Lewis Larsson was one of the founders of the American Colony's photographic department in Jerusalem in the early 20th century. His historic photo of the surrender of Jerusalem to the British in 1917 is perhaps his most famous picture.
Larsson's famous 1917 picture
of the surrender of Jerusalem
to two British sergeants
The American Colony closed some 30 years later. The photos were taken to California and eventually were donated to the Library of Congress. Imagine the surprise, therefore, when we discovered in the Library of Congress files color photos taken by Larsson in Jerusalem in the 1950s.
The Old City of Jerusalem was captured by the Jordan Legion in 1948. All Jewish inhabitants were expelled or taken as prisoners. Great Jewish institutions in the Jewish Quarter, such as the Hurva Synagogue, the Porat Yosef Yeshiva, and the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue were destroyed. For the 19 years of Jordanian occupation, Jews were forbidden from visiting the Western Wall.
Larsson's photo of eastern Jerusalem during Jordan's occupation.
Taken from Mt. Olives. Note the Old City wall. (circa 1950)Enlargement showing the Rothschild Building in black frame.
Almost all other buildings below it are rubble
Larsson's photo shows the Jewish Quarter in rubble except for the Rothschild Building from the Beit HaMachseh compound.
As a reference point, note the truck entering the Dung Gate. 
Jewish funeral at Rothschild Building
(1903)
Hurva synagogue in ruins, 1948. Jordanian soldier
holding a Torah scroll. (Wikipedia)
In June 1967, during the Six-Day War, the Jordanian army opened artillery and small-arms fire on the Jewish side of Jerusalem. The Israeli army, engaged in a widescale war with Egypt on the Sinai front, rushed troops to Jerusalem. Led by paratroopers, the Israeli soldiers captured the Old City and reunited Jerusalem.
The IDF entering the Old City
through the Lions Gate, 1967
Within days, some of those paratroopers found themselves fighting against the Syrians on the Golan Heights.
Special film feature
We share with you a film made one month after the 1967 war by the late Dr. Martin Richter of Basel, Switzerland. The film, showing scenes of Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem and other locations, was edited by his son, Alexander Avidan and recently posted on YouTube.
The Jewish holiday of Shavuot-Pentecost will be celebrated next week. The holiday has several traditional names: Shavuot, the festival of weeks, marking seven weeks after Passover; Chag HaKatzir, the festival of reaping grains; and Chag HaBikkurim, the festival of first fruits. Shavuot, according to Jewish tradition, is the day the Children of Israel accepted the Torah at Mt. Sinai. It is also believed to be the day of King David's birth and death.
"Ruth the Moabitess" 
Ruth said, "Do not entreat me to
leave you, to return from following
you, for wherever you go, I will go...
Your people shall be my people, your
God my God"
The reading of the Book of Ruth is one of the traditions of the holiday. Ruth, a Moabite and widow of a Jewish man (and a princess according to commentators), gave up her life in Moab to join her Jewish mother-in-law, Naomi, in the Land of Israel. She insisted on adopting Naomi's God, Torah and religion.
A central element of the story of Ruth is her going to the fields where barley and wheat were being harvested so that she could collect charitable handouts. She gleans in the fields of Boaz, a judge and a relative of Ruth's dead husband (as such he has a levirate obligation to marry the widow). The union results in a child, Obed, the grandfather of King David. 
And Naomi and Ruth both went on
until they arrived at Bethlehem
Ruth came to a field that belonged
to Boaz who was of the family of
Naomi's deceased husband
The members of the American Colony were religious Christians who established their community in the Holy Land. They were steeped in the Bible and photographed countryside scenes that referred to biblical incidents and prohibitions.
Boaz said to his servant, who stood
over the reapers, "To whom does
this maiden belong?"
Boaz said to Ruth, "Do not go to
glean in another field...here you shall
stay with my maidens"
Boaz said to her at mealtime, "Come
here and partake of the bread..." He
ordered his servants "Pretend to
forget some of the bundles for her."We present a few of the dozens of photographs found in the Library of Congress' American Colony collection.
Ruth carried it to the city and Naomi
saw what she had gleaned
A major effort was made by the photographers to re-enact the story of Ruth. "Ruth," we believe, was a young member of the American Colony community; the remaining "cast" were villagers from the Bethlehem area who were actually harvesting, threshing and winnowing their crops. We have matched the pictures with corresponding verses from the Book of Ruth.
Ruth came to the threshing floor and
Boaz said, "Ready the shawl you are
wearing and hold it," and she held
it, and he measured out six measures
of barley....
See more of the pictures here.
