Solomon's Pools -- (Continued) -- Jerusalem's 'Swimming Hole'

Solomon's Pools -- (Continued) -- Jerusalem's 'Swimming Hole'

IsraelDailyPicture.com

"Solomon's pools becomes a picnic and swimming resort. Group of bathers"
(Library of Congress)

Some 20 years ago, Tel Aviv's Mayor Shlomo Lahat "gave" one of his beaches to Jerusalem's mayor Teddy Kollek.  Ostensibly, "Jerusalem Beach" is the closest beach to Jerusalem and those citizens who want to drive the 40 kilometers to swim and splash.

But Jerusalem has had huge swimming pools nearby for 2,000 years, and the photographers of the American Colony filmed the Jerusalem residents who flocked to Solomon's Pools in the 1940s.

Solomon's Pools -- Picnic and Swimming Resort
 and here (circa 1940, Library of Congress)



Cars arriving from Jerusalem and concession stand
(Library of Congress)

 

From 1948 until 1967 the area was occupied by Jordan, and Israelis could not travel to Solomon's Pools.  The area, of course, was open to local Arab residents.

After the 1967 War, the area was reopened and Jerusalemites and residents of the local Jewish communities would visit the pools for picnics and to swim.  

 After the Oslo Agreements, Solomon's Pools were granted to the Palestinian Authority.  Since the mid-1990s, Jewish groups have been able to visit only with special permission and escort by Israel's army.  Foreign tourists can reach the site without restrictions from Palestinian-controlled Bethlehem.

Recommended reading (in Hebrew) סיפורן של אמות המים לירושלים  The Story of the Water Supply to Jerusalem from "All About Jerusalem," Israeli Tour Guide Course.  Photographs by Tamar Hayardeni and Ron Peled whose comments and photos have appeared in these postings in the past.

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Tu B'Shvat, the Jewish New Year for Trees

Tu B'Shvat

, the Jewish New Year for Trees, Is Celebrated on Saturday

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)





A government tree nursery on Mt.
Scopus, Jerusalem (circa 1930)

One major activity of the JNF, or in Hebrew the Keren 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.

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

Ceremony of planting the King's tree (1935) at Nahalal

In 1935, the Jews of Britain and the JNF established a "Jubilee Forest" near Nazareth.  According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency'saccount 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."

"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."

 

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Pictures Beneath the Temple Mount Now Online

Pictures Beneath the Temple Mount Now Online
The Israel Antiquities Authority Pictures Taken after the 1927 Earthquake
Israel's History - A Picture A Day

Library of Congress caption from the American Colony
Collection: "The Temple area. The Double Gate.
Ancient entrance to Temple beneath al Aqsa." Note the
staircase that apparently led to the surface and the
Temple plaza

In October 2012, we published here "What Is behind the Mysterious Sealed Gates of Jerusalem's Old City?" 

The essay showed two incredible 85-year old photographs of columns and chambers under the Temple Mount from the archives of the Library of Congress/American Colony collection of photographs. The captions under the pictures read "The Temple area, the Double Gate. Ancient entrance to Temple beneath al Aqsa." The pictures were taken between 1920 and 1933, according to the caption.

We theorized in October that the American Colony photographer gained access to the area under the al Aqsa Mosque, partially destroyed in the 1927 earthquake. 

Nadav Shragai, a scholar on Jerusalem sites, reported in a Yisrael HaYom article last year, that Robert Hamilton, director of the British Mandate Antiquities Authority, had explored under the mosque at the time. He "photographed, sketched, excavated and analyzed" what he saw. But he promised the Islamic Authorities, the Waqf, that he would make "no mention of any findings that the Muslims would have found inconvenient" such as findings from the time of the Jewish Temples. 

IAA Hamilton collection. Inside the
"Double Gate Pendenture"



From the IAA Hamilton collection. Inside the "Double Gate" of
the southern wall of the Temple Mount. It is clearly the same arch
in the picture taken by the American Colony photographer.

















After 1948 the British Mandate Antiquities Authority became the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and after the 1967 war the old archives in the Rockefeller Museum also came under Israeli control.

Flight of stairs (on the right side) leading into a rock-cut passage

This week, the IAA posted hundreds of photographs online, apparently from Hamilton's collection.  The pictures lack the notations and captions available on the Library of Congress photos, but it is clear that some of the pictures were taken at the same time.  The IAA undertook a painstaking task of digitalizing tens of thousands of documents, maps and photographs from the 1919-1948 period.

More study of the IAA photographs is required, especially to identify some of Hamilton's reported finds, including a Jewish mikve, a ritual bath, under al Aqsa.  The photos show columns, cisterns, passageways, mosaics, arches, timbers, and layers of ruins beneath the al Aqsa flooring.

We anxiously await the commentary of Israeli archaeologists, but we share with readers now some of the amazing pictures.

Click on pictures to enlarge.  Click on caption to see the original.


Vault found. Note pier on left





Cistern



Trench dug in the flooring. Note levels beneath it




Note the levels

  

Remains of a mosaic found



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19th and early 20th century photographs from the Holy Land

Updates to Previous Posts
with Pictures from the New York Public Library. Yes, the NYPL

 

"Shepherd and sheep." Where? South on Nablus Road in Jerusalem (circa 1900)
The mosque and minaret are still there today. Credit: New York Public Library

The Library of Congress archives of 19th and early 20th century photographs from the Holy Land still has more veins of treasures to be mined by Israel Daily Picture.

But we would like to add two more American Colony pictures which we found in the New York Public Library archives to our previous postings. We thank the NYPL for granting permission to present them here.



Turkish soldiers marching on Nablus
Road past the same minaret
(circa 1900)

The first is a picture of shepherds and sheep. What drew our attention were the buildings and mosque, easily identified in our feature "Jerusalem's Nablus Road -- Where History Marched." The original caption to the photograph of the soldiers notes that they were passing the American Colony residence, located on Nablus Road.

Emperor Wilhelm passing the Colony's
residence. Note the minaret above the
ultra-Orthodox Jew's hat on the left.
(1898)

The Colony's location gave the photographers a front row seat for the arrival of the German Emperor Wilhelm II in 1898.

The second photo found in the New York Public Library is a picture of farming practices in Palestine over 100 years ago. The American Colony photographers frequently shot pictures of mismatched plowing animals.

Peasant plowing (circa 1900)
Credit: New York Public Library

We theorize that the American Colony members, who were well versed in the Old Testament, focused on agricultural prohibitions found in the Bible.

In this particular case, they illustrated the prohibition "Thou shall not plow with an ox and an ass together." (Deuteronomy 20)

They also provided pictures of the prohibition "Thou shall not muzzle an ox in its threshing"
(Deuteronomy 25)

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