Who can forget the scenes of Israel's citizens scurrying to shelters as Hamas rockets from Gaza fell on cities, towns and villages in recent months and years, or as Hizbullah rockets were fired from Lebanon in 2006, or as Iraqi Scud missiles exploded in Haifa and Tel Aviv during the 1991 Gulf War?
2012: Apartment building damaged in November 2012 by a
Hamas rocket fired from Gaza, November 2012 (credit: Channel 2)
Actually, the civilian populations in the Holy Land have been targets of bombs for more than 70 years.
1991: Scud damage in Ramat Gan
The American Colony photograph collection at the Library of Congress contains pictures of the civil defense and shelter preparations already in 1939.
Click on pictures to enlarge.
Click on captions to see the originals.
1940: After an Italian air attack on Tel
Aviv in World War II (Damien Peter Parer,
photographer, Australian War Memorial)
Below are pictures from previous attacks, some prior to the creation of Israel.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
1948: After an Egyptian air attack on Tel Aviv
(Government Press Office)
1945: Close up of the air raid shelter
sign at Solomon's Quarries
1945: Air raid shelter under Jerusalem's Old City at
Solomon's Quarries (Library of Congress)
1939: Decontamination and air raid exercise at the Jerusalem YMCA sports field
(Library of Congress)- JAN27
1939 Jewish Demonstration against the British White Paper -- Led by the Grandes Dames of Jerusalem
The British Mandatory forces brutally crushed the Arab Revolt in Palestine (1936-1939). Despite their heavy losses, however, the Arabs succeeded politically in forcing the British government to severely limit Jewish immigration and land purchases in Palestine.
Women led by (right to left) Ben-Zvi, Herzog and Yellin protesting
the British White Paper (May 22, 1939). Library of Congress
caption: "The procession of young women raising their right
hands in attestation to their claim."
The women hearing speakers on Jaffa Rd
Protesters marching on King George St.
The sign they carry on the left translates
roughly to "There is no betrayal for the
Eternal of Israel"
In 1939, the British government headed by Neville Chamberlain issued the "MacDonald White Paper," a policy paper which called for the establishment of a single Palestine state governed by Arabs and Jews based on their respective populations. The White Paper was approved by the British Parliament in May 1939, thus signing the death sentences of millions of Jews precisely when the Nazi tide was threatening to engulf Europe.In a previous posting we presented details and pictures of Palestine's Jews demonstrating in Jerusalem against the White Paper on May 18, 1939. The American Colony photographers returned four days later to film the protest of the women of the Yishuv, led by some of the leading women figures in Jerusalem at the time: Ita Yellin, Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi, and Sarah Herzog.Rachel Yanait Ben-Zvi arrived in the Land of Israel from the Ukraine in 1908, and she emerged as a leading figure in political Zionist organizations and the early Labor Party. She married Yitzchak Ben-Zvi who succeeded Chaim Weizmann as Israel's second president.
Women protesters against the British White Paper stopped near
the King David Hotel by a cordon of British policeIta Yellin made aliya to Palestine as a 12-year-old in 1880. Her father, Yehiel Michal Pines, was a well-known rabbi in what is known today as Belarus and a leader of the religious Zionist movement.Ita Yellin headed the Ezrat Nashim charitable organization in Jerusalem, later known as the Hospital for the Chronically and Mentally Ill. She was married to Prof. David Yellin, a prominent educator, Zionist leader and Hebraist.Sarah Herzog, known as the "Rabbanit," was married to the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yitzchak Isaac Herzog. They moved toEretz Yisrael in 1936 when he succeeded the Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook.Mrs. Herzog succeeded Ita Yellin as volunteer head of Ezrat Nashim Hospital, displaying tremendous energy and tenacity to gather support for the hospital which is today named the Sarah Herzog Hospital in her honor.A persistent Jerusalem rumor hints that Jordan's King Talal bin Abdullah (King Hussein's father) was institutionalized at some point at the Ezrat Nashim Hospital for his severe depression and schizophrenia that led to his dethroning in 1952.
