on the Temple Mount, for the first time ever, in the area where the mosque had collapsed."
"In the book that Hamilton later published, he makes no mention of any findings that the Muslims would have found inconvenient. It was no coincidence that these findings came from two historical periods that preceded the Muslim period in Jerusalem: the Second Temple era and the Byzantine era."
Remnant of the sealed "Double Gate" of
"Hulda Gates." Above the gate's lintel are
stones from Hadrian's temple to Jupiter,
destroyed by Constantine in 400 CE and
re-used by the Arabs to build al-Aqsa.
One stone is an inscription stone honoring
Hadrian who crushed the Bar-Kochba
revolt in 135 CE and plowed over the
Temple Mount"Beneath the floor of Al-Aqsa mosque, which had collapsed in the earthquake, Hamilton discovered the remains of a Jewish mikveh [ritual pool used for purification] that dated back to the Second Temple era. Apparently, Jews immersed in this mikveh before entering the Temple grounds."Now we can understand other pictures in the Library of Congress collectionThe collection includes two inexplicable pictures dated between 1920 and 1933 entitled "Ancient entrance to Temple beneath el-Aksa." The pictures were taken on the other side of the Hulda Gates, one of the major entrances to the Temple by pilgrims coming from the vast Shiloah (Silwan) pool. According to the Mishna, the gates were used for entering and exiting the Temple complex.Clearly, the American Colony photographers entered the sacred area, like Hamilton, after the earthquake destroyed parts of the mosque in 1927 to take these rare photos. Otherwise, the area would have been off-limits.
Original caption: "The Temple area. The Double Gate.
Ancient entrance to Temple beneath el Aqsa." Note the
staircase that apparently led to the surface and the
Temple plaza.
Original caption: "The Temple area. The Double Gate.
Ancient entrance showing details of carving."
The Hulda Gates date back to King Herod's Second Temple period, perhaps even to Hasmonean times. According to some commentaries, "Hulda" was a prophetess during the First Temple who apparently prophesized around the area where the gates were built (See Kings II, 22:14).
The Library of Congess collection also includes several pictures showing the extent of the damage to the al-Aqsa mosque in the earthquake.
Al Aqsa Mosque, partly under repair after the earthquake 
Al Aqsa Mosque without roof, "open to wind
and weather" (circa 1934)3View comments
- OCT2
Young Jewish Men and Women Are "Recruited" in 1939 in Response to British Restrictions on Immigration to Palestine
The British "White Paper" approved by the House of Commons on May 23, 1939 severely restricted Jewish immigration into Eretz Yisraelprecisely when the Jews of Europe were under threat of annihilation by the Nazis. The British were reacting to three years of the Arab Revolt which demanded an end to Jewish immigration.
Young women outside of a "recruiting office" during the 1939
protests against the White Paper. The women on the right are
identified as "revisionists" or "brownshirts."
One year ago we featured an essay and photographs taken by the American Colony Photographic Department of the thousands of Jews who poured out into the Jerusalem streets to protest the British policy. Similar demonstrations took place in Tel Aviv and Haifa.
Anti-White Paper demonstration outside
of Jerusalem's Yeshurun Synagogue.
Procession led by Chief Rabbi Isaac
Herzog (in top hat).
Recruits signing up and here
Along the route of the demonstrations, "census stations" were set up to recruit young Jewish men and women, and the Library of Congress collection contains pictures of the recruitment campaign.According to one newspaper account at the time, "All men and women between the ages of 18 and 35 have been asked to voluntarily register and place themselves at the disposal of the Jewish authorities for any duties in order to defeat the new policy."
Recruiting station at the Jerusalem Egged bus station. The sign on
the left reads "census station."
Presumably, they would later serve in the Jewish militias such as the Haganah or Irgun, and many would join the British army to fight the Nazis in Europe and North Africa. An estimated 30,000 Jews of Palestine fought in the British Army in World War II.
Coincidentally, as the White Paper was issued, 937 Jewish passengers were sailing on the SS St. Louis from the German port of Hamburg seeking refuge in Cuba and the United States. Entry was denied. The ship and its passengers were forced to return to Europe because the gates to Palestine were also shut.
One newspaper provided an account of Lithuanian Jews in Kaunas delivering a protest against the White Paper to the British legation and the Lithuanian Foreign Ministry. Tragically, the Lithuanian Jewish community was wiped out by the Nazis.1View comments
- SEP30
How a Family Celebrated Sukkot in Samarkand in 1870; Is This the Same Family in Jerusalem in 1900?
Israel Daily Picture usually focuses on the Library of Congress' American Colony collection of 22,000 photos. But while exploring the Library's archives we came across an amazing collection of pictures of the Bukhari Jewish community of Samarkand in 1870.
Jews sitting in their Samarkand Sukka (circa 1870) 
Another view of the Sukka with the side walls closed (1870)
View more pictures and a history of the Samarkand Jews here.
Members of the community began moving to Eretz Yisrael, the Holy Land, in the mid-1800. They established a new neighborhood outside of Jerusalem's Old City walls.
View pictures of the Bukhari Quarter here.
The American Colony photographers recorded how various Jewish communities celebrated Sukkot in Jerusalem in the early 1900s with pictures of Yemenite, Ashkenazi and Bukhari sukkot booths.
