Nebi Samuel (circa 1890) hand painted photo For many a tourist to Israel the first glimpse of Jerusalem is seen from the heights of a hill called “Nebi Samuel,” four kilometers north of Jerusalem.For centuries, Jews, Christians and Muslims have venerated the site with its iconic minaret as the burial place of the prophet Samuel. Some researchers identify the location as the Biblical town of Mitzpe or Ramah.
Nebi Samuel before 1917 
Nebi Samuel after 1917 Adjacent to the building housing the burial cave are the remains of a village dating back to First Temple times. On the other side of the monument are the remains of a Crusader citadel and monastery dating back 1,000 years. After Saladin’s victory over the Crusaders, the citadel was converted to a mosque.Nebi Samuel’s prominent topography defined it throughout history as a strategic military objective. The Library of Congress collection contains numerous pictures taken at Nebi Samuel or aerial photographs taken above it.In 1917, World War I was not only conducted in Europe but was also waged in Palestine, pitting the British army (also with Australian, New Zealand, Indian troops) against the Ottoman/Turkish army fighting alongside its German and Austrian allies. To put the war’s scope into perspective, the British Desert Corp contained 25,000 horses all requiring massive amounts of food and water.A major battle raged for a week at Nebi Samuel between three British and three Turkish divisions. Days later, after the British took Nebi Samuel, a Turkish counterattack was beaten back. The British suffered 2,000 casualties in the battle for Jerusalem. The number of Turkish casualties is not known.
Turkish trenches at Nebi Samuel 
View from the trenches today The citadel and mosque were destroyed in the fighting and were rebuilt and restored during the British Mandate. In Israel’s War of Independence in 1948 the Palmach attempted to capture Nebi Samuel but were repulsed with heavy casualties. Between 1949 and 1967, the strategic site was controlled by the Jordanian army. The Israeli army captured Nebi Samuel in 1967. It is now open to visitors of all faiths.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Subscribe Now" box in the right sidebar and click on "Submit." 
Grape picking in Rishon Lezion beneath the
eye of armed guard, 1939Wine always played an important role in Judaism and ancient Israel. Temple libations, religious ceremonies, and meals such as the Passover Seder and Sabbath Kiddush all required wine. But the production of wine in the Holy Land virtually ceased for 1,000 years after the Islamic conquest in the 7th century.In the 19th century, French Baron Edmond de Rothschild re-established a wine industry in the Holy Land, importing vines and expertise from France. In 1882, Rothschild founded the Carmel Winery with vineyards, wine presses and wine cellars in Rishon Lezion and Zichron Yaakov.
Zichron Yaakov workers, 1939 The American Colony photographers visited the Carmel wineries and vineyards on several occasions and took hundreds of photographs. The grape-picking of July and August 1939 had to be carried out under the watchful eyes of the "supernumerary police," thousands of Jewish Auxiliary police recruited to guard Jewish communities during the turmoil of the Arab revolt in Palestine (1936-1939). They were to become the nucleus of the Haganah defense forces.
Rabbi supervising kashrut
in Rishon winery 1939
Wine press in Zichron 1939
Click on a picture to enlarge. Click on caption to view original.
Grape-picking in the fields 0Add a comment
The Palestinian Arabs’ anti-Zionist demonstrations (see also yesterday’s posting) were not a one-time occurrence in 1920. There were several such demonstrations in February, March and April 1920. The latter, held during the week-long Nebi Musa festival, turned into an anti-Jewish pogrom.
Anti-Zionist demonstration, February 1920 
Col. Storrs, opposed the
ZionistsSeveral senior officials of the British Mandate were strongly opposed to the Balfour Declaration, with one, Col. Ronald Storrs, the military governor of Jerusalem and Judea, actually being accused by one of his colleagues of coaching Haj Amin el-Husseini on inciting the mobs.
The British anti-Zionists found a sympathetic ally in the U.S. Consul General to Jerusalem, Dr. Otis Glazebrook, a former missionary who was a personal friend of President Woodrow Wilson.
Glazebrook (in top hat) and his
Consulate staff (VMI archives)
During World War I and prior to the United States entering the war, Glazebrook used his position in Jerusalem to protect Jews from local Turkish tyrants and to relay money from the American Jewish community to Jewish indigents. In a 1931 obituary for the diplomat, the JTA reported, "Dr. Glazebrook distributed Jewish relief funds in Jerusalem during the war, for which he received high praise from Jewish leaders in the United States."
