Tuesday, August 18, 2015

150 Years Ago in Jerusalem -- This Is the Place for Photographs. But It's Also the Place to Read What the Tourists & Explorers Wrote - picture a day


  1. Mark Twain, 1867
    William Seward, Lincoln's
    Secretary of State

    Charles Wilson, British officer
    Befitting its name, the Israel Daily Picture site focuses on century-old photographs from Eretz Yisrael, but the confluence of three visitors to the Holy Land almost simultaneously 150 years ago brings us today to focus on their words, not just the photographs of their time.  
     
    Are these tourists Twain's colleagues?
    Another confluence, this one of the technology of the steamship and photography, helped spur tourism to Palestine, suggests Kathleen Stewart Howe, an American curator and historian of photography.  The author of Revealing the Holy Land, the Photographic Exploration of Palestine, Stewart Howe explained in a recent lecture, "Photography and travel to the Holy Land were an interlocking system... Photography encouraged tourism and travel; tourism consumed photography." Eighteen thousand tourists visited the Holy Land on organized tours between 1868 and 1880, she reported.

    The American author and humorist Mark Twain visited the Holy Land in 1867 as part of a tour group consisting of "64 pilgrims and sinners."  He filed dispatches to newspapers in the United States and then republished them as Innocents Abroad.  [We continue to investigate whether pictures we found in the Library of Congress collection may be Twain's traveling partners posing in front of the Old City's Golden Gate.]  View an earlier posting on Twain's visit here.   
     
    Warren, seated on the left, and his team.
    Phillips is seated on the right (1867)
    According to historians, Twain and his party stayed at the Mediterranean Hotel in Jerusalem's Old City at the same time as the British expedition led by Charles Warren, a co-author with Charles Wilson of The Recovery of Jerusalem, a Narrative of Exploration and Discovery in the City and the Holy Land.  Wilson's 1865 Ordnance Survey included many photographs by Sgt. James McDonald.  Could the photos of the Jerusalem "tourists" have been taken by Warren's photographer, Corporal Henry Phillips two years later?

    The third writer, William Seward, visited Palestine in 1859 and again in 1871. Seward served as President Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State and was wounded in his home by one of John Wilkes Booth's accomplices on the same night that Lincoln was shot. Mary Todd Lincoln told the Springfield, Ill. pastor who presided at her husband's funeral,  "He [Lincoln] said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footprints of the Saviour. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem."  

    We surmise that Lincoln had heard about Jerusalem and the Holy Land from his Secretary of State.

    Here are excerpts of their writings:
    • On the population of Jerusalem

    • Twain: The population of Jerusalem is composed of Moslems, Jews, Greeks, Latins, Armenians, Syrians, Copts, Abyssinians, Greek Catholics, and a handful of Protestants.... It seems to me that all the races and colors and tongues of the earth must be represented among the fourteen thousand souls.
      Ashkenazi Jews. Photo probably
       taken by Warren's photographer,
       1867







     

    • Wilson:   It is difficult to obtain statistical information on Jerusalem, but one fact alone will show the unhealthy nature of the city: The Jewish population is estimated at about 9,000, yet in twelve months, more than 13,000 cases of sickness were attended to in their own hospital and that of the Protestant Mission.

    • Seward: The population of Palestine is estimated at only 200,000.... Jerusalem is divided now according to its different classes of population.  The Mohammedans are four thousand, and occupy the northeast quarter, including the whole area of the Mosque of Omar.  The Jews are eight thousand; and have the southeast quarter.... The Armenians number eighteen hundred, and have the southwest quarter and the other Christians, amounting to twenty-two hundred, have the northwest quarter.
  2. On the status of the Jews

