Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Reposting - Yom Kippur 100 Years Ago -- Or More: Photographic Treasures from the Library of Congress from Jerusalem, New York and a French Battlefield - picture a day


  1. 
    Jews at the Kotel on Yom Kippur (circa 1904) See analysis of the graffiti on the wall for dating this picture. The graffiti on
    the Wall are memorial notices (not as one reader suggested applied to the photo later).

    
    Tomorrow Jews around the world will commemorate Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  For many Jews in the Land of Israel over the centuries the day meant praying at the Western Wall, the remnant of King Herod's retaining wall of the Temple complex destroyed in 70 AD.

    We present here an update to last year's Yom Kippur posting.

    Several readers commented on the intermingling of men and women in these historic pictures.
     
    It was not by choice. 
    The Turkish and British rulers of Jerusalem imposed restrictions on the Jewish worshippers,  prohibiting chairs, forbidding screens to divide the men and women, and even banning the blowing of the shofar at the end of the Yom Kippur service.
    View this video, Echoes of a Shofar, to see the story of young men who defied British authorities between 1930 and 1947 and blew the shofar at the Kotel.

    
    Another view of the Western Wall on Yom Kippur. Note the various groups of worshippers: The
    Ashkenazic Hassidim wearing the fur shtreimel hats in the foreground, the Sephardic Jews
    wearing  the fezzes in the center, and the women in the back wearing white shawls. (circa 1904)

    For the 19 years that Jordan administered the Old City, 1948-1967, no Jews were permitted to pray at the Kotel.  
    The Library of Congress collection contains many pictures of Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall over the last 150 years.

    After the 1967 war, the Western Wall plaza was enlarged and large areas of King Herod's wall have been exposed.  Archaeologists have also uncovered major subterranean tunnels -- hundreds of meters long -- that are now open to visitors to Jerusalem.
     
    Receive a Daily Picture by subscribing in the right sidebar and clicking "submit." 
    Click on the photos to enlarge.
    Click on the captions to see the originals. 
     
    Photos of Yom Kippur in New York 105 Years Ago
    The Library of Congress Archives also contain historic photos of Jewish celebration of the High Holidays in New York.  Some of them were posted here before Rosh Hashanna.  Here are two more: 
    Original caption: Men and boys standing in
    front of synagogue on Yom Kippur (Bain
    News Service, circa 1907)

    
    Worshippers in front of synagogue (Bain
    News Service, 1907)




















    And a Picture of Jews in the Prussian Army Worshipping on Yom Kippur 140 Years Ago
    We were a little surprised to find this picture of a lithograph in the Library of Congress archives.  The caption reads, "Service on the Day of Atonement by the Israelite soldiers of the Army before Metz 1870."  No other information is provided.
    Kestenbaum & Company, an auctioneer in Judaica, describes the lithograph in their catalogue:
    This lithograph depicts the Kol Nidre service performed on Yom Kippur 1870 for Jewish soldiers in the Prussian army stationed near Metz (Alsace region) during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
       The Germans had occupied Metz by August of 1870, however were unable to capture the town's formidable fortress, where the remaining French troops had sought refuge. During the siege, Yom Kippur was marked while hostilities still continued, as depicted in the lithograph.
    Rabbi W. Gunther Plaut, a scholar and Reform Jewish leader who passed away at age 99 earlier this year, provided more facts about the picture.  In fact, he called it a "fraud." 
     
    In Eight Decades: The Selected Writings of W. Gunther Plaut. In a chapter entitled "The Yom Kippur that Never Was, A Pious Pictoral Fraud" he wrote: 
     Of all the things in my grandfather's house, I remember most vividly a large print.  It was entitled "Service on the Day of Atonement by the Israelite soldiers before Metz 1870."  Later I was to learn that this print hung in many Jewish homes.... It was reproduced on postcards, on cloth, and on silk scarves. The basic theme was the same: in an open field before Metz, hundreds of Jewish soldiers were shown at prayer.
     Rabbi Plaut cites a participant in the service who reported:

     A considerable difficulty arose in relation to the place for the services. Open air services were deemed impossible for Tuesday night because of the darkness and were ruled out for Wednesday because of the obvious reasons [it was a battlefield].... My immediate neighbour was willing to grant me the use of his room so that the service took place in our two adjoining rooms.

    Another participant in the unusual Yom Kippur service reported, according to Plaut: 
    Of the 71 Jewish soldiers in the Corps some 60 had appeared. Amongst them were several physicians, a few members of the military government, all of them joyously moved to celebrate Yom Kippur.  The place of prayer consisted of two small rooms.
    Posted  by Our Mission
    Labels: Jerusalem Kotel Metz New York Prussian Army W. Gunther Plaut Western Wall Yom Kippur
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  2. 
    Tashlich prayer on the Brooklyn Bridge, 1909.
    The Near Year prayer is traditionally said at a body
    of water where the worshipper "casts" his/her sins
    Israel Daily Picture normally focuses on pictures of the Holy Land in the Library of Congress archives' American Colony collection.  