Rabbanit Herzog was mother to two sons: Ya'akov and Chaim, who both served in senior Israeli posts. Ya'akov, a rabbi as well as diplomat, served in Washington and Canada and as a senior advisor to Israeli prime ministers. Ben-Gurion referred to him as "Israel's Safnat Paneah," the name granted to Joseph by Pharoah for his wisdom and advice.
Mrs. Yellin (left) and Rabbanit Herzog
Chaim Herzog served as Israel's president (1983-1993) after serving in Israel's military and as ambassador to the United Nations. Many recall the ambassador standing at the UN podium tearing up the "Zionism is racism" resolution, an action once taken by his father, the chief rabbi, at the May 18, 1939 demonstration where he tore up the British White Paper.
Chaim Herzog's son, Yitzchak, serves in Israel's Knesset, and son Michael is a general in the IDF reserves.
Click on pictures to enlarge. Click on the caption to view the original picture.0Add a comment
The photographers of the American Colony Photographic Department traveled the length and breadth of the Holy Land and the Middle East, from Damascus to Cairo, Malta to Iraq. 
Pomegranate tree, hand-colored photo
(circa 1900-1920)
Date palm tree (circa 1900-1920)
Click on pictures to enlarge.
Click on captions to view the originals.
Olive trees. Click here for more. Click
here to see original black and white
Almond tree. See original
in black and whiteThey were also fond of photographing the flora of the land of the Bible and providing the botanical genus name.Facing the 1915 plague of locusts that hit with Biblical proportions, the photographers documented the life cycle and devastating results of the swarms.
"Cactus figs," called today
cactus pears or "sabras"
On the eve of Tu B'Shvat, the traditional New Year for trees, we present this collection of photos of trees taken between 1900 and 1920. Some of them were hand-colored 25-30 years later.
Carob tree
Sycamore tree (hand-colored)
Gnarled trunk of a sycamore tree 
Acacia (Shetim) tree in the desert 
Pine trees (circa 1900) 0Add a comment
Reposting Tu B'Shvat feature from February 1912. Updated with picture of first Hebrew radio broadcast.
Reforested hills along the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, near Bab
el-Wad, or Sha'ar HaGuy (circa 1930)
The Jewish National Fund was established in 1901 to purchase and develop land in the Holy Land.
Planting trees on the barren hills on the
way to Jerusalem (circa 1930)
One major activity of the JNF, or in Hebrew theKeren Kayemet LeYisrael, was the planting of trees on Jewish-owned land in Palestine. Many a Jewish home had the iconic JNF blue charity box, or pushke, in order to buy trees. In its history, the JNF is responsible for planting almost a quarter of a billion trees.
A government tree nursery on Mt.
Scopus, Jerusalem (circa 1930)The photographers of the American Colony recorded the JNF's efforts.
"Afforestation sponsored by Keren
Kayemeth" (circa 1935)
Reforested hillside along the road to
Jerusalem. "Demonstrating reforestation
possibilities" (circa 1930)The day chosen for school children and volunteers to go out to the fields and barren hilltops to plant trees was Tu B'Shvat, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Shvat, a date assigned thousands of years ago in the Mishna for the purposes of determining the age of a tree and its tithing requirements.Indeed, the date usually coincides with the first blossoms on the almond trees in Israel.Today, Tu B'Shvat is commemorated as a combination of Arbor Day, environment-protection day, a kibbutz agricultural holiday, and, of course, a day for school outings and plantings.Postscript
In 1935, the Jews of Britain and the JNF established a "Jubilee Forest" near Nazareth. According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency's account at the time, an "oriental cypress tree presented by King George V of England to the Jubilee Forest in the hills of Nazareth will be formally planted by High Commissioner Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope on December 19."
Ceremony of planting the King's tree (1935) at Nahalal
"The Jubilee Forest is British Jewry's mark of loyalty and devotion to the throne, expressed on the occasion of the royal couple's twenty-fifth jubilee. It will cover a large area of desolate and barren land on the hills of Nazareth which in ancient times were famed for their forest beauty. The forest constitutes the most important effort in reforestation of the Holy Land."