    • Wilson: I offered to take Jews upon the [excavation] works; but though some came to try it, one day was always quite sufficient for them, they were quite unused to the hard work.  I had, however a Jewish overseer, that it a man who kept above ground, and beat the men with his corbatch [or kurbash, leather strap] when they were idling.  He was a first-rate fellow, and was called by the fellahin "the devil" -- the only Jew I met in the country was was not afraid of the natives.
    • Seward: For centuries (we do not know how many) the Turkish rulers have allowed the oppressed and exiled Jews the privilege of gathering at the foot of this [wailing] wall one day in every week, and pouring out their lamentations over the fall of their beloved city, and praying for its restoration to the Lord... The Jewish sabbath being on Saturday, and beginning on Friday, the weekly wail of the Jews under the wall takes place on Friday.
    • Women at the Western Wall; Men are
      at the far right
      Twain: At that portion of the ancient wall of Solomon's Temple which is called the Jew's Place of Wailing, and where the Hebrews assemble every Friday to kiss the venerated stones and weep over the fallen greatness of Zion, any one can see a part of the unquestioned and undisputed Temple of Solomon, the same consisting of three or four stones lying one upon the other.
    • Click on the photos to enlarge.
      Click on the captions to see the originals.
    2 

    View comments





  3. Now booking lectures in Israel in December


    “The Hidden Message within
    Antique Pictures of the Holy Land”


    By Israel Daily Picture's publisher, Lenny Ben-David


     Contact israel.dailypix@gmail.com for more information
    2 

    View comments

  4. Cover of the Ordnance Survey
    (1865)
    The photographic archives in the New York Public Library is the surprising repository for hundreds of historic photographs of Palestine.  Some of the pictures date back to the 1850s and 1860s. 

    We provide here a selection of some of the amazing photographs.  Future postings will focus on particular pictures and the photographers.
    
    Survey photo of the "Wailing Place of the Jews"
     (1865). The photo was taken by Peter Bergheim who
    established a photographic studio in the Christian
     Quarter of the Old City. The Survey team had its
    own photographer, but, apparently, Bergheim was
    subcontracted by the Survey team. (Source: New
    York Public Library) See here for similar photos.

    Many of the photos were taken from the British Ordnance Survey of Jerusalem of 1865 led by Captain Charles W. Wilson.  He and Captain Charles Warren led extensive archaeological excavations near the Temple Mount ("Wilson's Arch" and "Warren's Shaft" are well-known to visitors to Jerusalem).  Warren would go on to become the head of London's police during the "Jack the Ripper" murder spree.

    We thank staffers at the Library of Congress who steered us to the Survey and officials at the New York Public Library who granted permission to publish the photos.

    The sealed Golden Gate, also known as Shaar 
    Harachamim (1865), is located on the eastern wall
    of the Old City and closest to the site of the Jewish
    Temple and the Dome of the Rock. The photo was
    taken by the Survey's official photographer, James
    McDonald.  (Source: New York Public Library)
    See here for similar photos.





    The 1865 Survey contained measurements, maps and descriptions of the city of Jerusalem which was almost all contained within the Old City walls.  The explorers sank shafts along the Old City walls, explored underground tunnels, cisterns and caverns, and recorded their findings.

    In 1871,Wilson and Warren published The Recovery of Jerusalem, a Narrative of Exploration and Discovery in the City and the Holy Land, a memoir of their experiences in Jerusalem, including dealing with rapacious Ottoman officials, impassible roads, and local workers.

    Interestingly, the Wilson-Warren book did not include photographs; it was illustrated with woodcuts such as this one possibly copied from the Bergheim photo above.  And note how similar the woodcut is to the one illustrating William Seward's travelogue.  Seward was Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State who visited the Holy Land in 1859 and 1871.  Both books, published in 1871, describe Jewish prayer at the Western Wall as restricted to Friday evening.

    Woodcut in Seward's book

    The woodcut in Wilson's book
    1 

    View comments

  5. "Shepherd and sheep." Where? South on Nablus Road in Jerusalem (circa 1900)
    The mosque and minaret are still there today. Credit: New York Public Library
    The Library of Congress archives of 19th and early 20th century photographs from the Holy Land still has more veins of treasures to be mined byIsrael Daily Picture.  