    In honor of Rosh Hashanna, we present pictures of the holiday in New York City, taken in the early 1900s by George Bain and also housed in the Library of Congress archives.
    
    Jewish boy in prayer shawl on Rosh Hashanna (1911)








    
    Tashlich prayer on the Brooklyn bridge (1919)




    
    
    Jews praying on the Jewish New Year (circa 1905)















    
    Rosh Hashanna worshippers (1907)











    Tashlich on the Brooklyn Bridge (1909)













    Going to prayers (circa 1910)








    Going to synagogue (circa 1910)





    
    Selling New Year's cards, East Side, New York City (1910)



    "New Year's Parade" (1912)




    







    Jewish New Year's nap, East Side (1912)
    Posted  by Our Mission
    Labels: Brooklyn Bridge East Side New Years New York City Rosh Hashanna Tashlich prayer
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  4. Yemenite Jew blowing the shofar (circa 1935)
    "Blow the Shofar at the New Moon...Because It Is a Decree for Israel, a Judgment Day for the God of Jacob"  - Psalms 81

    Jews around the world prepare for Rosh Hashanna this week, the festive New Year holiday when the shofar -- ram's horn -- is blown in synagogues. 

    The American Colony photographers recorded a dozen pictures of Jewish elders blowing the shofar in Jerusalem some 80 years ago.  The horn was also blown in Jerusalem to announce the commencement of the Sabbath.  During the month prior to Rosh Hashana, the shofar was blown at daily morning prayers to encourage piety before the High Holidays.   


    Ashkenazi Jew in Jerusalem blowing the shofar to announce the Sabbath














    Yemenite Rabbi Avram, donning tfillin for his
    daily prayers, blowing the shofar















    View the American Colony Photographers' collection of shofar blowers in Jerusalem here.

    Click on the pictures to enlarge.
    Click on captions to view the original picture.

    Receive Israel Daily Picture on your computer or iPhone by subscribing.  Just enter your email in the box in the right sidebar of the Internet site www.israeldailypicture.com
    Posted  by Our Mission
    Labels: Jerusalem New Year Ram's horn Rosh Hashanna Shofar
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  5. A school house in Rishon LeZion with students and teachers. The picture was taken by Trooper Charles Thomas Broomfield of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles after the November 14, 1917 battle of Ayun Kara and the liberation of Rishon LeZion.  Rishon was founded on July 31, 1882 by Russian Jews who had purchased 835 acres from the Arab village of Ayun Kara.
    Israel Daily Picture was founded two years ago after we discovered 22,000 newly digitalized antique pictures of the Holy Land in the Library of Congress.

    In the course of publishing more than 300 photo essays we discovered additional pictures in far-flung archives such as the 
    Elderly Jews from Safed (1930, Dundee Collection)
    medical archives in the Dundee Scotland Medical School, or from the "Cigar Box Collection." 

    We also thank the New York Public Library, Harvard, Getty, and Eastman collections for allowing us to view their antique and digitalized archives. Families have also shared with us their grandparents' photos found in their attics.

    One of the most unusual collections we came across recently are the photos taken by a New Zealand Jewish soldier, Charles Thomas Broomfield, of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles.  The photos were donated by his granddaughter Judy Cato to the NZMR Association. She provided the following biography:
    Trooper Broomfield (1917) in colorized
    photograph

    Charles Thomas Broomfield was born in the Coromandel area [of New Zealand], second son in a family of seven. Charles was twenty years old when he signed up for service on 27th November 1916. At that time he was working as an engine driver in Whangarei. Charles was part of  the 26th Reinforcements, Mounted Rifles.

    Charles embarked from New Zealand on 31st May 1917 aboard the Union Steamship Moeraki. He was one of 262 New Zealand service men headed for Suez, Egypt. The Regiments transhipped at Sydney onto the Port Lincoln.They arrived at the Port of Suez on the 6th August after a stopover in Colombo, India.

    From Charles' records it is established that he joined the action in Egypt/Palestine about 28th September 1917 as part of the Mounted gunners section and was in action throughout the Middle East. He returned to New Zealand on the Kaikoura on 6th March 1919 after spending 1 year 324 days overseas. On return to New Zealand Charles lived with his parents in Whangarei .  He married in 1923 and worked and raised a family in the Whangarei area. Charles died in Whangarei in 1949.