Bukharan family in their Jerusalem sukka (circa 1900). Note
the man on the right holding the citron and palm branch
View the collection of Jerusalem celebrations of Sukkot here.
Is it possible that the family photographed in Samarkand in 1870 may be the same family photographed in Jerusalem in 1900?
Bukharan family in their Jerusalem Sukka
Click on a picture to enlarge.
Click on the caption to view the original photo.0Add a comment
- SEP20
Yom Kippur 100 Years Ago -- Or More: Photographic Treasures from the Library of Congress from Jerusalem, New York and a French Battlefield
Jews at the Kotel on Yom Kippur (circa 1904) See analysis of
the graffiti on the wall for dating this picture. The graffiti on
the Wall are memorial notices (not as one reader suggested
applied to the photo later).Next week Jews around the world will commemorate Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. For many Jews in the Land of Israel over the centuries the day meant praying at the Western Wall, the remnant of King Herod's retaining wall of the Temple complex destroyed in 70 AD.
We present here an update to last year's Yom Kippur posting.Several readers commented on the intermingling of men and women in these historic pictures.It was not by choice.The Turkish and British rulers of Jerusalem imposed restrictions on the Jewish worshippers, prohibiting chairs, forbidding screens to divide the men and women, and even banning the blowing of the shofar at the end of the Yom Kippur service.View this video, Echoes of a Shofar, to see the story of young men who defied British authorities between 1930 and 1947 and blew the shofar at the Kotel.
Another view of the Western Wall on Yom Kippur. Note the
various groups of worshippers: The Ashkenazic Hassidim wearing
the fur shtreimel hats in the foreground, the Sephardic Jews
wearing the fezzes in the center, and the women in the back
wearing white shawls. (circa 1904)For the 19 years that Jordan administered the Old City, 1948-1967, no Jews were permitted to pray at the Kotel. The Library of Congress collection contains many pictures of Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall over the last 150 years.
After the 1967 war, the Western Wall plaza was enlarged and large areas of King Herod's wall have been exposed. Archaeologists have also uncovered major subterranean tunnels -- hundreds of meters long -- that are now open to visitors to Jerusalem.Receive a Daily Picture by subscribing in the right sidebar and clicking "submit."Click on the photos to enlarge.Click on the captions to see the originals.Photos of Yom Kippur in New York 105 Years AgoThe Library of Congress Archives also contain historic photos of Jewish celebration of the High Holidays in New York. Some of them were posted here before Rosh Hashanna. Here are two more:
Original caption: Men and boys standing in
front of synagogue on Yom Kippur (Bain
News Service, circa 1907)
Worshippers in front of synagogue (Bain
News Service, 1907)
And a Picture of Jews in the Prussian Army Worshipping on Yom Kippur 140 Years Ago
We were a little surprised to find this picture of a lithograph in the Library of Congress archives. The caption reads, "Service on the Day of Atonement by the Israelite soldiers of the Army before Metz 1870." No other information is provided.Kestenbaum & Company, an auctioneer in Judaica, describes the lithograph in their catalogue:This lithograph depicts the Kol Nidre service performed on Yom Kippur 1870 for Jewish soldiers in the Prussian army stationed near Metz (Alsace region) during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, a scholar and Reform Jewish leader who passed away at age 99 earlier this year, provided more facts about the picture. In fact, he called it a "fraud."
The Germans had occupied Metz by August of 1870, however were unable to capture the town's formidable fortress, where the remaining French troops had sought refuge. During the siege, Yom Kippur was marked while hostilities still continued, as depicted in the lithograph.In Eight Decades: The Selected Writings of W. Gunther Plaut. In a chapter entitled "The Yom Kippur that Never Was, A Pious Pictoral Fraud" he wrote:Of all the things in my grandfather's house, I remember most vividly a large print. It was entitled "Service on the Day of Atonement by the Israelite soldiers before Metz 1870." Later I was to learn that this print hung in many Jewish homes.... It was reproduced on postcards, on cloth, and on silk scarves. The basic theme was the same: in an open field before Metz, hundreds of Jewish soldiers were shown at prayer.
Rabbi Plaut cites a participant in the service who reported:
A considerable difficulty arose in relation to the place for the services. Open air services were deemed impossible for Tuesday night because of the darkness and were ruled out for Wednesday because of the obvious reasons [it was a battlefield].... My immediate neighbour was willing to grant me the use of his room so that the service took place in our two adjoining rooms.
Another participant in the unusual Yom Kippur service reported, according to Plaut:Of the 71 Jewish soldiers in the Corps some 60 had appeared. Amongst them were several physicians, a few members of the military government, all of them joyously moved to celebrate Yom Kippur. The place of prayer consisted of two small rooms.
2View comments
- SEP13
Beneath the Old City of Jerusalem Lies a Huge Cave. Does It Date Back To King Solomon or King Zedekiah?
Beneath the Old City of Jerusalem, not far from the Damascus Gate, is the entrance to an enormous cavern, one of the largest man-made caves in Israel. The American Colony photographers visited the cavern 100 years ago.
Five men in "Solomon's Quarry," circa 1910. Another picture
of the group can be found here
From the cave's entrance to the end is 300 meters; its width is 100 meters, and its height in some parts is 15 meters tall. The total size is estimated to be five acres.
