Showing posts with label American Colony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American Colony. Show all posts

Friday, June 6, 2014

The First "American Colony" Was Established in the Holy Land 150 Years Ago.

Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)


Posted: 05 Jun 2014 

The American "Colony" in the 1860s. Please help us obtain 

such pictures in high-resolution digitized form
We are proud that the photographs presented here are all "kosher."  They usually have lapsed copyright restrictions, but, in any case, we seek and obtain permission from the relevant collections, archives and libraries.  All pictures are presented with the links to the original source, and we find librarians and archivists thankful for our site driving readers to their material.

On occasion, however, we have skipped certain collections because of requests for payment.

Photograph of the colony founder, George

Jones Adams, c. 1841
We believe that pictures of Americans attempting to establish a colony near Jaffa in the 1860s are worthy of an entry in these pages.  

(Our research found that Mark Twain met some of the members of the failed colony and wrote about them.)

Unfortunately, the photographs can only be obtained in digitized high-resolution with payment.  In one case, a small American museum contains documents and photographs, and images must be purchased.  In the case of the Library of Congress, which has been amazingly cooperative in releasing their photographs, the photograph described below has never been digitized.

Title: The American Settlement, near Joppa, Palestine. Erected by the Adams Colony from Maine and New Hampshire, 1866-7 
  • Date Created/Published: [1866 or 1867]
  • Medium: 1 photographic print.
  • Summary: Photograph shows buildings of the "American Colony" or "Adams City" near Jaffa, now Tel Aviv, Israel which was founded by George Jones Adams (ca. 1811-1880) in 1866.

  • Please click on the Paypal "Donate" button on the top right of our website,www.israeldailypicture.com, to assist us in purchasing these historic, high-resolution digitized images. (We are not purchasing the originals, just digitized copies.)

    Wednesday, March 26, 2014

    Passover Nears. Time to Recall that a Biblical-Scale Plague Struck the Holy Land 99 Years Ago

    Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)


    Posted: 26 Mar 2014 12:42 AM PDT
    The American Colony photographers  took
    hundreds of pictures of the  locust plague
    and the insects' metamorphosis from larvae to adult
    A version of this posting appeared in January 2012.

    World War I brought widespread devastation to the Middle East as German and Turkish armies fought British, Australian and New Zealand troops in battlefields from the Suez Canal in the south to Damascus in the north.  

    The war also meant a cut-off of aid and relief to the Jews of Palestine from Jewish philanthropists in Europe and the United States.






    As many as 10,000 Jews were expelled from Jaffa-Tel Aviv in April 1917 by the Turks, and many perished from disease and hunger.

    But the famine that struck the residents of Palestine was also caused by a massive plague of locusts that swarmed into Eretz Yisrael in March 1915 and lasted until October.  Accounts of the locusts and the subsequent starvation and pestilence recalled the plagues of Bible.

    New York Times account from April 1915 described deaths from starvation.  By November 1915, theTimes detailed a cable from the American Counsel General in Jerusalem in which he described "fields covered by the locusts as far as the eye could reach."  The diplomat reported on efforts made by the Turkish leader of Palestine to combat the locusts.  A Jewish agronomist, "Dr. Aaron Aaronsohn, who is well known to the Department of Agriculture at Washington, was appointed High Commissioner" to the "Central Commission to Fight the Locusts." 
    
    tree before the locusts arrived
    The same tree after the locusts finished

    












    [Aaronsohn would go on to establish the anti-Turkish NILI spy ring in 1917.  His sister Sarah was captured by the Turks for her involvement in the spy ring, and after torture, she committed suicide.]

    American funds and food were essential for keeping the Jewish community in Palestine alive, and aid was delivered by U.S. Navy vessels.
    
    The American Colony in Jerusalem established soup kitchens to feed starving residents in Jerusalem.  The colony's photographers documented more than 200 pictures of the locusts' devastation, efforts to combat them and the locusts' life cycle.  An album of color (hand tinted) photographs is stored in the Library of Congress collection.
    
    
    "Locusts stealing in like thieves through
    the window"
    The Times reported, "Few crops or orchards escaped devastation.  This was especially true on the Plain of Sharon, where the Jewish and German colonies, with their beautiful orange gardens, vineyards, and orchards, suffered most severely... In the lowlands there was a complete destruction of crops such as garden vegetables, melons, apricots and grapes ... upon whose supply the Jerusalem markets depend... few vegetables or fruits [were] to be had in the markets."