Original caption: "Demonstrators carrying Dr. Glazebrook
on their shoulders"But in his secret cables to the State Department, Glazebrook was vehement in his opposition to the Zionist enterprise. According to one account, the Consul warned in 1919 that local opposition to Zionism was "real, intense, and universal.... Any importation of Zionists would be met by force of arms." Glazebrook also accused Jews of threatening to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. [HT: YM]Perhaps it should not be a surprise, therefore, that the Arab demonstrators against Zionism hoisted Glazebrook on their shoulders as a hero.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Subscribe" box in the right sidebar and click on "Submit." 0Add a comment
Anti-Zionist demonstration at Damascus Gate The defeat of the Turks in late 1917 created a vacuum in Palestine. The British occupied the region, but the Mandate was not officially recognized until the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1922. In the interim, the local Arab leadership was riven by inter-clan rivalries and hatred for the Hashemite Kingdom across the Jordan River. A half century of anti-colonial resentment, anti-Semitism, and fear of the Zionists were all mixed into the cauldron.
The relationship between the British and the local Arab population was characterized by tension that sporadically erupted into insurrection over the next 30 years.The Arabs of Palestine were led by the powerful el-Husseini clan who controlled the office of the Mufti as well as the Mayoralty of Jerusalem. One son, Haj Amin el-Husseini, was appointed Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921, but already in early 1920 the vicious anti-Semite was inciting anti-Jewish attacks.
British guns at Jaffa Gate
The first Library of Congress collection photos are from March 1920, a week that saw the Syrian Congress proclaim independence for Syria and Palestine and attacks on Tel Chai, the Jewish settlement in the Galilee. Zionist hero Joseph Trumpledor died in the attack. The Library of Congress photos bear their original captions: “anti-Zionist” demonstrations.
Anti-Zionist demonstration 
Indian soldier searching
Arabs for weapons
One month later, Arab inciters, including el-Husseini, whipped participants into a frenzy to attack Jews in Jerusalem during the week-long Nebi Musa festival. Newly formed Jewish self-defense groups, headed by Zev Jabotinsky, rushed to Jerusalem to protect their co-religionists but were arrested by the British. The next set of pictures, taken four days into the rioting and attacks on Jews, shows the belated British defense measures and the search for weapons carried out on Arabs and Jews.
Searching Jews
for weaponsNote: The Arab attacks on Jews and against Zionism took place decades before the founding of Israel, years before the large aliya of Jews from Europe and Arab countries, and even more years before the administration of the West Bank became an international issue.0Add a comment
The caption on the Library of Congress picture reads, "Closed shops of the Jewish Quarter on the Jewish Sabbath, Jerusalem." The picture was published in March 1900. 
Closed for the Sabbath, 1900 
Jewish Quarter street But the Jewish Quarter was no quiet, sleepy residential area for old rabbis and talmudic seminaries.The second picture shows a busy and lively "Street in the Jewish Quarter" and was taken on a week day somewhere between 1900 and 1920.2View comments
The Moshav Ben-Shemen was established in 1905 in central Israel on the Sharon Plain. It was one of the first villages built on land purchased by the Jewish National Fund.
Original caption: "Zionist colonies on Sharon.
Ben-Shemen, Kindergarten. Children at play"
circa 1920
Original caption: "Ben-Shemen, two
young pioneers. Two healthy kiddies."
Original caption: "Ben-Shemen, a
youthful agriculturist. Child with
spade."A youth village was etablished in Ben-Shemen in 1927 for orphans from the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. After World War II, the village adopted orphans from the Holocaust. In the 1950s, the youth village assisted in the absorption of Jewish youth from Arab lands. Today 1,000 students study at the village.1View comments
- JUL25
Picture of the New Jewish Neighborhoods outside of Jerusalem's Old City -- And Another Yemenite Surprise
This 1899 photograph bears the caption "Valley of Hinnom, showing the Jewish Colony, Palestine."
Yemenite Jew in front of Yemin Moshe
The long flat buildings belong to "Mishkenot Sha'ananim," the first neighborhood built outside of the Old City and intended as housing for indigent Jews. The first row was built by philanthropist Moshe Montifiore in 1860; the second row was built in 1866. The windmill, part of the Yemin Moshe project built in 1891, was meant to provide employment for the Jews, but it never operated.
But who is the man in the foreground?
Silwan resident
Almost certainly, he's a Yemenite Jew, characterized by the sidecurls (peyot) and probably from the nearby Silwan/Shiloah Jewish village. Presented here last month was the picture of a Yemenite Jew (left) standing in front of the village in a picture taken around the same time, also in a "stereograph" format. The photographers of the time were apparently intrigued by the newly-arrived exotic Jews.
Mishkenot Sha'ananim/ Yemin
Moshe todayIn 1881-1882 a group of Jews of Yemen arrived by foot to Jerusalem. The new immigrants settled on Jewish-owned property in the Silwan/Shiloah Village outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem.In the 1948 war and its aftermath the Mishkenot Sha'nanim neighborhood was a battleground between Jewish forces (and then the Israel army) and the Jordanian army. The buildings in the no-man's land remained uninhabited and in ruins until Israel reunited the city in 1967 and rebuilt the neighborhood.0Add a comment
Two synagogues 1900 For centuries the Old City of Jerusalem was home to almost all of Jerusalem’s Jews. They chose to stay close to the Western Wall, and they also flocked to the synagogues and seminaries which were located throughout the Old City -- not just in the "Jewish Quarter."