And the cavern, which was used to quarry limestone blocks, dates back 3,000 years.
Solomon's Quarry tourists (circa 1910)
According to legend, King Solomon may have taken blocks from the cave to build the First Temple (circa 950 BCE). While archaeologists are sceptical, there is little doubt that King Herod (circa 50 BCE) quarried stone for building his massive expansion of the Second Temple, including what we call today the Western Wall.
"Hanging pillar" in Solomon's
Quarry (circa 1910)
Another legend claims that King Zedekiah of Judah (circa 586 BCE) fled from the Babylonian conquerors through the cave. Talmudic literature dating back to the 2nd - 3rd century CE refers to Zedekiah's Cave.
The quarry was used throughout the Middle Ages, but it was sealed in the 16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent to prevent enemy infiltration under the Old City.
Open & Shut, Open & Shut...
The cave remained sealed and undiscovered until 1854 when, according to another legend, missionary Dr. J. T. Barclay was walking his dog outside of Damascus Gate. The dog ran down a hole that had been opened after heavy rains. Barclay followed him in and discovered the massive cavern.
In the 1880s a German cult took over the cave until they were removed by Turkish authorities. In 1893 the Turks sealed the entrance once again.
Entrance to Solomon's Quarry
(circa 1900)To secure stones for a clock tower the Turks were building at Jaffa Gate they reopened the quarry in 1907. Presumably, the American Colony photos are from that period because the cave was sealed again in 1914 during World War I. 
Ad: "Entrance to Zedekiah's Cave
From now residents of Jerusalem will
pay 3 grush per person. Groups of 10
pay 25 ..."An advertisement announcing tours and admission rates to the Cave appeared in a Hebrew paperHatzvi during this period, in April 1909.
During the British Mandate Zedekiah's Cave was reopened and actually converted to a bomb shelter during World War II. The cavern was closed again in 1948 by the Jordanian authorities because of its location along the Jordan-Israel armistice line.
The Quarry as a bomb shelter (1940s)
In 1967, after the reunification of Jerusalem, Israel reopened the cavern.
Read this excellent description of the cave written by Thomas Friedman when he was serving as The New York Times' Jerusalem bureau chief in 1985.3View comments
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"Blow the Shofar at the New Moon...Because It Is a Decree for Israel, a Judgment Day for the God of Jacob" - Psalms 81
Yemenite Jew blowing the shofar (circa 1935)
Jews around the world prepare for Rosh Hashanna next week, the festive New Year holiday when the shofar -- ram's horn -- is blown in synagogues.
The American Colony photographers recorded a dozen pictures of Jewish elders blowing the shofar in Jerusalem some 80 years ago. The horn was also blown in Jerusalem to announce the commencement of the Sabbath. During the month prior to Rosh Hashana, the shofar was blown at daily morning prayers to encourage piety before the High Holidays. 
Ashkenazi Jew blowing the shofar to announce the Sabbath 
Yemenite Rabbi Avram, donning tfillin for his
daily prayers, blowing the shofar
View the American Colony Photographers' collection of shofars in Jerusalem here.
Click on the pictures to enlarge.Click on captions to view the original picture.Receive Israel Daily Picture on your computer or iPhone by subscribing. Just enter your email in the box in the right sidebar of the Internet site www.israeldailypicture.com2View comments
85 years ago a powerful earthquake struck Eretz Yisrael. With its epicenter located in the northern Dead Sea area, the towns of Jericho, Jerusalem, Nablus (Shechem) and Tiberias were badly hit. An estimated 500 people were killed in those locations.
The earthquake of July 11, 1927. Partial collapse of mosque
and minaret on Mt. of Olives
Damage in the Augusta Victoria Hospital/
Church on Mt. of Olives. Stones from
the tower smashed through the roof below
Collapsed banks of the Jordan River, with trees in midstream Today, scientists believe the magnitude of the quake was 6.25.
Nablus (Shechem) "in a ruined state."
At the time there were several Jewish
households in the predominantly
Muslim town
We published here last year several pictures taken after the earthquake. View the pictures here.
"House in Nablus reduced to a shell" Subsequently, we uncovered more photos in the Library of Congress archives, and we present them here.In Israel today, scientists warn of another major quake, and civil defense information is posted in many public buildings andonline.Click on pictures to enlarge.Click on captions to view the original picture.Are you a subscriber to Israel Daily Pictures? Put your email address in the box in the right sidebar.1View comments
- SEP4
Special Rosh Hashanna feature: Treasures from the Library of Congress Archives -- Rosh Hashanna in New York 100 Years Ago
While this website focuses on historic pictures from the Land of Israel, we have also come across the Library of Congress Archives' photos of Jewish life in the United States.
Tashlich prayer on the Brooklyn Bridge, 1919.
The Near Year prayer is traditionally said at a body
of water where the worshipper "casts" his/her sins
In honor of the Jewish New Year, we offer a series of pictures of Rosh Hashanna 100 years ago in New York.
Tashlich (1909) and here
Click on pictures to enlarge.
Click on captions to see originals.