Unfortunately, we don't know when the "Ruth and Boaz series" was created, but we estimate approximately 100 years ago.
Click on the pictures to enlarge, click on the caption to view the original. 0Add a comment
The Library of Congress' vast collection of the American Colony's photographs includes these stereographic pictures.
The "family" in this undated stereographic photo. (Two of the
men appear to be blind. Four of the men are smoking or
holding cigarettes.)
The caption reads "Family," and the date of the photo is sometime between "1898 and 1946." That certainly doesn't provide much information.
PEF picture, apparently with
some of the same people
A similar picture published by thePalestine Exploration Fund identifies the group as Yemenite Jews -- taken by the American Colony photographers, but apparently not included in the Library of Congress collection. According to the PEF, the picture appeared in a 1911 catalogue.
The two pictures produced by the stereo photo actually provide some additional answers.
19th century stereo camera Anyone who has used a "View-Master" toy will recognize the 3D illusion created by the stereo camera. Already in the 19th century photographers were taking stereo pictures which were viewed on a special device. In effect, the two camera lenses captured the view and the slight angle differences of the right eye and the left eye.The left picture shows an object on the wall behind the "family" -- after enlarging the picture it's clearly a German postal box.
The German mailbox
100 years ago
But why would the Yemenite Jews be standing near a German post office?In fact, several European countries maintained post offices in Palestine under the "capitulations" agreements between the Ottoman Empire and European countries. Formulated to guarantee the welfare of Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, the capitulations, some dating back to the 16th century, established privileges for European subjects in Palestine.
More modern German mailbox Many members of Palestine's Jewish community were granted protection by European leaders such as Austrian Emperor Franz Josef or German Kaiser Wilhelm II.
The right photo of the stereo picture shows a European inside the door next to the Yemenite Jews.
European man in
white suitThe American Colony collection includes photographs of theRussian, Italian, Austrian, French, and German post offices in Jerusalem.
German post office in Jerusalem
Today's posting is dedicated in memory
of Dov Arye ben Chaim Menachem
who loved solving puzzles.
The capitulations ended in 1914 with the
outbreak of World War I. "Removing
French post box at the time of
abrogation of foreign capitulations."0Add a comment
Earlier this month we uncovered pictures in the Library of Congress files showing Bukhari Jewish life in Samarkand some 140 years ago. We posted pictures showing Jewish children in school, family life, a sukka, and more.
The wedding of Barukh and Khanna, circa 1870. The bride and
groom are beneath a tallit serving as the chuppa (canopy).
Channa is the tiny figure under a "burqua," according to the
original caption. The man in the center is extending a cup of wine
as part of the ceremony -- sheva brachot, according to the
caption. The two mothers, wearing turbans, are on the sides
of the bride and groom.
Today, we present photos from another group of pictures, the wedding of Barukh and Khanna in 1870.
The groom Barukh and the bride Khanna, two
separate portraits (c 1870)
Signing the ketuba, the marriage contract. The bride (peaking
out from under her burqua) and the groom are already under the
tallit, with their mothers on either side
Parts of the earlier narrative are reproduced here, as well as the newly found pictures.
Click on the pictures to enlarge, click on the caption to view the original.
A party for the women and girls on the
eve of the wedding. Click here to see
Barukh sitting with the men
Bukhari Jews, from what is today the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, may be one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. According to some researchers, the community may date back to the days of the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile. Over the centuries, the community suffered from forced conversion to Islam and from Genghis Khan's pillage and destruction of the region. 
Enlargement of the Ketuba 
Earlier, the groom meeting with
Khanna and her parentsAround the time these pictures were taken the Bukhari Jews began to move to Israel. They established an early settlement in the Bukharan quarter of Jerusalem. Click here for a history of the Bukhari Jews.
Original caption: "A group of people escorting the bride and
groom (far left) to a house"
The Bukhari Jewish families discuss the
dowry prior to a wedding (circa 1870).
The caption identifies the two bundles
behind them as the dowry
Bonus pictures
Three more pictures, seemingly unrelated to Barukh and Khanna's wedding but dealing with the Jewish community, were found in the Library of Congress file.
Fed Ex office in Samarkand? The arrival of Jews from Bukhara to
the city of Kazalinsk (Qazaly). Man standing with loaded camels
in front of building (including two men riding in camel's seats)
Nationalities in the Turkestan krai. Jewish
women (sic). Banu ai. (circa 1870)
Original caption reads: "Prayer lessons at school." It is clear that
the teacher and students are Jewish. Note that almost all students
had prayerbooks, a fact that should not be taken for granted.
