The Palestinian Arabs’ anti-Zionist demonstrations (see also yesterday’s posting) were not a one-time occurrence in 1920. There were several such demonstrations in February, March and April 1920. The latter, held during the week-long Nebi Musa festival, turned into an anti-Jewish pogrom.
Anti-Zionist demonstration, February 1920 
Col. Storrs, opposed the
ZionistsSeveral senior officials of the British Mandate were strongly opposed to the Balfour Declaration, with one, Col. Ronald Storrs, the military governor of Jerusalem and Judea, actually being accused by one of his colleagues of coaching Haj Amin el-Husseini on inciting the mobs.
The British anti-Zionists found a sympathetic ally in the U.S. Consul General to Jerusalem, Dr. Otis Glazebrook, a former missionary who was a personal friend of President Woodrow Wilson.
Glazebrook (in top hat) and his
Consulate staff (VMI archives)
During World War I and prior to the United States entering the war, Glazebrook used his position in Jerusalem to protect Jews from local Turkish tyrants and to relay money from the American Jewish community to Jewish indigents. In a 1931 obituary for the diplomat, the JTA reported, "Dr. Glazebrook distributed Jewish relief funds in Jerusalem during the war, for which he received high praise from Jewish leaders in the United States."
Original caption: "Demonstrators carrying Dr. Glazebrook
on their shoulders"But in his secret cables to the State Department, Glazebrook was vehement in his opposition to the Zionist enterprise. According to one account, the Consul warned in 1919 that local opposition to Zionism was "real, intense, and universal.... Any importation of Zionists would be met by force of arms." Glazebrook also accused Jews of threatening to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. [HT: YM]Perhaps it should not be a surprise, therefore, that the Arab demonstrators against Zionism hoisted Glazebrook on their shoulders as a hero.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Subscribe" box in the right sidebar and click on "Submit." 
Anti-Zionist demonstration at Damascus Gate The defeat of the Turks in late 1917 created a vacuum in Palestine. The British occupied the region, but the Mandate was not officially recognized until the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1922. In the interim, the local Arab leadership was riven by inter-clan rivalries and hatred for the Hashemite Kingdom across the Jordan River. A half century of anti-colonial resentment, anti-Semitism, and fear of the Zionists were all mixed into the cauldron.
The relationship between the British and the local Arab population was characterized by tension that sporadically erupted into insurrection over the next 30 years.The Arabs of Palestine were led by the powerful el-Husseini clan who controlled the office of the Mufti as well as the Mayoralty of Jerusalem. One son, Haj Amin el-Husseini, was appointed Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921, but already in early 1920 the vicious anti-Semite was inciting anti-Jewish attacks.
British guns at Jaffa Gate
The first Library of Congress collection photos are from March 1920, a week that saw the Syrian Congress proclaim independence for Syria and Palestine and attacks on Tel Chai, the Jewish settlement in the Galilee. Zionist hero Joseph Trumpledor died in the attack. The Library of Congress photos bear their original captions: “anti-Zionist” demonstrations.
Anti-Zionist demonstration 
Indian soldier searching
Arabs for weapons
One month later, Arab inciters, including el-Husseini, whipped participants into a frenzy to attack Jews in Jerusalem during the week-long Nebi Musa festival. Newly formed Jewish self-defense groups, headed by Zev Jabotinsky, rushed to Jerusalem to protect their co-religionists but were arrested by the British. The next set of pictures, taken four days into the rioting and attacks on Jews, shows the belated British defense measures and the search for weapons carried out on Arabs and Jews.
Searching Jews
for weaponsNote: The Arab attacks on Jews and against Zionism took place decades before the founding of Israel, years before the large aliya of Jews from Europe and Arab countries, and even more years before the administration of the West Bank became an international issue.0Add a comment
The caption on the Library of Congress picture reads, "Closed shops of the Jewish Quarter on the Jewish Sabbath, Jerusalem." The picture was published in March 1900. 
Closed for the Sabbath, 1900 
Jewish Quarter street But the Jewish Quarter was no quiet, sleepy residential area for old rabbis and talmudic seminaries.The second picture shows a busy and lively "Street in the Jewish Quarter" and was taken on a week day somewhere between 1900 and 1920.2View comments
The Moshav Ben-Shemen was established in 1905 in central Israel on the Sharon Plain. It was one of the first villages built on land purchased by the Jewish National Fund.