Lining up for shoe shines on the eve of Rosh Hashanna
(circa 1910)
Rosh Hashanna prayers (circa 1905)
and here
In front of a synagogue on Rosh Hashanna (circa 1910) 
Boy in prayer shawl (1911) 2View comments
Three Orthodox Jews walking past the "4th Station of the
Cross" on al Wad Street in the Muslim Quarter. The men
almost certainly entered the Old City from the
Damascus Gate (circa 1900)Several months ago we presented pictures of Jews walking through the Old City of Jerusalem 70-80 years ago in order to pray at the Western Wall on the Sabbath.Under Muslim-Turkish rule of Jerusalem, Jewish access to the Western Wall was often curtailed.
After Britain's capture of Jerusalem in 1917, Arab terrorists led by Haj Amin el Husseini frequently attacked Jews in the Old City. And in the period of the Jordanian occupation of the Old City (1948-1967) it was outright impossible to visit the retaining wall of the Second Temple.
After Israel's reunification of the city in 1967 and the rebuilding of the Jewish Quarter, Jews were able to take their traditional Sabbath walk to the Wall safely.
Orthodox men walking in the Old City shuk (circa 1935).
Note the bell tower of the Russian Orthodox Church of
Ascension on Mt. of Olives on the horizon under the arch
We present here additional historic pictures of Orthodox Jews walking in the Old City of Jerusalem, probably going to or returning from prayers at the Western Wall.
In these pictures, the men are wearing fur hats - shtreimels- traditionally worn on the Sabbath or on a Jewish holiday. In one picture a man hides his face because he doesn't want to be photographed on the Sabbath.
The stores are open which means they were walking through the Arabshuk. And the tower on the hill on the horizon is the 64-meter high bell tower adjacent to the Russian Orthodox Church of the Ascension on the Mt. of Olives. With the Mt. of Olives behind them, the men are walking toward the east and the Jaffa Gate.
Orthodox men walking in the Old City (circa 1935) 6View comments
Here is a series of pictures of a Colonel Coventry entering Jerusalem in 1916. "Coventry" would suggest an Englishman, but the year places his arrival in the middle of World War I, and Jerusalem was under Turkish control.
"Col. Coventry driving into Jerusalem from railroad station" 1916
The soldiers greeting him at the railroad station wore thekabalak helmets and kaffiyehs of the Turkish army.
"Col. Coventry and officers approaching the Jaffa Gate." The next picture shows Coventry and his officers in carriages heading up from the Hinnom Valley towards the Jaffa Gate.A third and fourth picture show men marching toward the Old City. They appear to be wearing British uniforms.
Research shows that the men were prisoners of war, captured by the Turks in an early battle in the Sinai close to the Suez Canal.
Troops marching toward Jaffa Gate at the same spot where the
officers were riding in carriages. They appear to be British.
The following is a report from the British General Headquarters, Egyptian Expeditionary Force, 1st June, 1916:
"On the 22nd April the Royal Flying Corps reported that new bodies of enemy troops were at Bir el Bayud [approaching the Suez Canal] Upon receipt of this information, General Wiggin obtained leave to attack the enemy at Mageibra that night. General Wiggin, with Lieut.-Colonel Coventry, accompanied the raid to Mageibra. In the meantime the post at Oghratina was attacked at 5.30a.m. The Officer Commanding at Oghratina reported that he was again heavily attacked on all sides. This attack carried the post, all the garrison of which were either killed, wounded, or captured. Qatia itself was attacked about 9.30 a.m. Lieutenant-Colonel Coventry was detached with one squadron from General Wiggin's Force to operate towards Qatia. Unfortunately, this squadron became involved in the unsuccessful resistance of the Qatia garrison, and, with the exception of some 60 men and one officer who were able to disengage themselves, fell with it into the hands of the enemy."
British POWs and Turkish soldiers marching toward the Old
City. The building on the left of the picture is the St. John's
Eye Hospital, today the Mt. Zion Hotel
The British soldiers, led by Lt. Col. Coventry, were taken by rail by the Turks to Jerusalem. Their fate afterwards is not known.3View comments
In January we presented a feature on Jewish money-changers in Jerusalem 75-80 years ago. The signs behind them showed that they provided full financial services including property sales and rentals, mortgages and stocks.
Woman customer at money-changer
Recently, we came across this picture, different from the previous ones for several reasons. First, it shows a woman customer. Second, a sign on the door advertises that the shop guarantees Egyptian bonds.
Jewish money changer (1930s)
Previous posting: For millennia the commerce of the world has had to deal with different currencies. The Bible refers to various coins, often a name referring to a specific weight. Every country, province, king or governor minted a local coin. Travelers had to exchange one currency for another to do business.
Jewish pilgrims to the Temples in Jerusalem had to convert their coins to local currency to pay for their sacrifices or lodgings. Agricultural tithes were converted to coins which were brought to Jerusalem. The Talmud refers to a money changer as a shulchani (literally a "person at the table").
Advertisment for rentals;
sales of homes, orchards,
and lots; mortgages, and
stocks
According to the New Testament, the money changers were driven from the Temple by Jesus. The allegedly unsavory character of money changers continued into the Middle Ages as seen by Shakespeare's depiction of Shylock.
Over the centuries, the Forex (foreign exchange) professionals also served as bankers and loan officers.