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

    Team waving flags tries to push a swarm of locusts into a
    trap dug into the ground.  The Turkish governor demanded
    that every man deliver 20 kilo (44 pounds) of locusts









    "In Jerusalem and Hebron," the report continued, "the heaviest loss from the onslaught of the locusts has been in connection with the olive groves and vineyards.  Olive oil is a staple of food among the peasants and poorer classes....The grape, too, is a similar staple among all classes."
    
    Garden of Gethsemane, Jerusalem,  before the locusts
    Garden of  Gethsemane, Jerusalem, after the locusts














    "When the larvae appeared near Jerusalem," the Times related, residents were mobilized "for immediate organized resistance....Tin-lined boxes were sunk in the earth in the direction in which the locusts were advancing." Men, women and children were given flags and "the flaggers would drive the locusts together in a dense column toward the trap..."

    Both the forces of war and nature combined to take a terrible toll on the residents of Palestine during World War I.

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    Saturday, September 21, 2013

    Celebrating Sukkot in Jerusalem 100 Years Ago

    Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)


    Posted: 20 Sep 2013

    Bukharan family in their sukka (circa 1900). Note the man on the right holding the citron and palm branch. (Library of Congress collection) Compare this sukka to one photographed in Samarkand 40 years earlier.

    As soon as the Yom Kippur fast day is over many Jews start preparations for the Sukkot (Tabernacles) holiday. It usually involves building a sukka, a temporary structure -- sometimes just a hut -- with a thatched roof, in which Jews eat and often sleep during the seven day holiday. 


    Ashkenazi family (circa 1900) in the sukka
    beneath the chandelier and picures


    The photographers of the American Colony Photographic Department took photos of sukkot structures over a 40 year period, preserving pictures of Bukharan, Yemenite and Ashkenazi sukkot. 

    Several photographs include the Jewish celebrants holding four species of plants traditionally held during prayers on the Sukkot holiday -- a citron fruit and willow, myrtle and palm branches.

    Even though the sukka is a temporary structure, some families moved their furniture and finery into the sukka, as is evident in some of the pictures.


    Portrait of the Bukhari family in the Sukka (1900)

    Bukhari Jews, shown in pictures from around 1900, were part of an ancient community from what is today the Central Asian country Uzbekistan. They started moving to the Holy Land in the mid-1800s. 


    A Yemenite Jew named Yehia
    holding the 4 species in the sukka
    (1939)


    Yehia, the Yemenite Jew pictured here, was almost certainly part of a large migration of Jews who arrived in Jerusalem in the 1880s, well before the famous "Magic Carpet" operation that brought tens of thousands to the new state of Israel during 1949 and 1950.


    A more elaborate sukka in the Goldsmidt house (1934)
    in Jerusalem. Note the tapestry on the
    walls with Arabic script




    The Bassam family sukka in Rehavia, Jerusalem
    neighborhood (1939)


    Exterior of the Goldsmidt sukka in Jerusalem (1934)



    A Sephardi Jew named Avram relaxing in
    his Sukka with a friend (1939)


    The picture of an elaborate dinner was taken in a very large Jerusalem sukka belonging to the Goldsmidt family. Tapestries and fabrics hang on the wall of the sukka. Close examination shows that the fabric contains Arabic words, even some hung upside down. Several experts were asked this week to comment on the Arabic. One senior Israeli Arab affairs correspondent wrote, "It is apparently some quotes that I can read but do not amount to anything coherent, written in Kufi style of Arabic... [I] would not be surprised if these are Kuranic verses."

    Presumably the Goldsmidts and their guests didn't know about the Arabic phrases either. 

    A reader helped identify the Goldsmidts' building. "The Goldsmidts were friends of ours who lived on Ben-Maimon Street [in Jerusalem]. They had a restaurant [and that explains the diners in the sukka]. Our wedding reception was there. There's a plaque on 54 King George Street that says "Goldsmidt Building." 

    We invite readers to unravel the mystery of the tapestries, translate the phrases, and provide a contemporary picture of theGoldsmidts' building.

    Click on the photos to enlarge. Click on the captions to see the originals.

