- The 11th Zionist Congress 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.The film was presented and then lost. In 1997, the original negative was found in France. The 80-minute film was restored and edited by Yaacov Gross. In 2000 the film was shown at several Jewish film festivals and was even reviewed in The New York Times.
Segments of the film were posted on YouTube 2009. In April 2012 Arik Rubin posted this one-hour YouTube clip. The film is narrated by Israeli entertainer Yehoram Gaon, and whether viewed in segments or in one continuous clip, it should not be missed. The Online Hebrew clip has no English subtitles.
View another film -- from 1918 -- here.
Travelogue and PR for the Zionist Congress
Sokolovsky's ship sailed from Odessa in April 1913 with 92 Jews destined for Eretz Yisrael. Some went for educational purposes, others went for health reasons, for employment, or to visit family during Passover. Two families consisting of 19 people made aliya, moved to the Holy Land.
The trip would take 11 days, stopping in Constantinople, Alexandria, and finally Jaffa.
Gymnasia school (circa 1925)
The residents of the Yishuv poured out into the streets wherever the film crew showed up. School holidays were declared, and the film showed hundreds of students from Tel Aviv's Gymnasia school and a Jaffa teachers school.
[Four years later, the Jews of Tel Aviv - Jaffa were expelled by the Turks, and many perished.]
In Petach Tikva, the "mother of the settlements," the clip showed the well-established orange industry, including camel caravans taking the crates of oranges to Jaffa port for export.
Sokolovksy and his crew filmed in Zichron Yaakov on the Sabbath and showed the residents leaving the synagogue after services. Zichron, the "Paris of Eretz Yisrael" and its wine industry were supported by Baron Rothschild. The vineyards of Zichron and Rishon Lezion that he sponsored are on the films.
Zichron Yaakov synagogue
The clip shows the building of the Technion in Haifa, expressing pride that 100 of the 130 construction workers were Jewish. Other locations visited included Hadera, Kinneret, Rosh Pinna, Jericho, Rishon Lezion, Nes Ziona, and Gedera.
A segment on Tiberias shows the town's two yeshivot, servicing the 2,000 Sephardi and 2000 Ashkenazi Hasidic Jews.An incredible segment of the agricultural work in Migdal shows a one-armed man plowing behind a horse (picture on the left). The man was Yosef Trumpledor, a veteran of the Russo-Japanese war who lost his arm in the fighting. In World War I he formed the Zion Mule Corps and fought in Gallipoli. In 1920, Trumpledor was killed defending the Tel Hai community in the Galilee.
Filming in JerusalemThe Odessa film-makers took the train to Jerusalem, filming along the way. In Jerusalem, they showed the throngs of Jews at the Western Wall on Passover and visiting the grave of Shimon HaTzaddik. Hundreds of school children marched for the camera, and the narrator added that 120 Jewish children had been saved from missionary schools.
The photographers stopped on the way to Hebron to film Jews at Rachel's Tomb and then filmed the Grave of the Patriarchs in Hebron -- only from the outside. The Muslims would not permit Jews to enter the shrine, and pious Jews could be seen praying next to an external wall. 1200 Jews lived in Hebron.
The last segment shows a festival held in Rehovot that attracted 6,000 Jews from around Palestine. A chartered train brought hundreds from Tel Aviv to Ramle and they continued to Rehovot by wagon, horse or on foot -- a 3-4 hour hike. In a precursor to today's "Maccabiah" athletic games, an athletic presentation was given by sportsmen from around Eretz Yisrael. The "festival of Hebrew youth" also attracted 40 Jewish athletes from Germany.