Only in the late 1800s did some Jews start to leave the safety and confines of the Old City to new neighborhoods Mishkenot Hasha’ananim, Yemin Moshe, Mea Shearim, the Bukharian Quarter and Batei Ungarin.Some of the synagogues of the Old City dated back hundreds of years. Two of them had prominent domes, seen in this 1900 picture from the Library of Congress collection, -- the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue (left) and the Churva Synagogue.
Churva in ruins, Jordanian soldier
holding a Torah scroll (Wikipedia)Both were blown up by Jordanian military forces in 1948 during and after the battle for the Old City. Another synagogue, Ohel Yitzhak, also known as the "Shomrei HaChomos synagogue," was located in the "Moslem Quarter" and was abandoned in 1938 during the "Arab Revolt."A future feature In "Israel Daily Picture" will show the interiors of the synagogues and how in some cases the synagogues have been rebuilt.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Subscribe" box in the right sidebar and click on "Submit." 
Ohel Yitzhak Synagogue in ruins
(Wikipedia)
Tiferet Yisrael in ruins (Wikipedia) 0Add a comment
Ashkenazi Shofar blower
Visit Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon and you are likely to hear in many neighborhoods a siren about 40 minutes before sundown. It’s a warning call for observant Jews that it is time to stop work, light Sabbath candles, go to the synagogue.
Sephardi Shofar blower What did Jerusalemites do before electric sirens? Simple. They relied on the ancient alert system dating back to the Bible – the Shofar (ram’s horn).These Library of Congress photos from the 1930s show the Sabbath Shofar blowers from both the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi communities.0Add a comment
"Tenement children just home from school,"
Bukharan QuarterAmong the 22,000 Matson-Library of Congress pictures, are wonderful 80-100 year old pictures of Jewish children in Jerusalem and new Jewish villages. These two photographs were taken in the Bukharan neighborhood of Jerusalem.Click on the photos to enlarge. Click on the caption to see the original.Bukhari Jews, an ancient community from what is today the Central Asian country Uzbekistan, started moving to the Holy Land in the mid-1800s. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, more Bukharis moved to Israel where their community is estimated to number 100,000.
"Children just out of school," Bukhari Quarter In 1891, as Jews began to move out of the walls of the Old City, Bukhari Jews purchased a large tract of land in Jerusalem from the Turkish authorities and began to build institutions and homes.The sign on the school building reads “Talmud Torah for ultra-Orthodox boys and Kindergarten, established in 5691 (1931)."The pictures bring to mind a popular Israeli song of nostalgia by Yossi Banai (1932-2006) called “Me and Simon and Little Moiz.” [English subtitles provided.] Banai grew up in the area of the shuk in Jerusalem, not far from where these pictures were taken.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Follow by email" box in the right sidebar.0Add a comment
Degania was the first “kibbutz” in the Land of Israel, founded 100 years ago on the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) while Palestine was still under Turkish rule. Built on lands purchased by the Jewish National Fund, Degania served as a training ground for many of Israel’s leading socialist leaders. Moshe Dayan, for instance,was born at Degania in 1915.
Degania circa 1920
The Library of Congress collection lists this photograph of Degania (right) as being taken between 1920 and 1930.
Click here to view a1937 film of Degania from the Spielberg Jewish film archives.
Settlers' first homes
If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Follow by email" box in the right sidebar.The next photos of settlers are also dated between 1920 and 1930, but the photos do not provide their locations.
Settlement camp They bear this caption: "Jewish colonies and settlements. Commencing a Jewish settlement; a camp. Jewish settlers arriving."
Settlers arriving 0Add a comment
It’s hard to imagine a better picture to offer in the summer heat, especially on the 17th of Tamuz, the Jewish fast day commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem prior to the destruction of the second Temple.
Two British soldiers at the Kotel, 1921
Two British soldiers at the Western Wall during a major snow storm in 1921. (From the Library of Congress Matson collection. )
And a bonus picture of kids doing in the snow what kids do, even 90 years ago, even in Jerusalem.
1921 snow in Jerusalem 1View comments
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A procession -- but to where?
"A Jewish procession to Absalom's Pillar" is the caption on the Library of Congress' photo, dated sometime between 1898 and 1946. That's a huge window of time. The procession is walking down a ramp from the southeast corner of the Old City wall into the Kidron Valley. Presumably the hundreds of Jews came out of the Old City through the Dung Gate or the Zion Gate.