    Tuesday, August 6, 2013

    How the American Colony Adopted Yemenite Jews in 1882

    Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)



    How the American Colony Adopted Yemenite Jews in 1882 -- As Told by Bertha Spafford Vester, a Leader of the Colony


    Why so many pictures of Yemenite Jews? (American
    Colony Collection, circa 1910)

    In previous features we discussed why the American Colony photographers dedicated so much film to the Yemenite Jews of Jerusalem.

    Today we present the words of one of the key figures of the American Colony, Bertha Spafford Vester, daughter of the founders of the Colony, Anne and Horatio Spafford. Bertha took over the management of the American Colony enterprises after her parents' death. She described her life in her fascinating book,An American Family in the Holy City, 1881-1949.

    She provided one chapter to the Colony's special relationship with a group of "Gadites" who arrived in 1882. It was believed they were descendants of the tribe of Gad.

    CHAPTER TWELVE

    The Gadites entered our lives a few months after our arrival in Jerusalem, and until [the 1948] civil war divided Jerusalem into Arab and Jewish zones, with no intercourse between except bullets and bombs, they continued to get help from the American Colony.
    


    Yemenite school at Kfar Hashiloach. Yemenite village
    in Silwan (Central Zionist Archives, Harvard, circa 1910)

    One afternoon in May 1882 several of the Group, including my parents, went for a walk, and were attracted by a strange-looking company of people camping in the fields. The weather was hot, and they had made shelters from the sun out of odds and ends of cloth, sacking, and bits of matting. Father made inquiries through the help of an interpreter and found that they were Yemenite Jews recently arrived from Arabia.



    View of Kfar Shiloah in Jerusalem, outside of Jerusalem's
    Old City. Note the caves, first homes for Gadite newcomers
    (Central Zionist Archives, Harvard, 1898)

    They told Father about their immigration from Yemen and their arrival in Palestine. Suddenly, they said, without warning, a spirit seemed to fall on them and they began to speak about returning to the land of Israel. They were so convinced that this was the right and appointed time to return to Palestine that they sold their property and turned other convertible belongings into cash and started for the Promised Land. 

    They said about five hundred had left Yena in Yemen. Most of them were uneducated in any way except the knowledge of their ancient Hebrew writings, and those, very likely, they recited by rote. As appears, they were simple folk, with little knowledge of the ways of the world outside of Yemen, and that is the same as saying "the days of Abraham."

    When they landed in Hedida on the coast of the Red Sea, they were cautioned by Jews not to continue their trip to Jerusalem and that if they did so it would be at peril of their lives. Some of the party were discouraged and returned to Yena. Others were misdirected and were taken to India, The rest went to Aden, where they embarked on a steamer for Jaffa, and came to Jerusalem before the Feast of Passover.
    


    "Arab (sic) Jew from Yemen" (circa 1900)


    Library of Congress caption: "Photograph shows a
    Yemenite Jewish man standing in front of Siloan village.
    1901 (Source: L. Ben-David, Israel's History - A Picture
    a Day website, Sept. 11, 2011)"

    They told about the opposition and unfriendliness they had encountered from the Jerusalem Jews, who, they said, accused them of not being Jews but Arabs. One reason, they said, for their rejection by the Jerusalem Jews was because they feared that these poor immigrants would swell the number of recipients ofhalukkah, or prayer money. 

    Early in the seventeenth century, as a result of earthquakes, famine, and persecution, the economic position of the Jews in Palestine became critical, and the Jews of Venice came to their aid. They established a fund "to support the inhabitants of the Holy Land." Later on the Jews of Poland, Bohemia, and Germany offered similar aid. This was the origin of the halukkah. 

    The money was sent not so much for the purpose of charity as to enable Jewish scholars and students to study and interpret the Scriptures and Jewish holy books and to pray for the Jews in the Diaspora (Dispersion), at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and in other holy cities of Palestine. 

    Thehalukkah, as one could imagine, was soon abused. It only stopped, however, when World War I began in 1914 and no more money came to Palestine for that purpose.

    In 1882, when the Yemenites arrived, those who had benefited from the generosity of others were unwilling to pass it on.

    Father was interested in the Gadites at once. Their story about their unprovoked conviction that this was the time to return to Palestine coincided with what he felt sure was coming to pass the fulfillment of the prophecy of the return of the Jews to Palestine.

    Also, Father was attracted by the classical purity of Semitic features of these Yemenite immigrants, so unlike the Jews he was accustomed to see in Jerusalem or in the United States. These people were distinctive: they had dark skin with dark hair and dark eyes. They wore side curls, according to the


    Yemenite Jewish family circa 1900

    Mosaic law: "Ye shalt not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." Otherwise their dress was Arabic. They had poise, and their movements were graceful, like those of the Bedouins. They were slender and somewhat undersized. 