Tomorrow, the trees of Eretz Yisrael "The tree shipped by King George was removed from Windsor Great Park in London, where it was the only one of its kind. It is the first ever to have been shipped from England to Palestine."Tomorrow: 100 year old pictures of the trees of the Land of Israel0Add a comment
- JAN21
Get Your Paper! Read All about It! Israel Daily Picture Receives its 700,000th Visitor this Week
Reading newspapers posted on Jerusalem street (circa 1937)
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Reading newspapers in Jerusalem (circa 1937)
Click on picture to enlarge.
Click on caption to view the original0Add a comment
- JAN18
Tunisia, Another Vanishing Jewish Community in the Moslem World -- We Uncover 150-Year-Old Pictures of One Family in Three Different Collections
Jewish communities existed in the Arab/Muslim world for millennia, in some cases even pre-dating the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. Large communities and great centers of Jewish study existed in Baghdad, Aleppo, Cairo, Morocco, and Tunisia, to name a few locations.Two Jewish girls on the beach in Tunis, Tunisia. "Jeune filles
Juives" by Neurdein freres taken between 1860 and 1890.
The girl on the right appears in the photo below, too.
(Credit: Unless otherwise marked, pictures are from the
Carpenter Collection, Library of Congress)In the 1940s the Jewish population in the Arab world numbered between 850,000 and one million. They were integrated into their societies, although over history they were often subjected to religious persecution and even pogroms. Some Jewish families were wealthy and owned considerable property.It all came crashing down after 1947 and the UN Palestine Partition vote when anti-Jewish violence swept the Middle East. The Jewish communities fled for their lives or were expelled. Their homes and properties were confiscated. Most of them found refuge in Israel, Europe or North America.
Today, perhaps only one percent of that 1947 Jewish population remains in the Arab countries.
Postcard of Mother and daughter on
Tunisia shore. "The woman’s robes and
conical headdress are representative of the
traditional dress of Jewish Tunisian women
during the early 20th century." The woman
also appears in the photo below.
(credit: Yeshiva University Museum)
Researchers for the Israel Daily Picture, searching through the Library of Congress/American Colony archives, unexpectedly came across 19th century pictures of some of these extinct or vanishing Jewish communities.
We present here pictures from the Tunisian Jewish community which numbered over 100,000 in 1948. Today, there are an estimated 1,500 Jews in Tunisia with two-thirds living on the island of Djerba.
The photos in the Carpenter collection of the Library of Congress were "produced and gathered by Frank G. Carpenter (1855-1924) and his daughter Frances (1890-1972) to illustrate his writings on travel and world geography," the Library explains.
Jewish woman on Tunisia shore,
possibly on the island of Djerba. She
appears to be the same woman
in the photo from the Yeshiva
University Museum. Is she
holding a baby in both photos?
(Jewish Postcard Collection)We came across a picture in Yeshiva University's Museum of a mother and daughter on a beach in Tunisia presented here. The Museum dated the picture from the early 20th century, but the girl is clearly the same girl in the Library of Congress picture above, photographed decades earlier.View an incredible collection of antique postcards from Tunisia in Stephanie Comfort'sJewish Postcard Collection. The hand-colored picture of a young Tunisian woman is just one example of the amazing photos in the collection.
Young Tunisian Jewish woman. The picture
was hand-colored. (circa 1900)
(Jewish Postcard Collection)
In the Comfort collection we also discovered another photo of a woman on a beach who appears to be the same woman in the Yeshiva University photo above. Comfort identifies the photo as taken on the island of Djerba. The woman appears to be holding a baby under her gown in both pictures. If the three photos are from a series of the same family, they were taken between 1860 and 1900 by the Neurdein brothers of France.
Click on photos to enlarge.
Click on captions to view the original pictures.
Below is a listing of some of the photo essays we posted in the past on vanishing or extinct Jewish communities. Click on the city to view the posting:
Jews of Aleppo
Jews of Alexandria
Jews of Constantinople
Jews of Damascus
Jews of Kifl, Iraq (Ezekiel's Tomb) 
Tunisian Jewish Karouby Family (Jewish Postcard
Collection)
Tunisian Jewish couple (circa 1900)
Keeners, hired mourners, at Jewish cemetery in Tunis (circa 1920) 
Two Jewish women in Tunisia (1900-1923) 2View comments
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Civil Defense, Shelters, and Bombs Falling on Tel Aviv Were Facts of Life More than 70 Years Ago - picture a day
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