Why was there a procession to the tomb of King David's rebellious son, Absalom? It's not a very popular destination for Jerusalemites today. Some historians relate that there was a custom to take children to the shrine and throw rocks at it to remind the children to behave. Were there so many mischievous children? The long dresses on many of the people in the procession suggest many women were also involved.
Luckily, the Library of Congress site provides a TIFF download that permits enlarging the photo and provides incredible detail. And the enlargement shows that the procession consisted almost entirely of ultra-Orthodox men wearing their long caftans.
An enlarged segment of the
procession picture
Also fortuitous was discovering another picture elsewhere in the collection entitled "Various types, etc. Jewish funeral." It shows a funeral party at the bottom of the Kidron Valley moving up the Mount of Olives. It may very well be the "flip side" of the same procession, with two photographers on either side of the valley. The shadows suggest that the time of day -- morning, with the sun shining in the east -- was nearly the same. The second picture, however, does include women walking up the ramp from the Valley. And yes, the women are Jewish. Despite the dark scarves on their heads, they are neither nuns nor Muslims.
The funeral near Absalom's Pillar 
Women heading back
to the Old CityLastly, while the Library curators recorded a number, 4340, on the first negative, they missed that the second photo, dated between 1900 and 1920, had the number 4343, suggesting that the two were part of a series.This match was pointed out to the curators who will finally pair the two photos after almost 100 years.0Add a comment
The Library of Congress Matson collection labels this picture as "Atonement Day crowd. Closer view at the Wailing Wall." As for a date of the picture, the various labels on this picture suggest that it was taken anywhere between 1898 and 1933.
Prayers at the Kotel
[The Library of Congress site provides a TIFF download that permits enlarging the photo and provides incredible detail.]
What clues does the picture give us? A relatively dark graffiti on the wall -- actually memorials to loved ones-- provides the Hebrew year 5664 which correlates to 1904. The darkness of the writing suggests that it was written relatively close to the time of the photograph.
The shadows suggest that the sun is setting in the West, and the Day of Atonement is nearing the end.
The worshippers are all men, but it appears that all the way on the left are a number of women with their heads covered. Could they be men with prayer shawls - talitot? Perhaps, but none of the men in the foreground is wearing talitot. Today it is customary for Orthodox men to wear their talitot on Yom Kippur. Has the custom changed in the last century?
The hats worn by the worshippers are a mixture of styles: Hassidic fur hats, the non-Hassidic fedoras, the Sephardi fezzes, and the tourist wearing the straw hat "boater."
All the worshippers are standing. That rules out 1928 when Jews brought in chairs and screens to separate the sexes. The British authorities overseeing the site moved in, claiming that the Jews had changed the status quo as established by Turkish fiat years earlier. The British forcefully removed the screens, beating some of the women who tried to prevent their removal. They brutally removed the chairs under elderly worshipers. The incident led to protests from Jewish communities across the globe. But the Jewish furniture also inflamed the Moslem leadership of Palestine. Tensions escalated over the next months, leading to the bloody massacres in Hebron and Safad in August 1929.3View comments
A Yemenite Jew looks at his village in Silwan (circa 1901) The Shiloah Village outside of the Jerusalem Old City walls dates back to biblical days. Its famous Shiloah spring was utilized for Temple libations.The caption on this Library of Congress photograph reads, "The village of Siloam [i.e. Siloan, Shiloah, Silwan] and Valley of Kedron, Palestine." But whoever wrote the caption, perhaps 110 years ago, missed an important fact. The man standing above his village is a Jew from Yemen.The most famous Jewish Yemenite migration to the Land of Israel took place in 1949 and 1950 when almost 50,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel in "Operation On Eagles Wings -- על כנפי נשרים" also know as "Operation Magic Carpet."But another migration took place 70 years earlier in 1881-1882 when a group of Jews of Yemen arrived by foot to Jerusalem. They belonged to no "Zionist movement." They returned out of an age-old religious fervor to return to Zion.The new immigrants settled on Jewish-owned property in the Shiloah Village outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem.
A Jewish Yemenite family (circa 1914) The gentleman in the photograph above wears the distinctive Jewish Yemenite clothing of the time, according to a Yemenite expert today.The photo collection also contains portraits of Yemenite Jews, such as this family portrait from the early 1900s. Look at the picture, presumably of three generations. And realize that if that baby were still alive today, 100 years later, he would be the family elder of another three or four generations of Jews in the Holy Land.The Jews of Shiloah were the targets of anti-Jewish pogroms during the anti-Jewish riots in 1921 and again during the 1936-39 Arab revolt when they were evacuated by the British authorities.Jewish families returned to Silwan/Shiloah after Israel reunited the city of Jerusalem in 1967.PS. I have already had an interesting response from a descendent of a resident from the Shiloah village:לעניות דעתי התמונה של הגבר על רקע הכפר היא של יהודי חבאני ( יהודי חבאן היו גבוהי קומה) ושל המשפחה נראה שהיא משפחה שעלתה מצנעאIn my humble opinion, the man in the picture with the village in the background is a Jew from Habani (the Jews of Haban were tall) and the family looks like a family that made aliya from Saana.0Add a comment
Jerusalemites have been waiting impatiently for years for the completion of a light rail system. Construction began in 2002 and is scheduled to begin service in August 2011. But further delays may occur.