    Many of the women were beautiful, and the men, even the young men, looked venerable with their long beards. They regarded as true the tradition that they belonged to the tribe of Gad. They believed that they had not gone into captivity in Babylon, and that they had not returned at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah to rebuild the temple. For thousands of years they had remained in Yemen, hence their purity of race and feature.

    The thirty-second chapter of Numbers tells how the children of Gad and the children of Reuben asked Moses to allow them to remain on the east side of Jordan, which country had "found favor in their sight." It goes on to tell how Moses rebuked them, saying, "Shall your brethren go to war, and shall ye sit here?" Then Moses promised them that if they would go armed and help subdue the country, then "this land shall be your possession before the Lord."

    In the thirteenth chapter of Joshua, "when Joshua was stricken in years," he gives instructions that the Gadites and the Reubenites and half the tribe of Menasseh should receive their inheritance "beyond the Jordan eastward even as Moses the servant of the Lord gave them."

    In the Apology of al Kindy, written at the court of al Mamun, A.D. 830, the author speaks of Medina as being a poor town, mostly inhabitated by Jews. He also speaks of other tribes of Jews, one of which was deported to Syria. 

    Would it be too remote to conjecture that the remnants of these tribes should have wandered to and remained in Yemen? I know there are other theories about how Jews got there, and about their origin, but Father believed that "Blessed be he that enlargeth Gad," and the Group did everything in their power to help these immigrants. We called them Gadites from that time.


    Yemenite Jews circa 1900. Why are they near mailbox belonging to the German postal service? (Library of Congress)



    Yemenite rabbis, "some of the first immigrants"
    (Central Zionist Archives, Harvard)

    They were in dreadful need when we found them.

    Some of them had died of exposure and starvation during their long and uncomfortable trip; now malaria, typhoid, and dysentery were doing their work. They had to be helped, and quickly. No time
    was lost in getting relief started. 

    The Group rented rooms, and the Gadites were installed in cooler and more sanitary quarters. Medical help was immediately brought. Mr. Steinharf's sister, an Orthodox Jewish woman, was engaged to purchase kosher meat, which, with vegetables and rice or cracked burghal (wheat) she made into a nutritious soup. 

    Bread and soup were distributed once a day to all, with the addition of milk for the children and invalids. One of the American Colony members was always present at distribution time, to see that it was done equitably and well.



    Translation of the Gadite prayer kept in the Spafford Bible:
    Prayer of Jewish Rabbi offered every Sabbath in Gadite synagogue,
    June 27?: He who blessed our fathers Abraham, Isaac & Jacob,
    bless & guard & keep Horatio Spafford & his household & all that
    are joined with him, because he has shown us mercy to us & our
    children & little ones. Therefore may the Lord make his days long...(?)
    and may the Lord's mercy shelter them. In his and in our days may
    Judah be helped (?) and Israel rest peacefully and may the
    Redeemer come to Zion, Amen.

    The Gadites had a scribe among them who was a cripple. He could not use his arms and wrote the most beautiful Hebrew, holding a reed pen between his toes. He wrote a prayer for Father and his associates, which was brought one day and presented to Father as a thanksgiving offering. 

    They said that they repeated the prayer daily. I have it in my possession; it is written on a piece of parchment. The translation was made by Mr. Steinhart.

    This amicable state of affairs continued for some time. Then the elders, who were the heads of the families, came as a delegation to Father. They filed upstairs to the large upper living room, looking solemn and sad, and smelling strongly of garlic. 

    They told Father that certain Orthodox Jews, the very ones who had turned blind eyes and deaf ears to their entreaties for help when they arrived in such a pitiable state, were now persecuting them under the claim that they were violating the law by eating Christian food. Some of the older men and women had stopped eating, and in consequence were weak and ill. They made Father understand how vital this accusation, even if false, was to them, and they begged him to divide the money spent among them, instead of giving them the food.



    Yemenite Rabbi Shlomo (1935)

    Everyone knows how much more economical it is to make a large quantity of soup in one cauldron than in many individual pots; how ever, their request was granted. A bit more money was added to the original sum, and every Friday morning the heads of the Gadite families would appear at the American Colony and be given coins in proportion to the number of individuals to be fed.

