Land of Promise: Photographs from Palestine 1850 to 1948 [1 ed.] 0912383143, 9780912383149

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DOF PROMISE

NACHUM T GIDAL

DOF PROMI SE Photographs from Palestine 1850 to 1948

ALFRED VAN DER MARCK EDITIONS NEWYORK

To Pia, my wife

N. T. Gidal

Editorial supervisor: Leonard Neufeld

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gidal, Tim, 1909Land of promise. Translation of: Das Heilige Land. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Palestine-Description and travel-Views. I. Title. 1985 956.94'03'0222 DS108.5.G495 ISBN 0-912383-14-3

85-40037

Copyright© 1985 for the German edition "Das Heilige Land" by Verlag C.J. Bucher GmbH, Munich and Lucerne

Copyright© 1985 for the English edition by Alfred van der Marek Editions, New York, N.Y All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Alfred van der Marek Editions 23 5 Park A venue South, Suite 407 New York, New York rnoo3 Printed and bound by Passavia Druckerei GmbH, Germany

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CONTENTS 7 From the History of the Land of Promise 24 98 148 151 152

Pictures I - The Land of Promise Pictures II - The Land of Promise

1850-1920 1920-1948

Chronology Bibliography Index

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The Holy Places: the hills and valleys, the rivers, the villages and towns of the Promised Land. Map from "Land of the Bible". London 1936

I DEEP IS THE WELL OF THE PAST ... - thus begins Thomas Mann's great biblical epic "Joseph and his Brothers". From the well of the Bible Jewish scholars and Christian evangelists have drawn divine inspiration, interpretations of the history - of mankind's salvation, and knowledge of the Holy Land. The Jewish Scriptures are divided into three parts: the Pentateuch, the Books of the Prophets, and the Chronicles of Judges and Kings. The Gospels, the records in the so-called New Testament of the life and ministry of Jesus, are of concern only to the Christian religion. In the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries scientific discoveries have increasingly confirmed the accuracy of geographical and historical information in the Hebrew Bible. Whereas in the early mythological traditions of Mesopotamia the Flood was attributed to numerous gods, many believe that the Bible characterizes the God of Abraham as the sole Creator and Lord, the originator of all that came to pass. They consider this to be the historical beginning of monotheism, the doctrine of a supreme supernatural power. The divine power, however, is seen as able to manifest its fulfilling presence only in the Holy Land and only with the coming of the Messiah. Orthodox Jews have always believed in a return to their Holy Land led by the Messiah, the Anointed of God, the Liberator of all mankind from religious and social oppression. For the Jews, the Messiah is the awaited Liberator; for the Christians he has already appeared in the person of Jesus Christ. This pure form of monotheism has remained the basis of existence for Orthodox Jews to this day. Nonreligious Jews developed from this a secularized messianism that does not await a God-sent Messiah appearance, but rather, taking the return to the Promised Land into its own hands, urges a return by all Jews to the land of their fathers as the only solution to the Jewish question. For the Jews all of Palestine is holy. Religious Jews have always asked for a little soil from the Holy Land to be put in their graves whenever possible - no matter which part of the country the soil might be from. Passover, which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt - from the land of bondage to the land of freedom, the Promised Land - is the most important and festive Jewish celebration. Orthodox Jews and atheists alike observe Passover as the religious and national festival of liberation. For Christians Israel is the land of holy places, and therefore they call it the Holy Land. Pilgrims come to visit about twenty holy places described in the Gospels as sites where Jesus lived or taught. However, the holy city of Catholic Christianity is not Jerusalem, but Rome. Thus, even before the State of Israel was created, no pope undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Islam, the third monotheistic religion after Judaism and Christianity, does not know Israel as the Holy Land. It recognizes a holy city only: Jerusalem, The Holy, El Kuds. 7

An ancient well near Bccrsl,c/,a, tl,c "iVcll of Se1•c11 Ezves". ll/11stratio11 from W. M. Thomson, "The Land and the Book", New York 1859

II The history of the Holy Land begins with Abraham, the ancestor of the Jews. He is popularly described as a nomadic shepherd, but closer examination of the records has led to the conjecture that Abraham's father was a dealer in sculptured idols in Ur, which would have made Abraham a member of one of the many educated and wealthy merchant families of Ur and Haran. Abraham lived in Ur with his family for a long time. Eventually he embarked on a quest for the Omnipotent Being, a supreme unity that rules the universe. In Genesis Moses writes that this Omnipotent One, God, spoke to Abraham: " ... Go to the land that I will show you" (Genesis 12: 1). "And they went forth to go into the land of Canaan" (Genesis 12: 5). Thus the land of Canaan, as it was called at the time, was chosen by God for Abraham and his descendants and therefore it is the Holy Land. Abraham finally settled in Hebron, which had its own administration and was the hub of a fruitful area and the residence of many wealthy citizens. When Sarah, Abraham's wife, died, he wanted to bury her in a place belonging to him - in a cave, according to the custom of the tim.e. He found a suitable cave in the field of a certain Ephron. Abraham asked Ephron in the presence of the townspeople for the part of the field including the cave. A business agreement typical of the Orient is then described: Ephron answered, "Nay, my lord, hear me: I give you the field and the cave that is therein ... in the presence of the sons of my people I give it to you. Bury your dead." Abraham bowed down before the people of the land and said in the presence of the others (the presence of witnesses is repeatedly mentioned in this 8