    The New Zealand Mounted Rifles provides this history of the battle of Ayun Kara and the special relationship that developed between Broomfield's unit and the Jewish community of Rishon LeZion and recorded inBroomfield's camera:

    After the action at Ayun Kara on November 14th 1917 the NZMR passed through the settlement of Rishon LeZion the following morning. The people and the settlement was to have a strong influence on the New Zealanders. The Jewish village was the first taste of something closer to the environment of home.
    The Synagogue of Rishon LeZion, presumably
    with Broomfield standing at the left. Compare to
    this picture of the synagogue from 1898

    Another picture of the children of Rishon LeZion. The boy
    in the foreground appears in the third of row of the
    schoolhouse picture above

    NZMR troopers and people of Rishon LeZion turn out for a
    memorial service  on the first anniversary for the New Zealand 
    soldiers who died at the nearby battle of Ayun Kara.  "A short
     time after this service, the men's bodies were re-interned at
     the Ramleh Cemetery. The memorial site of  Ayun Kara 
    was forgotten and years later no one was sure of where 
    the actual site had been, the memorial obelisk had 
    disappeared. Destroyed  by whom and when, nobody knows."





















    Since crossing the arid Sinai Desert and its confrontation with a hostile Turkish enemy and, more often than not, a treacherous contact with Arab Bedu tribesmen - The Auckland Mounted Rifles agreed it was a joy to meet a people who had just been freed from Turkish tyranny. It was a land worked into agriculture and planted with fruit trees and vineyards. Not only were the men taken with the settlement conditions, the horses too were impressed and ate heartily of green feed, and enjoyed the soil firm under foot.     
    A few weeks later the Regiment remembered the village, the official history "Two Campaigns" reported:     "On January 12, the brigade moved north to Rishon LeZion, the Jewish village near to Ayun Kara, and there tents were provided, and training and football again became the normal life."
     
    Map of the Turkish and New Zealander positions. Click
    on the map to enlarge
    The NZMR history notes, "The date 14th November 1917 is the greatest day of action carried out by the Mounteds. The attack on the strongly fortified Turkish trenches near the town of Rishon LeZion in present day Israel is a story of guile, courage and great daring against a superior force."

    Additional information on the battle of Ayun Kara can be foundhere: 

    "The Action at Ayun Kara on the 14th November 1917 was carried out by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles on heavily entrenched Turkish defences. This successful rout of the enemy is remembered for its daring frontal rush by mounted troops and tactical movements in support by the brigades riflemen and machine gunners."

    The following is a school essay describing the battle written by a boy from Rishon, Aviram Hochberg, in 1918.  He assumed the New Zealanders were "English" soldiers:
    From Broomfield's album. Are these children of Rishon
    LeZion on their way to the memorial service?
    "A quarter of an hour passed and we shall see all the Turkish armies climbing the mountains above the village, fortifying themselves in their defence trenches. At the ninth hour exactly the first shots were heard from the side of the Turks. There were more after any minute that passed.

    Suddenly the English started firing and their bullets crossed above our heads making a buzz and whistle that the death (angel) is a coming. At the first hour of the battle we were terrified and exited, but soon we were used to the shooting and we shall climb a high balcony from where we see the spectacle of war. Once in a few minutes we could hear the thunder of English guns and shortly afterwards seeing it exploding over the Turkish soldiers. All sounds of war turned into terrible furious anger of God, smoke, blood and clouds of smoke. After tough fighting we saw the Turks leave their first positions and retreat. Line after line they were running down the mountain's crest with shells exploding between their lines, many falling dead and the remaining running exhausted to find shelter at the Orange groves.

    Rishon residents on the way to the memorial service? Another picture
    from the Broomfield album.
    Now on the position the Turks had retreated from, we already see the English stand shooting their machine guns bullets of death with no break on the escaping Turks. An hours passed, and another one, and all Turks left the ridge of mountains, running north. At the third hour after noon the first of the English got in the village. We all hurried in joy to meet our saviors to which we waited for three years. They soon left the village, heading further to push the enemy back. Shooting went non stop, until darkness fell. After the shooting [ceased] the country was covered with English (New Zealanders) and much were we happy. I went for a night sleep with my heart full with joy and hope for the future, but then I could not fall asleep for the cry and moan of the casualties could be heard even from distance, begging for help. 

    The next morning some of our village we went the field of death to collect the wounded. What a terrible scene it was! The mountains that were always covered with green grass and beautiful flowers, where shepherds were herding their sheep, were now covered with the dead, wounded and blood here and there. Dead Horses, rifles lying on the ground and crater everywhere from the shells. Smell of gun powder and dynamite everywhere. The wounded were collected and we shall send them on the camels of the English to the hospital that was [opened] in Rishon." 
    Posted  by Our Mission
    Labels: Ayun Kara Charles Thomas Broomfield New Zealand New Zealand Mounted Rifles Rishon Lezion World War I
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