    They explained to Father that they were trying to learn the trades of the new country and hoped very soon not to need assistance. They had been goldsmiths and silversmiths of a crude sort in Yemen, but Jerusalem at that time had no appreciation or demand for that sort of handicraft. One by one the elders came to tell us they had found work, to thank, us for what we had done, and to say they needed no further help. Father was impressed with the unspoiled integrity of these people.

    The Colony continued giving help to the original group of Gadites in decreasing amounts until only a few old people and


    Yemenite Rabbi Avram (circa 1935)

    widows remained. But these came regularly once a week. Their number was swelled by newcomers and we still shared what we could with them: portions of dry rice, lentils, tea, coffee, and sugar, or other dry articles. 

    After the British occupation of Palestine and the advent of the Zionist organization, with its resources and vast machinery to meet pressing necessities, after forty years our list of dependent Gadites was taken over by them. Even then, individuals continued to come to the doors of the American Colony to ask our help.

    One night in June 1948 the American Colony had been under fire all night between the Jews west of us and the Arab legionaries east of us. In the morning a Yemenite Jew lay dead in the road be fore our gates. I recognized Hyam, a Yemenite from the "box colony" near the American Colony. He was one of those who had been receiving help from us for years.

    For all this relief work the American Colony was using the money of its members.

    The chapter continues with the story of a con-man, Mr. Moses, who stole an ancient scroll from the Yemenites while they were still in Yemen. The Yemenite community in Jerusalem discovered him in Jerusalem and requested that the American Colony help secure the scroll for them.

    Friday, August 2, 2013

    The Site of the Tabernacle When the Israelites Arrived in the Holy Land


    Before There Was Jerusalem, There Was Shiloh
    -- The Site of the Tabernacle When the Israelites Arrived in the Holy Land



    Interior of old Temple at Shiloh (1908, Library of Congress).
    The building is now closed. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled themselves together at Shiloh, and set up the Tabernacle there, and the land was subdued before them. (Joshua 18:1)

    When Joshua brought the children of Israel across the Jordan River he was really leading a new nation, born in Egypt and Sinai but forged for 40 years in the furnace of the desert.

    Their journey had started hundreds of years earlier when Jacob's sons, grazing their flocks near Shechem (Nablus), sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Their descendants returned to the same area in Samaria bearing Joseph's body for burial in Shechem. They chose the nearby village of Shiloh as the resting place for the Tabernacle which housed altars, the menorah, the ark of the Covenant and more.



    Ruins of Shiloh (circa 1910, Library of Congress)

    There the Tabernacle would remain for almost 400 years, the place for pilgrimages and sacrifices. In Shiloh, Joshua drew lots to divide up the land among the Israelite tribes. Eli the High Priest officiated.

    A woman named Hannah came to Shiloh to pray for a son and promised he would serve the Lord if he was born. Samuel was born to Hannah. He served in the Tabernacle and was the prophet who anointed Saul and then David as kings. David shifted his capital first to Hebron and then to Jerusalem.

    Archaeologists today have little doubt that the area known as Sailun was the location of biblical Shiloh. Evidence
    


    Tourists/pilgrims at Shiloh (1891, with permission of the
      synagogues, churches and mosques can be found there.

    In the Talmudic period and the Middle Ages Shiloh was a destination for pilgrims.

    We recently discovered online an antique book, "A Month in Palestine and Syria, April 1891," posted by the New Boston Fine and Rare Books. The book includes a travelogue and several dozen photographs of tourists and pilgrims. They also visited Shiloh.

    Unfortunately, the antique book shop does not know the name of the photographer or author. We would welcome suggestions from our readers.

    Today, religious pilgrims are usually found in the south, in a place called Jerusalem.
    

    Group from the American Colony visiting the
    "sacred circle" in Shiloh (1937, Library of Congress)


    Ancient Shiloh today (photo courtesy of Yisrael Medad)

    Click on pictures to enlarge.

    Click on caption to view the original picture.