Will it finally happen? 
Jerusalem station circa 1900 Incredibly, a light rail system was in operation more than 90 years ago. Planning began and some routes were constructed under the Turks in the 19thcentury. Also incredible are the 1918 pictures from the Matson-Library of Congress collection of trains passing over the ancient Tombs of the Judges located in northern Jerusalem on their way north to Ramallah.The railroad played an important military role for both the British and the Turks and their allies during World War I with lines from Egypt to Gaza, Beersheva, Ramla and Jerusalem.
Light railway from
Jerusalem to Ramallah 1918
Jerusalem station 1900 
"Light railway crossing over
ancient tombs" 19180Add a comment
Ruined home on Mt. of Olives. 3 died here.
84 years ago this week (July 11, 1927 at 4 PM) a powerful earthquake struck the Holy Land. With its epicenter located in the northern Dead Sea area, the towns of Jericho, Jerusalem, Nablus (Shchem) and Tiberias were badly hit. An estimated 500 people were killed in those locations.
Jerusalem 1927 Some of the Matson-Library of Congress collection do not record where their pictures was taken. Since the photographers were based in Jerusalem, it can be assumed that those pictures were taken there.
Wreckage of the Winter Palace Hotel, Jericho 
Blocked-up street in Nablus, choked by fallen
houses which entombed many inhabitants1View comments
The Jezreel Valley is a large fertile plain in northern Israel. Biblical cities such as Megiddo, Beit Shean, Shimron and Ophra were located in the region. In the 1870s a Lebanese family purchased the valley from the Ottoman Empire, and 40 years later they sold 80,000 acres to the American Zion Commonwealth and Jewish National Fund for the purpose of Jewish settlement.
"Zionist children at play. A spring group.
Children picking wild flowers"The picture, probably taken in the 1920s shows the children of an agricultural settlement, perhaps Nahalal, a moshav founded in 1921.1View comments
The structure is one of the most famous landmarks in Jerusalem, standing like a sentry at Jaffa Gate. But "King David's Citadel" as we know it certainly does not date back to King David's time.
The Citadel and Tower today
Click to view Part 2 -- The Citadel and the British
Troops drilling circa 1900 Archeologists have found traces of previous fortresses dating back to Herod 2,000 years ago. The Romans garrisoned troops there after destroying the Jewish Temples. Arab, Crusader and Mamluk conquerers used the site for their troops.The current structure was built in the 1500s by the Ottomans who added a mosque and the famous minaret that stands above the Citadel. The Ottoman Turks used the Citadel as barracks and parade grounds. Today's "Picture of the Day" publishes pictures of King David's Citadel as it was used by the Turks until 1917.
Late in 1917 the British defeated the Turks, and for the next 30 years the British army ruled the Citadel and King David's Tower. Stay tuned for Picture a Day, Part 2, featuring the British army.
Today, the Citadel houses a magnificent museum, and the adjoining barracks area is an Israeli police station.
Turkish officers circa 1910 
Turkish soldiers circa 1910 2View comments
- After bloody battles on the approaches to Jerusalem at Nebi Samuel and Tel a-Ful, the city of Jerusalem surrendered to the British. [The actual picture of the surrender in 1917 is saved for another day.] Field Marshall Edmund Henry Hynman Allenby issued this proclamation of martial law. [Click to enlarge, click on caption to see the original.]
Gen. Allenby's proclamation in English, French and Italian 0Add a comment
The Library of Congress' photo collection includes this 1903 (1908?) photo of the "Funeral services for a Jewish Rabbi, Jerusalem."
1903 funeral
Is it possible to determine where in Jerusalem the photograph was taken? Most definitely.
The building is the Rothschild building in the Batei Machaseh compound in the Old City of Jerusalem, donated by Baron Wilhelm Karl de Rothschild of Frankfurt. The building still bears the Rothschild family's coat of arms.
The compound was built between 1860
and 1890 to provide housing for Jerusalem's poor. An old lintel stone nearby reads "Shelter home for the poor on Mt. Zion."
Rothschild building, fleeing Jews
and Jordanian soldierDuring the 1948 war and seige of Jerusalem many of the Jewish Quarter's residents found shelter in the building which also served as the headquarters of the Quarter's defenders. This famous Life Magazine picture (right), taken by John Phillips in 1948, shows the surrender of the Jews to the Jordanian army in the courtyard of the Rothschild building.The Batei Machaseh complex was looted and destroyed in 1948.After the 1967 war the Jewish Quarter and the Rothschild House were restored. Today the courtyard of the complex is crowded with tourists and Jewish children from the surrounding apartments.