Original caption: "Zionist colonies on Sharon.
Ben-Shemen, Kindergarten. Children at play"
circa 1920
Original caption: "Ben-Shemen, two
young pioneers. Two healthy kiddies."
Original caption: "Ben-Shemen, a
youthful agriculturist. Child with
spade."A youth village was etablished in Ben-Shemen in 1927 for orphans from the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. After World War II, the village adopted orphans from the Holocaust. In the 1950s, the youth village assisted in the absorption of Jewish youth from Arab lands. Today 1,000 students study at the village.1View comments
- JUL25
Picture of the New Jewish Neighborhoods outside of Jerusalem's Old City -- And Another Yemenite Surprise
This 1899 photograph bears the caption "Valley of Hinnom, showing the Jewish Colony, Palestine."
Yemenite Jew in front of Yemin Moshe
The long flat buildings belong to "Mishkenot Sha'ananim," the first neighborhood built outside of the Old City and intended as housing for indigent Jews. The first row was built by philanthropist Moshe Montifiore in 1860; the second row was built in 1866. The windmill, part of the Yemin Moshe project built in 1891, was meant to provide employment for the Jews, but it never operated.
But who is the man in the foreground?
Silwan resident
Almost certainly, he's a Yemenite Jew, characterized by the sidecurls (peyot) and probably from the nearby Silwan/Shiloah Jewish village. Presented here last month was the picture of a Yemenite Jew (left) standing in front of the village in a picture taken around the same time, also in a "stereograph" format. The photographers of the time were apparently intrigued by the newly-arrived exotic Jews.
Mishkenot Sha'ananim/ Yemin
Moshe todayIn 1881-1882 a group of Jews of Yemen arrived by foot to Jerusalem. The new immigrants settled on Jewish-owned property in the Silwan/Shiloah Village outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem.In the 1948 war and its aftermath the Mishkenot Sha'nanim neighborhood was a battleground between Jewish forces (and then the Israel army) and the Jordanian army. The buildings in the no-man's land remained uninhabited and in ruins until Israel reunited the city in 1967 and rebuilt the neighborhood.0Add a comment
Two synagogues 1900 For centuries the Old City of Jerusalem was home to almost all of Jerusalem’s Jews. They chose to stay close to the Western Wall, and they also flocked to the synagogues and seminaries which were located throughout the Old City -- not just in the "Jewish Quarter."
Only in the late 1800s did some Jews start to leave the safety and confines of the Old City to new neighborhoods Mishkenot Hasha’ananim, Yemin Moshe, Mea Shearim, the Bukharian Quarter and Batei Ungarin.Some of the synagogues of the Old City dated back hundreds of years. Two of them had prominent domes, seen in this 1900 picture from the Library of Congress collection, -- the Tiferet Yisrael Synagogue (left) and the Churva Synagogue.
Churva in ruins, Jordanian soldier
holding a Torah scroll (Wikipedia)Both were blown up by Jordanian military forces in 1948 during and after the battle for the Old City. Another synagogue, Ohel Yitzhak, also known as the "Shomrei HaChomos synagogue," was located in the "Moslem Quarter" and was abandoned in 1938 during the "Arab Revolt."A future feature In "Israel Daily Picture" will show the interiors of the synagogues and how in some cases the synagogues have been rebuilt.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Subscribe" box in the right sidebar and click on "Submit." 
Ohel Yitzhak Synagogue in ruins
(Wikipedia)
Tiferet Yisrael in ruins (Wikipedia) 0Add a comment
Ashkenazi Shofar blower
Visit Jerusalem on a Friday afternoon and you are likely to hear in many neighborhoods a siren about 40 minutes before sundown. It’s a warning call for observant Jews that it is time to stop work, light Sabbath candles, go to the synagogue.
Sephardi Shofar blower What did Jerusalemites do before electric sirens? Simple. They relied on the ancient alert system dating back to the Bible – the Shofar (ram’s horn).These Library of Congress photos from the 1930s show the Sabbath Shofar blowers from both the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi communities.0Add a comment
"Tenement children just home from school,"
Bukharan QuarterAmong the 22,000 Matson-Library of Congress pictures, are wonderful 80-100 year old pictures of Jewish children in Jerusalem and new Jewish villages. These two photographs were taken in the Bukharan neighborhood of Jerusalem.Click on the photos to enlarge. Click on the caption to see the original.Bukhari Jews, an ancient community from what is today the Central Asian country Uzbekistan, started moving to the Holy Land in the mid-1800s. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, more Bukharis moved to Israel where their community is estimated to number 100,000.