    New Pictures Added to Shiloh Feature,
    Snapped 135 Years Apart




    Ruins of ancient Shiloh (circa 1870, Palestine Exploration Fund, 
    taken by British Sgt. Henry Phillips)



    Shiloh today (picture by David Rabkin, 2006)

    Tuesday, July 2, 2013

    Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta) The Amazing Portraits of Shlomo and Sonia Narinsky -- Jewish Photographers


    Israel's History - a Picture a Day (Beta)


    Posted: 30 Jun 2013 08:55 PM PDT
    "A Spanish Jew [Sephardi] of Jerusalem"
    (Library of Congress, circa 1921)
    Turn a virtual corner in the Library of Congress' digitalized photo archives and you never know what you'll find.  It happened many times since the launch of this site two years ago, and it just happened again.

    Within the vast collection of the American Colony Photographic Department Collection (roughly 1890 - 1946) we discovered amazing picture and postcard portraits taken by Shlomo and Sonia Narinsky. The photographs were sold by the American Colony's souvenir store located inside Jerusalem's Old City near Jaffa Gate.  
    "A Vernomito (sic) [Yemenite] Jew
    in Jerusalem" (circa 1921)













    Born in the Ukraine in 1885, Shlomo Narinsky studied art in Moscow, Paris and Berlin before moving to Palestine where he set up a studio. 

    In 1916, Shlomo and his wife were exiled to Egypt by the Turkish rulers. 

    They returned to the Land of Israel after the British captured the territory in 1918.



    "An Orthodox Jew of Jerusalem"
    Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, father of
    modern Hebrew (Wikiversity,
    circa 1912)
    In 1932, the Narinskys opened a studio in Paris, but Shlomo was arrested when the Nazis captured France. He was later exchanged for a German spy caught in Palestine after the intercession of David Ben-Gurion and Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.
    
    
    rabbi and his grandson (Ynet News)

    They returned to Israel, eventually moving to Haifa where Shlomo taught as a photography teacher.  He died in 1960, relatively unknown.
    

    Shlomo Narinsky was also trained as a painter, and some of his photographs almost reflect the post-impressionist Vincent Van Gogh's wheat field series.



    Arab "sorting his wheat."  Note the farmer's stance, angle
    of his tool and the sky, and compare to Van Gogh's
    painting. See also Narinsky's "Fishermen at Jaffa"
    Van Gogh -- Harvesting wheat in the Alpilles
    Valley (1888) 
    Click on the picture to enlarge. 

    Wednesday, May 29, 2013

    The Zionist Message Hidden within Antique Pictures of the Holy Land


    Journal Article Abstract: The Zionist Message Hidden within Antique Pictures of the Holy Land
    By Lenny Ben-David


    Abstract reprinted from the Jewish Political Studies Review, May 1, 2013

    A 110-year-old trove of pictures taken by the Christian photographers of the American Colony in Jerusalem provides dramatic proof of thriving Jewish communities in Israel.





    Hundreds of pictures show the ancient Jewish community of Jerusalem’s Old City and the Jewish pioneers and builders of new towns and settlements in the Galilee and along the Mediterranean coastline. The American Colony photographers recorded Jewish holy sites, holiday scenes and customs, and they had a special reason for focusing their lenses on Yemenite Jews.





    The collection, housed in the U.S. Library of Congress, also contains photographs from the 1860s, the first years of photography. These photographs provide a window rarely opened by historians—for several unfortunate reasons—to view the life of the Jews in the Holy Land. The photographs’ display and online publication effectively counters the biased narrative claiming that the Jewish state violently emerged ex novo in the mid-twentieth century.

    Read the full article and view the photographs here.

    Tuesday, May 14, 2013

    Book of Ruth Comes Alive in Antique Photos Taken 100 Years Ago

    Posted: 13 May 2013 11:55 PM PDT
    "Ruth the Moabitess"
    The Jewish holiday ofShavuot-Pentecost will be celebrated this week.  The holiday has several traditional names: Shavuot, the festival of weeks, marking seven weeks after Passover; Chag HaKatzir, the festival of reaping grains; andChag 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 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.

    And Naomi and Ruth both went on 
    until they arrived at Bethlehem
    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. 

    Ruth came to a field that belonged 
    to Boaz who was of the family of 
    Naomi's deceased husband


    
    Boaz said to his servant, who stood
    over the reapers, "To whom does
    this maiden belong?"
    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 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 thedozens of "Ruth" photographs found in the Library of Congress' American Colony collection.

    Ruth carried it to the city and Naomi
    saw what she had gleaned
    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....
    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.

    See more of the pictures here.

    Unfortunately, we don't know when the "Ruth and Boaz series" was photographed, but we estimate approximately 100 years ago.

    Click on the caption to view the original.