    But we would like to add two more American Colony pictures which we found in the New York Public Library archives to our previous postings. We thank the NYPL for granting permission to present them here.

     
    Turkish soldiers marching on Nablus
    Road past the same minaret
    (circa 1900)








    The first is a picture of shepherds and sheep.  What drew our attention were the buildings and mosque, easily identified in our feature "Jerusalem's Nablus Road -- Where History Marched." The original caption to the photograph of the soldiers notes that they were passing the American Colony residence, located on Nablus Road.

    Emperor Wilhelm passing the Colony's
    residence. Note the minaret above the
    ultra-Orthodox Jew's hat on the left.
    (1898)
    The Colony's location gave the photographers a front row seat for the arrival of the German Emperor Wilhelm II in 1898.

    The second photo found in the New York Public Library is a picture of farming practices in Palestine over 100 years ago.  The American Colony photographers frequently shot pictures of mismatched plowing animals.
    Peasant plowing (circa 1900)
    Credit: New York Public Library





    We theorize that the American Colony members, who were well versed in the Old Testament, focused on agricultural prohibitions found in the Bible. 

    In this particular case, they illustrated the prohibition "Thou shall not plow with an ox and an ass together." (Deuteronomy 20)

    They also provided pictures of the prohibition "Thou shall notmuzzle an ox in its threshing"
    (Deuteronomy 25)

    Click on the photos to enlarge.   Click on the captions to see the originals. 

    Subscribe by entering your email address in the box in the right sidebar of the Online version -- it's free!
    0 

    Add a comment

  6. Palace Hotel in the Mamilla section of Jerusalem (circa 1930)
    When the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin el Husseini built the Palace Hotel in 1929 he spared no cost.  After renovating the Muslim sites on the Haram el Sharif (Temple Mount), he sought a palatial luxury hotel for visiting rulers of the Muslim and Arab world. He had no compunction about using funds from the Muslim religious trust.

    Husseini hired a Turkish architect, Jewish contractors and Egyptian stonemasons to build the hotel which was completed in only 11 months.
    The Palestine Royal (Peel) Commission set up
    offices at the Palace Hotel to consider partition
    of Palestine (1936)








    Early in the construction, one of the Jewish contractors wrote in his memoirs, workers discovered buried human remains, apparently from an ancient section of the Mamilla Muslim cemetery across the road.  Husseini instructed the contractor to quickly and quietly rebury the bones lest his political rivals discover the desecration.  But they did find out, and a nasty public relations and religious court battle ensued.

    The hotel was unable to compete with the plush King David Hotel a few blocks away and closed its doors in 1935.  The building was expropriated by the British Mandate Government.

    The Mufti was a rabid Arab nationalist and political rabble-rouser.  He incited anti-Semitic rioting and massacres against Jews in Palestine and led the anti-British Arab revolt in Palestine between 1936 and 1939.
    
    Husseini leaving the Peel Commission
    In 1936, the British Mandate Government conducted hearings of the Palestine Royal Commission in the former hotel.  The hearings, also known as the "Peel Commission," investigated the causes of the Arab violence.  Husseini testified, representing the radical Arabs.  Opposite him appeared Chaim Weizmann, representing the Jews of Palestine.
    
    Weizmann arriving at the Commission
    When the British attempted to arrest the Mufti in 1937 he fled Palestine, and the British made do with confiscating his property. The Husseini clan owned several well-known buildings in Jerusalem, among them the Palace Hotel, the Orient House, and the Shepherd Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah on a plot of land known as Karam al Mufti, named for Husseini.

    After the British departed Palestine in 1948 and Israel's creation, the Palace Hotel became Israel’s Ministry of  Industry and Trade.