Jewish money changer (1930s)
When Jews were dispersed throughout Europe and Asia, the profession was an easily portable trade. Jewish ties between communities facilitated letters of credit. The Rothschild banking dynasty, for instance, begun in the 16th century, had family branches in Austria, Germany, France, Italy and England.
As recorded by the American Colony photographers, Jewish money changers set up their shulchan on the street.
Click on the pictures to enlarge. Click on the captions to view the original picture.2View comments
- AUG30
Another Mystery Picture: The Foreground and Background in This 1916 Picture Are Full of History
The Library of Congress archives provide little information on this pictureother than "Turkish officers of high rank visiting Jerusalem Parade" in 1917.
Photo from an album showing Turkish dignitaries leaving
the Old City on Saturday, February 26, 1916, heading
toward Jaffa Road
A private album from the American Colony whose photographers took the picture provides a little more information: "Driving out of the Damascus Gate." The picture was placed in the album amidst pictures of Enver Pasha, the Chief of Staff of the Ottoman army, who was visiting Jamal Pasha, the governor of Syria and Palestine. The two men were part of the ruling "Young Turks." Enlargement of the picture. Note the dozens of ultra-Orthodox
Jews in the foreground wearing fur shtreimels and black hats,
usually reserved for the Sabbath and festivals. Their wives may
be wearing the white kerchiefs, and fezzes were often worn
by Sephardi Jews[For more on the two Pashas see "Did a German General Prevent the Massacre of the Jews of Eretz Yisrael in World War I?"]
Enver Pasha visited Jerusalem at the height of the war in the Sinai between the Ottoman/German forces and the British army, then based in Egypt and fighting to defend the Suez Canal. Enver's visit took place on Saturday, February 26, 1916, according to the published diaries of a European diplomat in Jerusalem. Enver visited the Mt. of Olives and the Dome of the Rock shrine in the Old City. His lodgings were at the Hotel Kaminitz on Jaffa Road. This picture was taken apparently when the two pashas were traveling between these landmarks.
Valero's shops torn down in 1937 by
the British to provide more "open space"
near Damascus Gate
And the street was full of observant Jews dressed in their Sabbath finery.
Valero's shops being built circa 1900.The
domes of the Hurva and Tifferet Yisrael
synagogues are on the horizon on the
left of the picture
In the background of the picture are a row of Jewish-owned shops adjacent to the Damascus Gate built by a Jewish businessman in Jerusalem, Chaim Aharon Valero. The shops were built around 1900 but torn down under British zoning regulations in 1937.1View comments
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Last week we posted a "future feature" photo showing these British troops looking in every direction except up. Where were they? What were they doing? Who were they?
Library of Congress caption: "Haifa, result of terrorist acts and
government measures. H.M.S. British marines and police in
control of Haifa streets during a case of incendiary." The soldiers
in white uniforms are Royal Marines, probably off of the H.M.S.
Repulse which arrived in Haifa that month. (July 1938)
Yesterday's feature on the Arab Revolt provides the answer. They were patrolling the streets of Haifa.
Between 1936 and 1939 the Arab revolt struck at British, Jewish and even Arab targets across Palestine. In cities with mixed populations -- Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, for instance -- there were constant terrorist and retaliation attacks.
In July 1938, the British published the Peel Commission Report, a government study examining the causes of the outbreak of violence in 1938. The commission recommended partition of Palestine. The Arabs rejected the plan; the Jews' reaction was mixed. But the level of violence in Palestine shot up.
H.M.S. Repulse in Haifa Bay with Mt.
Carmel in the background. The Repulse
mission included interdiction of gun-
runners. The ship was sunk during World
War II by Japanese aircraft in the Pacific.A large Irgun bomb struck Haifa's Arab market in early July. Retaliation attacks and rioting were increasing. This picture of the British troops looking every which way shows the aftermath of an Arab "incendiary" attack in a Jewish Quarter in Haifa in July 1938. Platoons of British marines were assigned policing duties in Haifa and areas of the Galilee.The British brought in reinforcements and by 1939 crushed the Arab insurrection, often with very harsh measures. But the Arabs won a more fateful victory.
The British were cowered into promulgating the infamous 1939 "White Paper" which restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine -- precisely when the Nazi extermination machine began to roll.0Add a comment
- AUG25
British Mandate's 1938 Annual Report Details the Arab Revolt; The Library of Congress Archives Provide the Full Picture
The Arab Revolt in Palestine (1936-1939) was a full scale attack against the British Mandate, the Jewish community, and other Arabs who didn't support the radical leadership of Haj Amin el Husseini. Details of the Arab revolt and the British counter-insurgency are recorded in the British Mandate's annual reports.
British military raid for arms at Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem, July 1938
The photographers of the American Colony were not news photographers, but they recorded the violent and bloody events of the Arab attacks across Palestine. Hundreds of these pictures can be found in the Library of Congress archives.
We present below excerpts of the British Mandate's 1938 report matched for the first time with a selection of the relevant American Colony's pictures:
During 1938 public security in Palestine, particularly during the seven months from June onwards, continued to cause the administration grave preoccupation. An intensified campaign of murder, intimidation and sabotage persisted on lines similar to those followed by Arab law breakers in 1937; and, as in 1937, there were isolated incidents of Jewish reprisals. The main difference between the course of events in 1938 and that in 1937 lay in the gradual development during 1938 of Arab gang warfare on organized and to a certain extent co-ordinated lines.