A family celebrating beneath
the Rothschild building arches
recentlyAn inscription from the book of Zacharia (8: 4-5) adorns a courtyard wall:"Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem... and the city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing."''... עוד ישבו זקנים וזקנות ברחובות ירושלים, ואיש משענתו בידו מרוב ימים. ורחובות העיר ימלאו ילדים וילדות משחקים ברחובותיה''0Add a comment
It is fairly certain that the 1890 picture (right) is not of a Jewish farmer. (Also pictured here.) The method of plowing is strictly prohibited in the Bible:
circa 1890. Photograph was hand-colored
"Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together."(Deuteronomy 20:10)
(לֹא תַחֲרֹשׁ בְּשׁוֹר וּבַחֲמֹר יַחְדָּו (דברים פרק כב
The next set of photographs are undated but they were certainly taken very early in the 20th century. According to the Library of Congress collection, they show "Harvesting at a Jewish colony." These "colonies" were usually collective farming communities built on land purchased by Jewish philanthropists or the Jewish National Fund.
Harvesting in a "Jewish colony" 
Harvesting in a "Jewish colony" 0Add a comment
World War I did not only take place in the trenches of Europe. A massive war also took place in the Middle East between 1914 and 1918 with the British Empire engaging the armies of the German and Ottoman Empires.
Ottoman troops prepare to attack the British-held
Suez Canal 1914
Austrians in Jerusalem 1916
German officers on the Temple Mount
in 1916. The scene was almost
repeated in World War IIToday, the movie "Lawrence of Arabia" is perhaps the only source for the public's knowledge of the tumultuous conflict in the Middle East. The war was waged from the shores of the Suez Canal to Damascus. Armies of hundreds of thousands of men fought over control of the Canal, the water wells in the Sinai, Gaza, the Arabian peninsula, Beersheba, Jerusalem, Jericho and Damascus. Great cavalry charges, military railroad construction, air bombing raids, camel transport were hallmarks of the war. German officers commanded Turkish, Austrian and German troops. British officers commanded British, Australians and Indians.The Library of Congress collection of photographs contains hundreds of pictures of the war from both sides of the front. This page contains just a few showing the Ottoman/German forces.
The war years were marked by severe persecution and hardship for the Jewish communities of Palestine. SeePalestine during the war : being a record of the preservation of the Jewish settlements in Palestine (1921), a report to the 12th Zionist Congress.
German commander 1916 
German military transport in Jerusalem
1917
Australian POWs held by Turks 1917 0Add a comment
The city of Tiberias was built on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee in the year 20 CE in honor of Roman emperor Tiberius. It has been a center of Jewish life and learning for 2,000 years and is considered the fourth holiest city to the Jewish people after Jerusalem, Hebron and Safed. After the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin (supreme court) moved to Tiberias.
Tiberias looking north (circa 1890) Note mosque here and below
Between the 2nd and 10th centuries, Tiberius was the largest city in the Galilee and it drew great Jewish scholars where major works such as the Mishnah and the Palestinian Talmud were written.
Jesus was active in the area of Tiberias, and some of the sites commemorating his life are located nearby.
Tiberias and the Jewish community were often under assault by invading armies -- of Christians, Persians, Arabs, Crusaders, and Saladin's army.
Tiberias looking south (ca 1890) In 1204, the great Jewish rabbi Moshe ben Miamon (Maimonides) died in Egpyt and was buried in Tiberias. In the 16th century some of the Jews who had been expelled from Spain fled to the Ottoman Empire and to Tiberias.
Hundeds of Jews of Tiberias perished in an earthquake in 1837.
Tiberias today, population 40,000 By 1901, Jews numbered 2000 out of the town's 3,600 residents.In the 20th century, there were skirmishs betwee the Arab and Jewish residents of the region. During the 1936-39 wave of Arab terrrorist attacks Arab gangs massacred 19 residents of Tiberias, mostly women and children. The attacks continued during the 1948 War of Israel's Independence.
Today, Tiberias is a popular lakeside resort, as well as a pilgrimage destination for those who visit ancient graves of rabbis and Biblical sites.
Jewish fishermen, Tiberias 1900 
Tiberias fishermen depart port 0Add a comment
- Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 by the Jewish community of Jaffa who built the new town on nearby sand dunes along the coast. These photos are believed to have been taken in the 1920s.