The film shows that Jewish life in Palestine in 1913 was vibrant and productive -- 35 years before the founding of Israel. Within a few short years, however, the winds of World War I would sweep across Palestine, plunging the Jews of the Yishuv into a period of starvation, pestilence, exile and hardship. - APR30
Lag B'Omer Commemorated Next Week. How Was It Celebrated in Jerusalem 90 Years Ago? Updating an earlier posting. The Library of Congress is reading our postings
The Enigmatic Photograph from the Library of Congress:
A Jewish Children’s Parade a Long Time Ago 
Many questions: Who, Why, Where? A short version of this item appeared in theJerusalem Post Magazine in August 2011.Among the thousands of very old and recently digitalized pictures from a Library of Congress collection of photos from Palestine, there is this captivating picture.[Eight months ago we wrote:] All the Library of Congress caption tells us is that the picture was taken between 1910 and 1930 and that it is a “Group of children and adults in procession in street, some holding a banner with a Star of David.”Today, there is a 1918 date on the Library of Congress page and this new caption: "Jewish children and adults, one holding a Star of David banner, walking south on Nablus Road towards the grave of Shimon Hatzadik (Simon the Just), Jerusalem."A note on the updated LoC's picture file reads:Procession may have taken place on April 30, 1918, on Lag Ba'Omer, when visits were traditionally made to the tomb. British army tents in background, indicate year of 1918. (Source: L. Ben-David, Israel's History - A Picture a Day website, August 19, 2011) Title devised by Library staff. (Source: L. Ben-David, Israel's History - A Picture a Day website, August 19, 2011)
Who are the hundreds of children? Why are the boys and girls separated? Where are they marching to? Where is this picture taken? And why is there a tent compound on the left horizon?
Photo analysis and comparison to an aerial photograph from 1931 and contemporary pictures indicate
Enlargement of the army camp. Note the permanent
structure surrounded by tents.
In fact, the day was Tuesday, April 30, 1918. The procession is almost certainly an organized outing of several Jerusalem schools taking place on Lag Ba’Omer, four weeks after Passover. Traditionally, on Lag Ba’Omer Jews flock to the Galilee mountaintop of Meiron to the grave of Shimon Bar Yochai, one of the most famous scholars in the Talmud. But some 100 years ago, travel to Meiron would have taken days. Instead, the children took a hike to Shimon Hatzadik’s grave, a known custom 100 years ago in Jerusalem.
Shimon Hatzadik's tomb today (Israel
Daily Picture)
The parade route today (picture taken from the 8th floor
of the Olive Hotel) (IDP)“Anyone who could travel to Meiron on Lag Ba’Omer would go, and there take place miracles and wonders. But the residents of Jerusalem who couldn’t afford to travel to Meiron have as compensation the cave of Shimo Hatzadik located at the edge of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood north of the Old City.”
Today, Lag Ba’Omer is a day when Jewish children still go out to parks and forests to celebrate. In Jerusalem, many traditional Jews still visit Shimon’s grave.
Comparison of buildings from 1918 and today. Second stories
were added to the buildings over the years. (IDP)The houses around the grave where Jews lived 100 years ago were abandoned under threat of Arab pogroms in the 1920s and 1930s. The Hadassah convoy massacre in 1948, in which almost 80 Jews were killed, took place on the road beneath the building with the very prominent arches.In recent years, however, Jewish families have returned to the Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood.1View comments
- APR29
Another Mystery Photo: The Caption Reads "Scene at the Village Well, between 1898 and 1946" Let's Correct the Record
With more than 22,000 American Colony photographs in the Library of Congress, the fact that most of them are catalogued, digitalized, captioned and dated is a major tribute to the curators. The photos were taken between 1880 and 1946, but the American Colony photographers also collected older pictures, such as the one at the top of this page from the1860s.
"Village elders at the well" were actually Jewish dignitaries
attending the British High Commissioner's first meeting
after two years of British military rule. (1920)
Can anyone identify the three?
But sometimes, the curators just don't know, as was the case with this picture. In one copy of the photo the caption reads "Village Elders at the Well."
Samuel's arrival in Jaffa in June 1920
Well, we know exactly when and where the photograph was taken: July 7, 1920 in the garden of the Government House where the new British High Commissioner, Herbert Samuel, introduced himself and read a proclamation announcing the end of military rule in Palestine. Earlier postings of Israel Daily Picture presented pictures of Samuel's landing in Jaffa two weeks earlier and the reception at Government House.