Trainload of British armored vehicles
from Egypt arrive in Lod (July 1938)
By the end of the year, as the result of the arrival in the autumn of large military reinforcements, this gang organization was first dislocated and finally reduced to comparative impotence in the field. But in the towns terrorism persisted and the roads were still largely unsafe for normal traffic. In fact, the events of 1938 succeeded in seriously affecting the economic and social life of the country to an extent far greater than was the case in 1937....
Remains of burnt Jewish passenger bus
outside of Haifa (July 1938). See a
close-up view here
Oil pipeline sabotaged
In April there was also an increase in shooting incidents against police and military patrols and Jewish settlements; in cases of armed robbery in Arab villages and the sabotage and attempted sabotage of communications and Government property. For the first time for many months damage was done to Jewish groves and forests. Finally, the [Iraq-Haifa] oil pipe line was damaged on ten occasions....
Incendiary bomb in a Jewish quarter
of Haifa (July 1938).
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on captions to view the originals.
Burned out building in Haifa Jewish
Quarter. Note niche for a mezuza
on the doorway -- marked in a circleThe month of July produced a series of major outrages which caused death to 100 Arabs and 27 Jews, and injury to 206 Arabs and 64 Jews.
The two worst incidents occurred in Haifa when bombs exploded in the Arab fruit market in the centre of the town on the 6th and the 25th of the month. The casualties were 74 Arabs killed and 129 wounded. On both occasions confusion followed the explosions and there ensued short periods of rioting and violence in which 10 Jews lost their lives and 27 were injured. Between these two outrages, also in Haifa on the 10th July, a bomb thrown at a Jewish bus killed one Jew and wounded 15 others; and in a street fracas on the 11th two Jews were killed and 14 Jews and one Arab were wounded....
"Result of terrorist acts... Russian police-
woman searching Jewish female for arms
at the Jaffa Gate" in Jerusalem (July 1938)During the month of August sabotage persisted on an enhanced scale. The damage to the telephone and telegraph system throughout the country was assessed at more than P.6,000, while six trains were derailed.
Military and police raid on Arabs for arms
at the Damascus Gate (September 1938)
Damage to telephone poles and wires In Jerusalem there were three serious bombing incidents, two in the Old City when 13 Arabs were killed and 35 wounded and one outside the Jaffa Gate when five Arabs were killed and 25 wounded. In addition, isolated attacks within the municipal area resulted in several Arabs and Jews being killed and many more wounded....
British soldiers retake the Old City,
pictured along the southern wall of the
city (October 1938)
The British army retakes the Old City of
Jerusalem. Machine gunner near the
Dome of the Rock mosque. (October
1938)
In September, the casualties among the British troops and police, Jews and Arabs (excluding bandits) reached the formidable total of 188 killed and 156 wounded. In addition, rebellious activities, probably encouraged by the crisis in Europe, were more widespread than in previous months. In almost daily encounters with the troops and police the bands are known to have suffered total casualties of at least 311 killed....
In October the Old City of Jerusalem, which had become the rallying point of a large number of bandits and from which acts of violence, murder and intimidation were being organized and perpetrated freely and with impunity, was fully re-occupied by the troops on the 19th of the month.0Add a comment
- AUG21
The Hebron Massacre, August 24, 1929. Re-Posting Photos Discovered in the Library of Congress Archives
On the eve of the anniversary of the Hebron massacre on August 24, we re-post these photographs which we uncovered in the American Colony collection in the Library of Congress archives.
The destruction of the Avraham Avinu
Synagogue in Hebron in 1929Today’s leaders of the Hebron Jewish community told us last year 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.
A destroyed synagogue. Torah scrolls
strewn on the ground
Enlargement of scroll showing
Deuteronomy 1: 17The Arabs of Palestine were led by the powerful Husseini clan who controlled the offices of the Mufti (religious leader) 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,” 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.
Jewish home plundered. Blood-stained floor[Haj Amin el Husseini fled Palestine in 1937 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, Haj Amin el Husseini, 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.
Starting on Friday, August 23, 1929 and lasting for a week, attacks by enraged Arab mobs were launched against 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 had to be abandoned.
Synagogue desecrated 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 Israel Defense Forces 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
Jewish home plundered
Today in Hebron: A recent Jewish service in the rebuilt
Avraham Avinu Synagogue (with permission of photographer)2View comments
The Mt. Zion Hotel is situated on the historic Hebron Road not far from Jerusalem's Old City walls. The beautiful boutique hotel overlooks the Biblical Hinnom Valley.
The Mt Zion Hotel in Jerusalem today (photo: Ron Peled) One hundred years ago, the beds in the building were of a different sort -- hospital beds in the St. John Eye Hospital, part of the
"Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem." They established the Jerusalem opthalmic hospital in 1882. 
The hotel today, view from Old City
Wall. Tower behind the building is St.
Andrew's Church, built in 1930
With the outbreak of World War I, the Turkish authorities used the building as a warehouse for explosives -- with a predictably tragic result. 