Clearing the dunes (circa 1920) 
"Emergency camp - Tel Aviv" (crca 1920-30) 
"Immigration camp for Jews" 1View comments
Jews have flocked to the Kotel (Western Wall) for many centuries in order to pray close to the site of the ancient Jewish temples. The Wall, a retaining wall for King Herod's massive rebuilding of the second Temple complex in the year 19 BCE, stretches almost 500 meters (1600 feet) along the eastern side of the Temple platform. Several times over the last two millennia, rulers of the land forbad Jews from praying at the site, most recently between 1948 and 1967 when Jordan controlled east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Western Wall in red (circa 1925)
Until 1967 almost all of the Western Wall was hidden by buildings and residences. At the relatively small area where Jews were permitted to pray, the prayer area was only four meters wide.
This Library of Congress collection does not provide an exact date for this picture (left) of Jews at prayer, but it can be deduced that it was taken before 1917. Some of the men's head gear, the fez, suggests that it was during Turkish rule.
Based on the memorial grafitti, the
picture was apparently taken after April 1917
The prohibition against Jews sitting on chairs or benches at the site or setting up a screen to separate the sexes was maintained by the British after they took over Palestine.
Both pictures suffered from deterioration before they were digitalized at the Library of Congress.1View comments
- The gates of the Old City of Jerusalem were often named for the direction they faced, and the roads that originated at the gates were similarly named.
The Damascus Gate, or Sha'ar Schem (Nablus) in Hebrew, pointed north, and the road is called Derekh Schem. Similarly, Jaffa Road (right), heading east, begins at Jaffa Gate.
This picture from the Library of Congress collectionwas taken prior to the automotive era. The clock tower, built by the Turks, stood between 1908 and 1918.0Add a comment
The "Jewish State" did not begin in 1948. It didn't even start with Theodore Herzl and the Zionist Movement in the late 19th century.
ca. 1890 - Color was hand-painted at the time.
Jews had always lived in the Holy Land, even after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. Major portions of the massive scholarly work, the Talmud, was written over the next 400 years in Jewish communities, mostly in northern Israel. Jews were present when Islamic armies captured the land and when Crusaders invaded.
Great rabbis such as the Ramban (Nachmanidies) moved to Jerusalem in the 13th century. Rabbi Isaac Luria established Tsafat as a Jewish center in the 16th century. Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman Kramer, the "Gaon of Vilna," sent 500 of his followers to the Holy Land in the early 19th century. Mark Twain wrote of the many Jews he encountered in his visit to the region in the 1860s.
ca. 1890 hand-painted 
Kotel The first photographers recorded the faces of many of the Jews in Jerusalem in the late 19th and early 20th century, and some of the portraits are preserved in the Library of Congress collection.
ca 1900 
Jewish Women's old age home in Jerusalem 0Add a comment
- When Gen. Allenby captured Jerusalem (and here) in 1917, the British didn't realize the trouble they would face for the next 30 years. Many Arab groups (they were not called "Palestinians" at the time) were unhappy over the British alliance with Emir Abdullah (later King Abdullah of Transjordan). Time and again, the Husseini clan, led by the Mufti Haj Amin el Husseini, terrorized competing clans and protested against the Balfour Declaration and Zionist activities in Palestine. In 1920, 1922, 1929, and between 1936 and 1939, the Arabs carried out terrorist attacks against British government and business establishments as well as Jewish communities.
Allenby enters Jaffa Gate in
Jerusalem's Old CityIn contemporary terms, compare the situation to the terrorism and assaults waged against US and NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These British soldiers (picture top right) were posted at the Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem in 1920 to guard against Arab attack. A year later, the British army posted this armored vehicle at the Damascus Gate (picture to the left) to control demonstrators protesting the Balfour Declaration.0Add a comment
- The Library of Congress collection includes pictures of Jews being evacuated during Arab riots and pograms in 1929and 1936. In 1948, Life Magazine's John Phillips photographed the heart-wrenching pictures of Jews of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem captured by Jordanian soldiers or being expelled.
Jews fleeing Jerusalem's Old City after 1929 pogroms 
Jews being evacuated from the Old City during the 1936 Arab revolt against Britain
(the soldiers are British)
A group of Orthodox Jews fleeing Old City in 1936
guarded by Jewish policemen and British Tommy
Jews being evacuated from the Old City during the 1936 Arab revolt against Britain 
The expulsion of Jews from the Old City under the guns of Jordanian soldiers (John Phillips) Policy-makers in European capitals and in Washington oppose Jewish construction in all sections of Jerusalem. Radical leftist tourists fly in to Jerusalem to join Palestinian demonstrators protesting Jews returning to homes they were chased from in 1929 and 1936.The actual photos presented here may not be seared into the Jewish people's collective memory. But they are permanent scars on their collective heart. It's a fact that those policy-makers should bear in mind. It's another important emotion behind the declaration, "Never again."