Other Jewish dignitaries at the High
Commissioner's proclamation: Eliezer Ben-
Yehuda stands behind (from left) Rabbi
Moshe Leib Bernstein, Rabbi Yosef
Chaim Sonnenfeld, the chief rabbi of
Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox community,
Rabbi Yerucham Diskin, and Rabbi
Baruch Reuven Jungreis
The July 7 reception brought together dignitaries from the Jewish, Moslem and Christian communities, and it is evident that the three "village elders" in the mystery photo were part of the audience. The man on the right with the bowler hat is holding a copy of the proclamation distributed to the audience. The "elder" on the left appears in the foreground of a picture of Samuel greeting the Sheikh of Be'er Sheva.
Samuel and the Sheikh of Be'er Sheva
in the doorway. In the foreground we
can see the "elder" rabbi's turban
Samuel delivering his proclamation at
Government House
Samuel's proclamation laid out Great Britain's plan for local government for Arab and Jews as well as economic development for Palestine. Samuel presented details of the plans in his first year report to his government in 1921, a report that provides important historical context to the Arab-Jewish conflict over the last 90 years. Samuel reported:
Samuel's reception with Jews, Arab and
Christian leaders mingling with British
officialsIt is obvious to every passing traveler, and well-known to every European resident, that the country was before the War, and is now, undeveloped and under-populated. The methods of agriculture are, for the most part, primitive; the area of land now cultivated could yield a far greater product. There are in addition large cultivable areas that are left untilled. The summits and slopes of the hills are admirably suited to the growth of trees, but there are no forests. Miles of sand dunes that could be redeemed, are untouched, a danger, by their encroachment, to the neighbouring tillage. The Jordan and the Yarmuk offer an abundance of water-power; but it is unused....[Prior to 1880, Jews] came to pray and to die in the Holy Land, and to be buried in its soil. After the persecutions in Russia forty years ago [1880], the movement of the Jews to Palestine assumed larger proportions. Jewish agricultural colonies were founded. They developed the culture of oranges and gave importance to the Jaffa orange trade. They cultivated the vine, and manufactured and exported wine. They drained swamps. They planted eucalyptus trees. They practised, with modern methods, all the processes of agriculture. There are at the present time 64 of these settlements, large and small, with a population of some 15,000. Every traveller in Palestine who visits them is impressed by the contrast between these pleasant villages, with the beautiful stretches of prosperous cultivation about them and the primitive conditions of life and work by which they are surrounded.]
Click on the photos to enlarge.
Click on the captions to see the originals.
Subscribe to receive the Israel Daily Picture via email. Enter your email address in the box in the right sidebar. It's free.1View comments
The caption reads "Ashkenazi
(German Jews)." Were they
really actors? (1876)
The 19th century photographers in the Middle East loved to take portraits of the local population in their native surroundings and native costumes.
The original picture of "Polish Jews" (Courtesy
of the Palestine Exploration Fund)
Hundreds of photos in the Library of Congress collection show Jewish men and women (andhere), Arab men and women, the Maronite patriarch, Bedouins, Samaritans, Armenian monks, Druse, etc. in their native and ritual clothing.
Many "candid" photographs of the ultra-Orthodox Jews show them attempting to hide their faces, in some cases because it was the Sabbath. Perhaps that is why this 1876 photo by the Palestine Exploration Fund employed actors dresses as ultra-Orthodox Jews. [At least one looks authentic, no?]
A group portrait of "real" Jews (1900) We thank our reader "Yoni" for submitting the following comment, adding to his startling revelation that the photo of the "Ashkenazi Jews" was fake.
The photo "Ashkeanzi Jews" was taken by Sergeant Henry Phillips, R.E, the photographer of the Palestine Exploration Fund’s expedition led by explorer Lieutenant Charles Warren R.E.
There are other versions of this picture with the "actors" dressed differently and in different locations, such as the photo published in Warren's "Underground Jerusalem."
Armenian priests or are they actors?