"British Opthalmic Hospital" in 1918, after World War I
According to the British Military Governor in Palestine, Ronald Storrs, "the Turks had used it for an ammunition-dump and blown it up on the eve of their retreat [in December 1917]. Nothing seemed to happen as quick as one wanted, for it took the best part of a week to clear it of exploded and unexploded cartridges and to summon the expert advice of MacCallan from Cairo; and some months before the hospital could be rebuilt by the Order."
The shattered St John's hospital after explosion (1918). View more
pictures of the destruction here and here. Notice the
Montefiore windmill in the background on the right
British General Allenby visiting the hospital (circa 1918) and here. He is entering what is the area of the main entrance to the hotel today
In 1948, the hospital found itself on the front line between Israel and Jordan and relocated to the Old City.
The hospital's Hebron Road entrance
(1918)
The complex was renovated and converted to the Mt. Zion Hotel in 1986.
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
2View comments
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Solomon's Pools. The photo is dated between 1860 and 1880. No name is attributed to the photo. The photo and
handwritten caption are similar to photos by Felix Bonfils (1831-1885). The man in the photo may be the same as in
this photo from the Western Wall, perhaps even a photo of Bonfils himself.
Solomon's Pools in a rare color photo (circa 1905)
The early photographers in the Holy Land were enchanted by "Solomon's Pools," an elaborate water system from the Maccabean or Roman times located between Bethlehem and Hebron that brought water all the way to the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Cliffs. Original caption: "Solomon's Pools and ancient
aqueducts. Dam across Wadi Biyar al-Bir ed-Darraj"
(circa 1936)Dozens of pictures of the pools can be found in the Library of Congress archives, such as these photos.The American Colony's photo collection (1898-1946) includes a picture of cliffs near Solomon's Pools.
The cliffs beneath the Zayit neighborhood of Efrat
Here are pictures of the cliffs today. They are situated beneath the northern tip of the town of Efrat and its Zayit neighborhood. Efrat was established in 1983 and is located some eight miles south of Jerusalem.
The cliffs today as viewed on Google Earth0Add a comment
A visitor to Jerusalem in the second half of the 1800s reported that the Jewish community represented half of the population with the rest Muslim, Christian and Armenian.
The Getty Research Institute labels this picture
as a "Jeblanier jeuf à Jérusalem," taken in
1890 (sic). The Jewish merchant's profession is
a "ferbantier" -- a tinsmith or "blecher" in
Yiddish. The photographer was taken by Felix
Bonfils who died in 1885. Bonfils has pictures of
Jerusalem going back to 1865. (Credit: Ken and
Jenny Jacobson Orientalist Photography Collection, Getty)
Several photographers at the time specifically chose Jewish subjects to photograph, particularly at the Western Wall or in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City.
But in many cases, Jerusalem's Jews were simply passersby in the picture, or, as in a picture reproduced and enlarged below, owned shops that were part of the landscape.
Jaffa Gate The Library of Congress dates this
picture between 1898 and 1946. Based on the
carriages outside the gate, the photo was
probably taken before the breaching of the
Jaffa Gate in 1898 and creation of a road.
The American Colony's Elijah Meyers was a
photographer prior to the Colony's
photographic department's creation in 1898
and may have taken this picture.
Look at the shop adjacent to the gate in
the accompanying enlargement.
Enlargement: The shop is a millinery store selling hats. The men
inside and outside are Jewish merchants or customers. The
signs show hat models and a store name in Hebrew.
0Add a comment
- AUG12
The Jerusalem Windmill Will Soon Turn and Mill Again. Built in 1857, It Operated for less than 20 Years
The Montefiore windmill is one of the most famous landmarks in Jerusalem. Built in 1857 to provide employment and low-priced flour for Jerusalem's Jews, the mill was operational for only 18 years.
"View of building and windmill built by Sir Moses Montefiore."
The negative was probably made by British Sergeant Henry
Phillips in May 1866 -- a period when the mill was operational.
(Palestine Exploration Fund)
The restored windmill today,
soon to be spinning and
grinding grain again
The windmill on the horizon in this 1899
photograph with a Yemenite Jew in
the foregroundMoses Montefiore bought the land and built the mill along with the adjacent Mishkenot Sha'ananim housing project (1860). The philanthropist Montefiore copied the design of mills he had seen in his native England, a factor in the mill's eventual failure. Replacement parts were not available, and, according to some historians, the grain of Palestine was harder to grind than European grain. The location was not particularly windy and subsequent building in the area further blocked the wind. Eventually steam-powered engines replaced the wind-powered mill.The windmill viewed from the King
David Hotel (1938)
In a recent Ha'aretz article, Nir Hasson reported that "Arab millers tried to sabotage the venture by paying someone to cast a curse on it. S.Y. Agnon wrote of the affair in his book Only Yesterday: 'And the Arabs saw and were jealous. They hired an old man to curse the windmill. He turned his eyes to the windmill and said, I guarantee you that when the rains come and the winds come, they will make it into an everlasting ruin, and the rains came and the winds came and didn't do anything to it.'"