"Children just out of school," Bukhari Quarter In 1891, as Jews began to move out of the walls of the Old City, Bukhari Jews purchased a large tract of land in Jerusalem from the Turkish authorities and began to build institutions and homes.The sign on the school building reads “Talmud Torah for ultra-Orthodox boys and Kindergarten, established in 5691 (1931)."The pictures bring to mind a popular Israeli song of nostalgia by Yossi Banai (1932-2006) called “Me and Simon and Little Moiz.” [English subtitles provided.] Banai grew up in the area of the shuk in Jerusalem, not far from where these pictures were taken.If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Follow by email" box in the right sidebar.0Add a comment
Degania was the first “kibbutz” in the Land of Israel, founded 100 years ago on the southern shores of the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret) while Palestine was still under Turkish rule. Built on lands purchased by the Jewish National Fund, Degania served as a training ground for many of Israel’s leading socialist leaders. Moshe Dayan, for instance,was born at Degania in 1915.
Degania circa 1920
The Library of Congress collection lists this photograph of Degania (right) as being taken between 1920 and 1930.
Click here to view a1937 film of Degania from the Spielberg Jewish film archives.
Settlers' first homes
If you want to receive A Picture a Day delivered to your computer, just sign up in the "Follow by email" box in the right sidebar.The next photos of settlers are also dated between 1920 and 1930, but the photos do not provide their locations.
Settlement camp They bear this caption: "Jewish colonies and settlements. Commencing a Jewish settlement; a camp. Jewish settlers arriving."
Settlers arriving 0Add a comment
It’s hard to imagine a better picture to offer in the summer heat, especially on the 17th of Tamuz, the Jewish fast day commemorating the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem prior to the destruction of the second Temple.
Two British soldiers at the Kotel, 1921
Two British soldiers at the Western Wall during a major snow storm in 1921. (From the Library of Congress Matson collection. )
And a bonus picture of kids doing in the snow what kids do, even 90 years ago, even in Jerusalem.
1921 snow in Jerusalem 1View comments
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A procession -- but to where?
"A Jewish procession to Absalom's Pillar" is the caption on the Library of Congress' photo, dated sometime between 1898 and 1946. That's a huge window of time. The procession is walking down a ramp from the southeast corner of the Old City wall into the Kidron Valley. Presumably the hundreds of Jews came out of the Old City through the Dung Gate or the Zion Gate.
Why was there a procession to the tomb of King David's rebellious son, Absalom? It's not a very popular destination for Jerusalemites today. Some historians relate that there was a custom to take children to the shrine and throw rocks at it to remind the children to behave. Were there so many mischievous children? The long dresses on many of the people in the procession suggest many women were also involved.
Luckily, the Library of Congress site provides a TIFF download that permits enlarging the photo and provides incredible detail. And the enlargement shows that the procession consisted almost entirely of ultra-Orthodox men wearing their long caftans.
An enlarged segment of the
procession picture
Also fortuitous was discovering another picture elsewhere in the collection entitled "Various types, etc. Jewish funeral." It shows a funeral party at the bottom of the Kidron Valley moving up the Mount of Olives. It may very well be the "flip side" of the same procession, with two photographers on either side of the valley. The shadows suggest that the time of day -- morning, with the sun shining in the east -- was nearly the same. The second picture, however, does include women walking up the ramp from the Valley. And yes, the women are Jewish. Despite the dark scarves on their heads, they are neither nuns nor Muslims.
The funeral near Absalom's Pillar 
Women heading back
to the Old CityLastly, while the Library curators recorded a number, 4340, on the first negative, they missed that the second photo, dated between 1900 and 1920, had the number 4343, suggesting that the two were part of a series.This match was pointed out to the curators who will finally pair the two photos after almost 100 years.0Add a comment
The Library of Congress Matson collection labels this picture as "Atonement Day crowd. Closer view at the Wailing Wall." As for a date of the picture, the various labels on this picture suggest that it was taken anywhere between 1898 and 1933.
Prayers at the Kotel
[The Library of Congress site provides a TIFF download that permits enlarging the photo and provides incredible detail.]