    
    Palace Hotel under construction today
    Today, the historic building is under renovation and construction with plans to reopen as the 5-star "Palace Jerusalem --Waldorf-Astoria." 
    Artist's rendition of future hotel












    Click on the photos to enlarge. 
    Click on the captions to view the originals.
    2 

    View comments

  7. The "Golden Gate," also known as Sha'ar 
    HaRachamim. On the other side of the wall is
    the Temple Mount and the Dome of the Rock
    (1865) View Golden Gate feature here
    The Library of Congress has an amazing archive of antique photographs, including the 22,000 pictures taken by the American Colony Photographic Department in Jerusalem.  It also contains photos by photographic pioneers and explorers who visited the Holy Land in the second half of the 19th century.

    Click on the photos to enlarge. 

    Click on the captions to see the originals
    
    Panoramic view of Jerusalem, taken from the Hill of Evil Counsel - Abu Tur (1865)
    One explorer was Captain Charles Wilson of the British Ordnance Survey and the Palestine Exploration Fund.  Two of the pictures taken by Wilson's photographer, Sgt. J. M. McDonald, are available in the Library of Congress archives for researchers, but they had never been digitalized and made available on the Internet.

    Israel Daily Picture requested that the Library remove copyright restrictions on the 147-year-old photos.  The pictures were posted on the Internet this week and appear here.  The Library's site allows visitors to enlarge the photographs to see amazing details, in these cases more than 12 MB in size.

    Other photos from Wilson's expedition appear in the Palestine Exploration Fund's gallery, and one picture of the Haram el-Sharif/Temple Mount and Western Wall appears here.
    Panoramic view of Haram el-Sharif/Temple Mount and Western Wall (Credit: Palestine Exploration Fund, 1865)
    1 

    View comments

  8. "Jerusalem Famille Juive" by Charles Chusseau-Flaviens (Credit: George 
    Eastman House, circa 1900)
    Reviewing the historic photos of Jerusalem in the George Eastman House Museum, we came across this wonderful 110 year old picture taken by a French photographer, Charles Chusseau-Flaviens.

    It bears the caption "Jerusalem Famille Juive" -- a Jewish family in Jerusalem.
    From their dress, we presume it is a Sabbath or Jewish holiday, and some of the shops are shuttered in mid-day.  Their walking in the middle of the street suggests that they're in a Jewish neighborhood and are not worried about carriages or horses.  And they're walking down an incline.
    Google "Street View" looking up Malchai Yisrael Street in Jerusalem

    The challenge: Can anyone locate these buildings in Jerusalem today? 
    Over the course of 100 years buildings have been torn down, second stories added, and streets widened.

    Are they walking down Jaffa Road toward the Old City?  We checked, and the store on the right is notthe Ma'ayan Shtub shop. 

    Perhaps they're walking through the Romema neighborhood on Malchei Yisrael Street toward Meah Shearim and the Old City beyond.  Thanks to Google's Street View program, we offer the possibility that the building is this shop with the distinctive rounded window and the two story building behind it with the unusual stonework on the edge of the walls.

    We welcome readers' suggestions.

    And don't forget to subscribe to www.israeldailypicture.com by entering your email in the box in the right sidebar.
    4 

    View comments

  9. Most of the men at this 1920 Jerusalem demonstration in favor of the Damascus-
    led Arab nationalist movement wore fezzes/tarboushes on their heads.
    Few wore the kaffiya which was worn by farmers, Bedouins and peasants.
    Were you visitor number 600,000?

    The American Colony photographers were fascinated by Arab headgear and took a series of pictures on the subject.  Why?

    As the accompanying 1920 picture of an Arab demonstration shows, most of the Arab men were wearing fezzes (tarboush) or turbans.  Only a few were wearing the cloth kaffiya and agal (the cord on top).
    Note the Jewish fez-wearers in
    the center-left of this picture of
    worshippers at the Western Wall
    on Yom Kippur (circa 1900)

     








    The kaffiya was a practical headgear to protect its wearer from the sun, wind and cold. 