(circa 1870)
View pictures and essays on other Jewish communities:* Kifl, Iraq (Ezekiel's Tomb)
If you wish to dedicate a Daily Picture page, such as this one, in honor or memory, click here2View comments
This photograph from the Palestine Exploration Fund is one of the oldest known photographs of the Western Wall, or the "Kotel."
The Kotel in the 1860s. Note how narrow and confined
the alleyway was. (Palestine Exploration Fund)
It was taken by Frank Mason Good in the 1860s, around the same time he photographed the panorama view of Jerusalem in the title picture above.
Note the small and narrow confines of the Jewish prayer area. In the course of hundreds of years, efforts to purchase the surrounding areas were denied. Attempts to place benches or screens led to anti-Jewish riots, and the blowing of the shofar at the end of Yom Kippur was prohibited. Between 1949 and 1967 Jews were not permitted to pray at the site.
Only after the 1967 War Jews returned to the Old City of Jerusalem and the area enlarged.
The 110-year-old Kotel photo, hand colored
and re-photographed in color, probably
in the 1950s
We present here other photographs from the Library of Congress collection dating back over 100 years.
The Kotel circa 1900
Most of the pictures were taken by the American Colony Photo Department and its successor company run by Eric and Edith Matson. They returned to the United States in the 1940s with their 22,000 photos and negatives. They apparently republished hand-colored versions of several of the American Colony's classic photographs, such as this picture of women and a Yemenite man at the Western Wall (left and right).
"Jews wailing place" (circa 1860s)
View additional features on the Western Wall here, here and here.
"Devout Jewish women at the
Wailing Wall" (circa 1900)6View comments
Zichron Yaakov was one of the first new Jewish settlements in Palestine, established in 1882 by Zionist pioneers from Romania. In 1883, the community was adopted and sponsored by Baron Edmond de Rothschild of France and named for his father, Yaakov.
Zichron Yaakov synagogue (circa 1900) and here
Rothschild oversaw Zichron's planning, the building of residences for the settlers, and the launching of the Carmel Winery in 1885.
The synagogue "Ohel Yaakov" was built in 1886 in memory of Rothschild's father and is still used for daily services.
Zichron Holiday (circa 1900) Note the Turkish flags and
at least 10 rifle-bearing men. The banner in the middle, in
the shape of a Star of David within a circle, also bears
Rothschild's name, according to the Palestine
Exploration Fund. The PEF suggests that the men seated
are Rothschild's town administrators
In World War I, Zichron was the center of a Jewish spy ring that assisted the British war effort against the Turkish army in Palestine.
A Jewish photographer named Edelstein took pictures of residents of Zichron in the late 19th century, and they are preserved by the Palestine Exploration Fund.
The PEF photos include 100+ year-old pictures of Zichron'sorchestra, firefighters and barrel makers.
According to the Israel Firefighting Service, "the high concentration of alcohol in a new Carmel plant, run by inexperienced workers, was a ticking time-bomb." Fires broke out in 1896 and 1897.
"The fires led to the establishment of the first firefighting company in Palestine," according to the IFS. "On May 23, 1897, Baron Rothschild’s representative in Zichron Yaakov assembled the young men of the settlement and charged them with the task of setting up the “'Firefighters Company.' The group numbered 32 volunteers. Equipment was brought from Paris at the expense of the Baron and included pumps, hoses, ladders, axes and, of course, grand uniforms with shiny copper helmets and leather belts, as was the custom in the cities of Europe."
Zichron's fire brigade. (Palestine Exploration Fund)
If you wish to dedicate a Daily Picture page in honor or memory, click here
The Library of Congress photo collection contains dozens of1939 pictures of the vineyards of Zichron Yaakov and the Carmel winery.
Workers in the Zichron vineyards (1939) 
Vats of wine in Zichron (1939)
Today, Zichron Yaakov is an attractive, scenic, bustling town of around 20,000.1View comments
Israel Daily Picture (IDP) is thankful to the Library of Congress for making available online thousands of photographs from the American Colony/Matson collection taken in Palestine between 1898 and 1946. The collection also contains dozens of pictures from other photographers dating back to the 1860s. Some of the pictures were in advanced stages of disintegration when the Library digitalized them.
Funeral in Jerusalem. The IDP matched this photo to the next
one using the location and markings on the pictures. LoC: "May
be related to LC-M32-14232 which has "4340" on negative.
(Source: L. Ben-David, Israel's History - A Picture a Day
website, August 19, 2011)
We encourage readers to browse the many photo galleries at the Library's site to view amazing pictures of history in the United States, Europe and the Middle East.