Are they the same people in the
"Ashkenazi picture?" (Courtesy of
the Palestinian Exploration Fund)
As for the hotels; The Mediterranean hotel had three different locations (see Gibson and Chapman 1995). Between 1849-1866 it was located at the south eastern side of the Hezekiah pool, Between 1866-1870 it moved to El-Wad street (currently known as Sharon House or Beit Witenberg) and in 1870- 1885 it moved towards the Jaffa Gate and occupied the same building as the Petra Hotel today. Therefore, the Ashkenazi Jews photo was taken in the second location in 1867, when the Warren expedition was based there.
Twain stayed at the same
hotel in Jerusalem in 1867
The full story will be available with the publication of the Book.
As Yoni pointed out, Mark Twain and his colleagues stayed at the same Mediterranean Hotel in the Old City of Jerusalem as the Palestine Exploration Fund's explorers.
A question for Yoni: Were the actors' pictures taken in 1876, as per the Library of Congress caption, or in 1867 when Warren undertook his expedition to Jerusalem? Both Twain and Warren may have been at the same Mediterranean Hotel at the same time. Click here to see possible pictures of Twain's colleagues in Jerusalem.
An Yoni's response: The Original photo was taken in 1867 by Sargent Howard Philips and the Library of Congress date mentioned is in reference to the publication of Warren's "Underground Jerusalem in 1876. as in the bibliography:
Illus. in: Underground Jerusalem: an account / Charles Warren. London : Richard Bentley and Son, publishers in Ordinary to her Majesty the Queen, 1876, oppos. p. 359.
It does seem that the photographer did not have people of faith to represent the diversity of Jewish, and Christian Orthodox in the city and therefore used actors /extras, and dressed them in the different costumes. I would not call this a "Fraud" but rather creative posing to tell the story.4View comments
This vintage photograph from the Library of Congress collection focuses on the Dome of the Rock mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The Temple Mount and mosques. And something else
(circa 1860 - 1890)
The caption reads "General view of the Haram or [Mount] Moriah. El Aksa - Omar - Church of St. Anne."
But there's something else in the photo.
The photo doesn't bear the name of the photographer, nor is it certain when the photo was taken. The Library of Congress dates the picture in a 30 year period "between 1860 and 1890."
In the background of the picture, on the horizon to the right of the spire, is a large building. It is the uncompleted Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue in the Old City's Jewish Quarter. Construction of the synagogue began in 1857, but because of lack of funds, a domed roof could not be completed.
Enlargement of the unfinished synagogue
-- and another dome to the right
Two domes -- The Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue (left) and
the Hurva Synagogue (1900)
In 1870, the Austrian emperor, Franz Josef, visited Jerusalem. According to legend, upon seeing the synagogue, the emperor asked why it had no roof. A host from the Jewish community responded, "My lord, the synagogue has taken off its hat in your honor."
Franz Josef contributed funds to help complete the roof, and the building was dedicated in 1872.
But we can also ascertain that the photo was taken after 1864. To the right of the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue, on the horizon and slightly obscured by a cloud, is the dome of the famous Hurva Synagogue, completed in 1864.
The featured photo was taken, therefore, between 1864 and 1872. We can also surmise that the photo of Jerusalem at the top of this blog was also taken in this time period for only the Hurva dome appears.
Destroyed Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue
in 1948 (Wikipedia)
Both synagogues were destroyed by the Jordanians during and after the 1948 war.
Hurva in ruins, 1948. Jordanian soldier
holding a Torah scroll. (Wikipedia)
The Hurva was rebuilt and rededicated in 2010.
Discussions have been held recently about rebuilding the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue.1View comments
-
We want to thank a reader named "Yoni" who commented on our special Gallery of the Old Yishuv. The following is his amazing revelation:
Were these "Ashkenazi Jews" really actors?
The picture named "Ashkenazi Jews" (1876) was taken in the Mediterranean Hotel courtyard located on Hagai St. in the Muslim quarter of the Old City.
The keys holder is seen in back on the right hand side and show the place for 22 keys. The "Ashkenazi Jews" in the photo are actors dressed up as such, and in another picture taken in the same location they are dressed as Christian characters from Jerusalem.