Scene at the Jerusalem train station
in the first movie filmed in the Holy Land
in 1896. See windmill on the left horizon
The blowing up of the sniper's nest
on top of the windmill in 1948
(Wikipedia)
Over the next century, the windmill stood idle. On the eve of the 1948 war, however, the British High Commissioner Alan Cunningham was leaving the nearby St. Andrews Church when he noticed that the Jewish Haganah had put a gun emplacement on the top of the windmill. Cunningham ordered the destruction of the position. According to Jerusalem legend, the British sapper sent to blow up the mill recognized the name "Montefiore" on the building as the name of a school in England. He only destroyed the sniper's nest.
In the last 40 years repairs have been made to maintain the building's structure, but no effort was made to restore the actual mill -- until now. The Jerusalem Foundation, the Jerusalem Municipality, Dutch Friends of Israel, Israel's Ministry of Tourism and the Prime Minister's Office are sponsoring the restoration of the mill. Once opened at the end of August, the mill will produce flour that will be made into bread and sold at the mill. The mill will have backup electric motors when wind power is not sufficient.4View comments
- AUG9
The 'Kotel' Exposed with the Advent of Photography, Old/New Photos of the Kotel Now Online in Great Detail -- With Thanks to the Library of Congress Archives
A version of this article appears in the Jerusalem Post Magazine today."Exterior of Haram-Ash-Sharif, Wailing place of the Jews" by Peter Bergheim
(1865). The newly available photo allows us to explore details usually not seen
Bergheim established a photographic studio in the Christian Quarter. A
converted Jew, he was well aware of Jerusalem's holy sites.
The advent of ocean-going steamships and tourism to the Holy Land and the development of photography all went hand-in-hand in the latter half of the 19thcentury. Tourism encouraged photography and photographs encouraged tourists, explained photography curator Kathleen Stewart Howe, author of The Photographic Exploration of Palestine.Enlargement shows memorial graffiti on the
Western Wall with the names “Eliyahu, Elka,
Sharf, Shaul” The two figures may have been
models; indeed it is impossible to tell if the
seated, veiled and gloved individual is a man
or woman.While the first people to look at Palestine through a lens were amateur photographers and missionaries in the 1840s, by the 1860s professional photographers began to visit holy sites and even establish photo studios. Military explorers and surveyors often used the services of the photographers.The "wall of wailing" by Frank Mason Good. The Library of Congress dates the photo
as published in 1881. The authoritative Palestine Exploration Fund records that it was
taken by Good during his first trip to the Near East in 1866/67. Good's panoramic
picture of Jerusalem appears as the title photo of this website above.Among the tourists were Mark Twain and his “Innocents Abroad” companions in 1867. His party stayed at the same Old City Mediterranean Hotel as a British survey team headed by Lt. Charles Warren.The American Colony settlers who arrived in 1881 eventually established a tourist store inside the Jaffa Gate in the Old City where they sold their photographs. They capitalized on the fierce demand for pictures of the German emperor’s visit to Jerusalem in 1898.An enlargement shows an unusual piece of furniture in the picture. Muslim rulers didn't allow benches,
chairs, screens or other furniture.
On the stand appears to be a lantern or even a Sephardi Torah case.
Is there a man next to it pressed against the wall? Note the feet.The Library of Congress archives contain not only the 22,000 photographs of Palestine by the American Colony photographers, but also pictures dating back to the 1860s by pioneering photographers Felix Bonfils, Peter Bergheim, Frank Good and others. The American Colony pictures were donated to the Library of Congress and classified as “public domain.” Photographs of the Western Wall by the other photographers, some more than 130-year-old, were available to researchers within the Library, but never “made public” Online."Wailing place of the Jews, Solomon's Wall," Jerusalem. The
Library of Congress dates the picture in the 1890s and doesn't
name the photographer. But the name Bonfils can be seen in the
enlarged photo. Other similar photos in the Getty collection prove
that Frenchman Felix Bonfils was the photographer and that the
picture was taken in 1869. Bonfils died in 1885.In response to our recent inquiries, the head of the Photo Research Division explained, “Our legal counsel has asked us to allow 130 years to elapse before displaying larger images outside Library of Congress. Based on the available information, I was able … to display outside Library of Congress buildings for some of the images you mention.”These photographs are presented here and are now available to the public Online. The old glass plate photographic technique, rather than paper and film, provides viewers with an amazing enlargement capability.
A similar Bonfils photo (Getty) Enlargements from Bonfils photo Click on pictures to enlarge.Click on captions to view the Library of Congress originals with the option to use "Tiff" enlargement.
"Ashkenazi Jews" who may have
been models (1867)In viewing these 145-year-old pictures, bear in mind that these are not the spontaneous snapshots of today. The pictures required long exposures and extensive set-up, Stewart Howe explained. Often the subjects were models dressed to play the role.That was apparently the case of the seven “Ashkenazi Jews” photographed at the Mediterranean Hotel in the Old City in 1867 by a member of Lt. Charles Warren’s expedition team."Exterior of the Haram-Ash-Sharif. Wailing place of the Jews,"
by Peter Bergheim (1865). View a similar picture here Enlargement of the worshippers
This collection of 19th century photographs presents a portrait of Jerusalem's Jewish community, a pious population who gathered at the retaining wall of Judaism's most sacred site. According to the 1871 visitor to Jerusalem William Seward, the American Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, the Jews comprised half of the city's population, the Muslims one-quarter, and the Christians and Armenians the remainder.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Let's Go to the Videotapes -- A Collection of the Earliest Films from the Holy Land
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