Jews streaming into the Jewish Quarter 2011 This picture on the right was taken earlier this month in Jerusalem during Jerusalem Day celebrations commemorating the reunification of the city during the 1967 war.For millions of Jews, it represents actualization of the age-old prayer, "And to Jerusalem, Your city, in compassion may You return, and may You abide within it as You have spoken. May You rebuild it soon in our days as a structure that is eternal..."0Add a comment
- The great British leader Winston Churchill visited Palestine in 1921, relatively early in his career while serving as Colonial Secretary. He was attending a conference in Cairo, and, according to Churchill, he was invited to Jerusalem by his friend the British Commissioner for Palestine, Herbert Samuel.
Churchill and Samuels
on Mt Scopus
While in Jerusalem he attended a tree-planting ceremony at Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus with Sir Herbert Samuel. (pictured right)
From the left, Churchill,
Lawrence and Abdullah
Perhaps one of his most important meetings -- related to the division and leadership of the Middle East -- was a secret meeting with Emir Abdullah (later King Abdullah of Transjordan) and T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). A photograph from the meeting was preserved in the Library of Congress collection.
He also met with the Muslim, Christian and Jewish religious leadership of Jerusalem. In an incredible film clip, Churchill takes leave of the leading rabbis of the time, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, Chief Rabbi of the Ashkenazic community; Rabbi Joseph Chaim Zonnenfeld, Chief Rabbi of the ultra-Orthodox Eidah Charedis community; and Rabbi Jacob Meir, chief Rabbi of the Sephardi community.
To the left of the door is Emir Abdullah. Note the faint recognition Rabbi Kook gave him and Abdullah's lengthy gaze at the departing rabbi. What does it signify? We will probably never know.
Churchill also met with a former mayor of Jerusalem and Arab leader, Musa Kazim el Husseini. Husseini was related to the Jew-hating Mufti Haj Amil el-Husseini and father of the notorious Arab militia fighter, Abdul Khadar el-Husseini. The Husseinis' hatred of Jews was only matched by their hatred for King Abdullah, and Husseini clan members were involved in Abdullah's assassination on the Temple Mount in 1951.
Musa Kazim el Husseini petitioned Churchill to stop the immigration of Jews into Palestine and claimed that life for the Arabs was better under the Ottomans. Churchill responded with his famous rhetorical brilliance.You have asked me in the first place to repudiate the Balfour Declaration and to veto immigration of Jews into Palestine. It is not in my power to do so, nor, if it were in my power, would it be my wish. The British Government have passed their word, by the mouth of Mr. Balfour, that they will view with favour the establishment of a National Home for Jews in Palestine, and that inevitably involves the immigration of Jews into the country. This declaration of Mr. Balfour and of the British Government has been ratified by the Allied Powers who have been victorious in the Great War; and it was a declaration made while the war was still in progress, while victory and defeat hung in the balance. It must therefore be regarded as one of the facts definitely established by the triumphant conclusion of the Great War. It is upon this basis that the mandate has been undertaken by Great Britain, it is upon this basis that the mandate will be discharged. I have no doubt that it is on this basis that the mandate will be accepted by the Council of the League of Nations, which is to meet again shortly....
Moreover, it is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it will be good for the world, good for the Jews and good for the British Empire. But we also think it will be good for the Arabs who dwell in Palestine, and we intend that it shall be good for them, and that they shall not be sufferers or supplanted in the country in which they dwell or denied their share in all that makes for its progress and prosperity. And here I would draw your attention to the second part of the Balfour Declaration, which solemnly and explicitly promises to the inhabitants of Palestine the fullest protection of their civil and political rights. I was sorry to hear in the paper which you have just read that you do not regard that promise as of value....
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Joseph's Tomb
Joseph's traditional burial site is in the city of Schem (Nablus). Below are pictures taken in 1900. The originals arehere and here on the Library of Congress collection. View another picture here.The Ottoman Empire ruled the land of Palestine in 1900. Ostensibly, the guard at the tomb is an Ottoman policeman.
Note how the tomb was located in an empty field. Indeed, Jewish visitors to the tomb after the 1967 war remember it as a solidarity structure in a large field.
Today, it is surrounded by Palestinian buildings.
According to the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority is obligated to safeguard holy sites and ensure free access to them. (Annex III, Appendix I, Article 32 of the Oslo 2 accord, signed on September 28, 1995.) The Oslo 2 accord (Article V of Annex I) also spells out specific arrangements concerning particular sites such as the Tomb of Joseph in Nablus, the Shalom al Yisrael Synagogue in Jericho, and the Tomb of Rachel near Bethlehem.
During the 2000 Intifada, Palestinians razed the site. It has subsequently been rebuilt, but Jewish visits to the tomb are irregular and must be conducted with IDF escort.
Joseph's tomb surrounded by Palestinian buildings today
The razing of the Tomb in the 2000 Intifada
Monday, August 10, 2015
What You Probably Didn’t Know about Nebi Samuel
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