"Jewish Procession to Absalom's Pillar"
LoC: Photograph possibly shows a
Jewish funeral procession. (Source: L.
Ben-David, Israel's History - A Picture
a Day website, July 18, 2011)We are humbled and thankful that the Library uses Israel Daily Picture as a resource to update and correct captions and dates on some of their photos. The previous posting of a 1918 photo of Jewish children marching in Jerusalem on Lag B'Omer after visiting Simon the Just's tomb, is just one example. Here are others that cite Israel Daily Picture.
A Jewish Money Changer. LoC: Signs behind man read:
"Room for rent, store for rent, apartment for rent." Sign on
front of money box reads: "Leib Goldberger, Geld
Wexler (money changer) in Yiddish. (Source: L. Ben-David,
Israel's History - A Picture a Day website, December 20, 2011)
H/T: JB
Temporary vegetable market at Romema
Jerusalem. LoC: Photograph shows a
temporary market on the Jaffa Road in
Romema neighborhood of Jerusalem.
Building in background is 167 Jaffa
Road. (Source: L. Ben-David, Israel's
History - A Picture a Day website,
August 19, 2011)1View comments
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Subscribe to Israel Daily Pictures [IDP] by entering your email in the box on the right and click on the "Submit" button. It's free.
Editors, there are no copyright restrictions on the photographs published by the IDP. If you reprint the accompanying essays, please credit http://www.israeldailypicture.com/ . Have you featured the IDP in your publication?
Teachers and parents of students, the IDP is a great teaching aid to visually put Jewish history and the Bible into context.
The Library of Congress, the source for most of the IDP's pictures, uses the IDP to correct or update captions on some of its pictures, citing the IDP's research as the source.
The IDP's cooperation with other photograph collections in some of the most respected institutions means that the IDP will continue to uncover and publish lost photo treasures.
Among the IDP's published photographic treasures:- ancient pictures of the Kotel, Rachel's Tomb, Cave of the Patriarchs, Joseph's Tomb
- the visit of the Chief Rabbi of Palestine to the White House in 1924
- the earthquake, locust plague and warfare that hit the land in the early 1900s
- the German general who saved the Jews of Palestine from expulsion - or worse
- Zionist activity: the first kibbutzim, industries, and settlements in Eretz Yisrael
- ancient and beautiful synagogues in Jerusalem before their destruction
- Jewish communities in Alexandria, Aleppo, Samarkand, and Iraq
- the destruction of the Jewish community in Hebron in 1929
Jews of Samarkand (1870)
If you wish to dedicate a Daily Picture page in honor or memory, contactisrael.dailypix@gmail.comMore than 370,000 people have visited the site. Have your friends and family?1View comments
Bukharan Jews, from what is today the Central Asian country of Uzbekistan, may be one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. According to some researchers, the community may date back to the days of the destruction of the First Temple and the Babylonian exile. Over the centuries, the community suffered from forced conversion to Islam and from Genghis Khan's pillage and destruction of the region.
Jews sitting in their Samarkand Sukka (circa 1870) See
another view of the Sukka here
Click here for a history of the Bukharan Jews.
Bukhari Jews in a Sukka in Jerusalem
(circa 1900) and here
By the end of the 18th century the community was under pressure from several sources and was in danger of disappearing. It was discovered by a Moroccan rabbi, Joseph Maman, who, until his death in 1823, spent 30 years in Bukhara serving as the spiritual leader and transforming the community to a more observant lifestyle. In the mid-1800s, Bukharan Jews began moving to the Holy Land where they established a community outside of Jerusalem's Old City. [View a previous feature from this website on the Bukharan Quarter of Jerusalem].The photographs presented here are from a collection we recently discovered in the Library of Congress files and which offer an amazing peek at Jewish life in Samarkand in the mid-1800s. The pictures show preparations for a wedding between a boy and a girl who appear barely in their teens; the community's school and synagogue; and teachers and their pupils.
Bukhari Jewish families discuss the
dowry prior to a wedding (circa 1870).
The caption identifies the two bundles
behind them as the dowry
The groom meets the bride's parents
prior to the wedding. Note how young
the couple appears
Click on pictures to enlarge
Click on caption to view the original
Bringing the bride (far left) to the
groom's house
Jewish "Prayer House" in Samarkand 
Jewish school in Samarkand. Note the
school children on the left
Samarkand Jews reading Psalms and here
and here
Teacher and pupils in Samarkand
and here and here
Jewish women at a funeral. Note the use of a drum 0Add a comment
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
Jerusalem Day, Celebrating the Reunification of Jerusalem 45 Years Ago What happened during 19 years of Jordanian occupation? - picture a day
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