    But, according to one researcher, the kaffiya "marked its wearer as a man of low status.  This head covering distinguished the fallah from the effendi, the educated middle- or upper-class man of the town who demonstrated his social preeminence by donning the fez. The reforming Ottoman government first introduced the fez in the 1830 as a replacement for the turban...."  (Memories of Revolt: The 1936-1939 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past, by Ted Swedenburg.)

    Sephardic Jews also wore fezzes, as evidenced by pictures of Jews praying at the Western Wall.

    "Change to national head covering"
    Discarded fezzes (in circle) atop a
    bus stop pole in Jerusalem (1938)
    "Rajai el Husseini in kaffiya and
    agal" (1938)
    What changed? 

    Memories of Revolt by Ted Swedenburg explains that in the early 20th century, "Arab nationalists in Damascus initiated a campaign to distinguish themselves from the fez-garbed 'Ottoman' Turks by donning the 'Arab' headscarf (kaffiya).  [In Palestine] up to the 1930s, the kaffiya generally still signified social inferiority (and rural backwardness), while the fez signaled superiority (and urbane sophistication)."



    "National head covering... City
    Christian girls with newly adopted veil"
    (1938)

    In the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, "the official political leaders of the struggle for independence came from the urban upper and middle classes," Swedenburg wrote. "The armed rebel bands that began to operate in the highlands... were composed almost exclusively of peasants.  These guerrilla fighters took on the kaffiya as their insignia.  Wrapped close around their heads, kaffiyat provided anonymity to fighters... disguised their identities from spies, and helped them elude capture by the British."

    To complete his survey of Jerusalem
    headgear, the photographer included
    "Polish Jews with another headgear,"
    the fur-trimmed shtreimel. (1938)
    "On August 26, 1938, when the revolt was reaching its apogee... the rebel leadership commanded all Palestinian Arab townsmen to discard the tarboush and don the kaffiya... British officials were amazed how the new fashion spread across the country with 'lightening rapidity.'"
    "City Moslem ladies with faces covered
    as usual" (1938)

    The abandonment of the fez was not accepted by all of Palestine's Arabs, and leading clans such as the Nashashibi family, refused to change and were met with antagonism, according toMemories.

    The Arab revolt was led by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el Husseini. The history of the headgear during the revolt also explains the adoption of the iconic kaffiya later by Haj Amin's cousin, Yasir Arafat.


    Click on the photos to enlarge. 
    Click on the captions to see the originals. 
    Subscribe by entering your email in the box in the right sidebar. 
    0 

    Add a comment

  10. 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.

    Allenby and Rabbi Meir
    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.


    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.
    0 

    Add a comment

  11. Balfour's reception in Tel Aviv (April 1925)
    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.

    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.
    0 

    Add a comment

  12. Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem (credit: George Eastman House)
    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. 

    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.
    2 

    View comments

  13. The welcome arch constructed by Jerusalem's Jews in honor
    of the German Emperor Wilhelm II
    The Kaiser Arrives, and the Rabbis Turn Out.   How Jerusalem's Jews Greeted the German Emperor in 1898 

    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."

    Torah crowns and breastplate
    on top of the arch
    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.

    

    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
    Hatzoref's parochet, suggesting it came
    from the Hurva Synagogue
    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.

    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.

    Ultra-Orthodox Jews in their Sabbath finery, standing along the
    Emperor's parade route
     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? 

    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.
    0 

    Add a comment

  14. Original caption: "Threshing, Floor (illeg.)"
    (Credit: George Eastman House, circa 1900)
    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."

    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. 

    
    
    Plowing with a cow and a camel (circa 1900)
     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.


    "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. 

    Subscribe by entering your email address in the box in the right sidebar -- it's free!
    1 

    View comments

No comments:

Post a Comment