What clues does the picture give us? A relatively dark graffiti on the wall -- actually memorials to loved ones-- provides the Hebrew year 5664 which correlates to 1904. The darkness of the writing suggests that it was written relatively close to the time of the photograph.
The shadows suggest that the sun is setting in the West, and the Day of Atonement is nearing the end.
The worshippers are all men, but it appears that all the way on the left are a number of women with their heads covered. Could they be men with prayer shawls - talitot? Perhaps, but none of the men in the foreground is wearing talitot. Today it is customary for Orthodox men to wear their talitot on Yom Kippur. Has the custom changed in the last century?
The hats worn by the worshippers are a mixture of styles: Hassidic fur hats, the non-Hassidic fedoras, the Sephardi fezzes, and the tourist wearing the straw hat "boater."
All the worshippers are standing. That rules out 1928 when Jews brought in chairs and screens to separate the sexes. The British authorities overseeing the site moved in, claiming that the Jews had changed the status quo as established by Turkish fiat years earlier. The British forcefully removed the screens, beating some of the women who tried to prevent their removal. They brutally removed the chairs under elderly worshipers. The incident led to protests from Jewish communities across the globe. But the Jewish furniture also inflamed the Moslem leadership of Palestine. Tensions escalated over the next months, leading to the bloody massacres in Hebron and Safad in August 1929.3View comments
A Yemenite Jew looks at his village in Silwan (circa 1901) The Shiloah Village outside of the Jerusalem Old City walls dates back to biblical days. Its famous Shiloah spring was utilized for Temple libations.The caption on this Library of Congress photograph reads, "The village of Siloam [i.e. Siloan, Shiloah, Silwan] and Valley of Kedron, Palestine." But whoever wrote the caption, perhaps 110 years ago, missed an important fact. The man standing above his village is a Jew from Yemen.The most famous Jewish Yemenite migration to the Land of Israel took place in 1949 and 1950 when almost 50,000 Jews were airlifted to Israel in "Operation On Eagles Wings -- על כנפי נשרים" also know as "Operation Magic Carpet."But another migration took place 70 years earlier in 1881-1882 when a group of Jews of Yemen arrived by foot to Jerusalem. They belonged to no "Zionist movement." They returned out of an age-old religious fervor to return to Zion.The new immigrants settled on Jewish-owned property in the Shiloah Village outside of the Old City walls of Jerusalem.
A Jewish Yemenite family (circa 1914) The gentleman in the photograph above wears the distinctive Jewish Yemenite clothing of the time, according to a Yemenite expert today.The photo collection also contains portraits of Yemenite Jews, such as this family portrait from the early 1900s. Look at the picture, presumably of three generations. And realize that if that baby were still alive today, 100 years later, he would be the family elder of another three or four generations of Jews in the Holy Land.The Jews of Shiloah were the targets of anti-Jewish pogroms during the anti-Jewish riots in 1921 and again during the 1936-39 Arab revolt when they were evacuated by the British authorities.Jewish families returned to Silwan/Shiloah after Israel reunited the city of Jerusalem in 1967.PS. I have already had an interesting response from a descendent of a resident from the Shiloah village:לעניות דעתי התמונה של הגבר על רקע הכפר היא של יהודי חבאני ( יהודי חבאן היו גבוהי קומה) ושל המשפחה נראה שהיא משפחה שעלתה מצנעאIn my humble opinion, the man in the picture with the village in the background is a Jew from Habani (the Jews of Haban were tall) and the family looks like a family that made aliya from Saana.0Add a comment
Jerusalemites have been waiting impatiently for years for the completion of a light rail system. Construction began in 2002 and is scheduled to begin service in August 2011. But further delays may occur.
Will it finally happen? 
Jerusalem station circa 1900 Incredibly, a light rail system was in operation more than 90 years ago. Planning began and some routes were constructed under the Turks in the 19thcentury. Also incredible are the 1918 pictures from the Matson-Library of Congress collection of trains passing over the ancient Tombs of the Judges located in northern Jerusalem on their way north to Ramallah.The railroad played an important military role for both the British and the Turks and their allies during World War I with lines from Egypt to Gaza, Beersheva, Ramla and Jerusalem.
Light railway from
Jerusalem to Ramallah 1918
Jerusalem station 1900 
"Light railway crossing over
ancient tombs" 19180Add a comment
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
U.S. Diplomat Opposed the Zionist Idea in 1920 - picture a day
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