The hotel is described in Charles Warren book "Underground Jerusalem" and housed the P.E.F expedition in 1867 as well as the famous writer Samuel Clements (Mark Twain) on his tour in 1867 well documented in the travel book "Innocents Abroad."
The location of the hotel was found several years ago By Yoni Shapira, and in collaboration with archeologist Dr. Shimon Gibson and Dr. Rupert Chapman the story will be published by the P.E.F. later this year in a book called "Tourists, Travelers and Hotels in Nineteenth-Century Jerusalem."
Thank you, Yoni. Indeed, some of the photograph's subjects don't quite look "kosher."
We present below two photographs from the Library of Congress collection with references to the Mediterranean Hotel, taken in the same time period as the "Ashkenazi Jews."
We hope they help you in your research. 
Interior of Jaffa Gate from near Hotel Mediterranean
(Felix Bonfils, photographer, between 1870 and 1880)
Note the narrow Jaffa Gate some 20 years before the Turks
reconstructed the entrance
"Pool of Hezekiah, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and Hospice
of the Knights of St. John, from the Mediterranean Hotel"
(P. Bergheim, photographer, between 1860 and 1880)2View comments
- APR24
A Special Gallery for Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Celebrates 64 Years since Independence(But Jews Have Always Lived in the Holy Land)
The State of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, the fifth day of the Jewish month Iyar.
Jews of Jerusalem circa 1890
But Eretz Yisrael has been the homeland for the Jewish people since the days of Abraham. Even after the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, Jews continued living in the land, as evidenced by the writing of the Jerusalem Talmud over the next 400 years.
Zionism, the modern Jewish nationalist movement is some 130 years old, but the longing for the Land of Israel is as ancient as the Jewish prayers to return to Zion, as old as the 13th century Spanish rabbi, Nachmanides, who moved to Jerusalem, as devout as the students of the Vilna Gaon who left Europe in the early 19th century, and as passionate as the Yemenite Jews who walked to the Holy Land in the 1880s.
A Yemenite Jew looking over his village of Silwan outside
of Jerusalem's Old City walls (1901)
These "Zionists" comprised the "Old Yishuv," the pious Jews and their descendants who lived in the holy cities of Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias. Many lived in the ancient city of Jaffa along the coast, but they were expelled by the Turks in 1917.
Ashkenazi Jews (1876)
An "Arab Jew from Yemen"
(1900). View another portrait
Orthodox boy in Jerusalem (1934)
Degania, the first kibbutz, on
the shore of the Sea of Galilee
(circa 1920)
And the New Yishuv
In the late 19th century, Jewish nationalists began theiraliya to the Land of Israel. The Zionists established national governing institutions and built cities, farming communities, universities, ports and industries.
The photographers of the American Colony focused on many of these enterprises. Their collection is housed in the Library of Congress, the source of these vintage photos.
An early Jewish settlement
(circa 1920)
Ein Gev pioneers, including Teddy
Kollek (2nd from the right), later
mayor of Jerusalem (circa 1937)
New Tel Aviv street (circa 1920s)
The building of the new city of Tel Aviv, north of Jaffa, was the jewel on the Zionists' crown.
Already in the 1880s Yemenite Jews started to move north from Jaffa to build homes.
In 1909, a Zionist housing enterprise was launched in the sand dunes north of Jaffa with 66 families drawing lots to allocate property for new homes. After the Turkish expulsion in 1917 and the defeat of the Turks by the British in 1917-1918 Jews moved back to the Tel Aviv area.
Removing sand dunes at
Tel Aviv (circa 1920)
By 1925, 34,000 Jews were living in Tel Aviv.
Jewish mason building
Tel Aviv (circa 1920)
Twenty-three years later, in May 1948 and with Jerusalem under siege, Tel Aviv served as the capital of the newly proclaimed State of Israel. The members of the "Old Yishuv" in Jerusalem's Old City were evacuated or taken prisoner by the Jordanian Legion. The members of the "New Yishuv" served on the defense line of the new state, with the rural kibbutzim and moshavim bearing the brunt of Arab attacks.2View comments
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
A 1913 Film of Eretz Yisrael. If a Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, a Film Is Worth a Million - picture a day
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