passage), "Hear me: I will give you money for the field." Ephron answered Abraham, "My lord, listen to me: the land is worth four hundred shekels of silver; what is that between you and me? Therefore, bury your dead." Abraham weighed out to Ephron 400 shekels of silver in the presence of the others to pay for his possession, the burial place (Genesis 13). He thus paid a very high price for the inalienable right to own the field and cave on the plot of land at Machpelah, his first possession. Now he could also grow fruit trees and sow grain on it. Since Abraham was the progenitor of the Jews and the Moslems this burial place, in which Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah rest, became a holy place for both religions. But access was forbidden to Jews and Christians alike until 1967, the year of the Six-Day War. Isaac and Jacob also lived in Hebron. Then, after a series of bad harvests, Jacob's sons migrated to Egypt. Their descendants remained there, a closely knit ethnic group. At first, especially under Jacob's son Joseph, they were respected; but later they were enslaved. "Now there arose up a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1: 8). The new king may have been Ramses II or his son Merneptah, the monarch of a new dynasty. A long period of suppression ensued. Moses, a man from the tribe of Levi, led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. The Exodus, which probably took place in the thirteenth century BCE, has remained the symbol of hope and liberation and a return to the land of Israel for every subsequent generation of Jews. The climax of the Exodus was God's revelation on Mount Sinai, when Moses was given the Torah, "Guidance", "Instruction", the Hebrew law included in the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses. III Over the years a number of small towns and rural districts were conquered by Moses' successor, Joshua. These conquests in various parts of Canaan caused significant changes in the economic structure of the Hebrew people: nomadic, warring shepherds became settled farmers and craftsmen. New kinds of leaders emerged the prophets, judges, and tribal heads - from among whom a leader over the entire people was chosen in times of crisis. In the eleventh century Samuel, the acknowledged religious and political head of all the tribes, was asked by the elders of Israel to appoint a king over all the people. At first he refused, but then he anointed as king the charismatic Saul from the Benjaminites, the smallest tribe. Saul made his residence at Gibeah, his birthplace, not far from Jerusalem. Under Saul's leadership the Philistines were routed at Michmash and driven back to the coast. One night Saul's son Jonathan and his armorbearer explored the area around the Philistine outpost at Michmash. They passed through "two pointed columns of rock" (I Samueh4: 4) and climbed up the slope behind the rocks, where they overcame the guard "on a half-acre field". It was a small outpost because no one was expecting an attack through such a narrow pass. It could be crossed only in single file, and attackers were vulnerable to arrows loosed from above. The camp was awakened by the cries of the guard. The Philistines 9

"Exodus" - the destruction of Pharao' s army in the flood of the Red Sea. A typical nineteenth century romanticizing engraving by]. Martin, about 1840

must have thought that Saul's army had surrounded them, for they "surged to and fro in confusion ... " Then Saul attacked with his troops, and the Philistines fled. During the First World War an English brigade fighting the Turks in Palestine was charged with the mission of taking a hilltop village called Michmash. According to some sources a brigade adjutant vaguely remembered th6 name of the place from the Bible. He found it in chapter 13 of the first book of Samuel and read the verses cited above. He then woke up the brigadier and read the verses to him. According to other sources it was General Allen by himself who derived his strategy from these verses. Spies were dispatched. They found the place described in the Bible, the pass between two pointed columns of rock; on the other side there was a weakly guarded outpost between the pass and a small area of flatland. The brigadier sent only a small detachment in single file instead of the entire brigade as originally planned. The few Turks were easily overcome, and soon the English soldiers were standing on the "half-acre field". The Turkish brigade, awakened by the noise, thought they were surrounded by the English army and were quickly routed. Thus in this instance, as in many others, geographical descriptions in the Bible have been proven correct in the twentieth century. Further attempts by the Philistines to penetrate the mountainous area occupied by the Hebrews failed after David, a young warrior from Bethlehem, killed Goliath, the army commander of the Philistines, in the Vale of Elah. As a result, the Philistines' monopoly on iron was broken, and the Israelites were then able to exploit the ironore resources of the area Philistine coastland. Before that time, even ploughshares IO

had had to be bought and sharpened in one of the Philistines' iron foundries in Gerar, near Gaza. The mentally disturbed King Saul, a broken man after his necromantic visit to the witch of En-Dor, was later defeated by the Philistines and committed suicide. Then David became king, unified all the tribes of the Jews, and conquered Jerusalem. But it was David's son Solomon who was allowed by God, speaking through the prophet Nathan, to build the Temple in Jerusalem - the spiritual, religious, and political center of the Holy Land and of the Jews for all time. Toward the end of Solomon's reign a large trade deficit and resulting high taxes gave rise to separatism. Under Solomon's son Rehoboam more and more tribes rebelled against centralization and the excessive taxation of the tribes outside Judah and Jerusalem. Not long after Solomon's death in 907 BCE the northern tribes seceded and united under the name of the Kingdom of Israel. In 722 BCE Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, was taken after a threeyear siege by the Assyrian king Sargon II. His successor, Sennacherib, settled the fertile land with colonists from Babylon, Elam, Syria, and Arabic countries. The Samarites, or Samaritans, were the result of this process. At the turn of the sixth century BCE a period of revolt, internal strife, bloody suppressions, and devastation began. It was the period in which the prophets fought against moral decay and apostasy from God. Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, took Jerusalem and in the year 597 deported to Babylon the king, his court, the high-ranking officers of the army, and the best craftsmen. Nebuchadnezzar's army conquered Jerusalem a second time in 586, destroying the Temple and the town. Between 586 and 58 I the greater part of the population was led into a second Babylonian exile. This exile marked the end of the independent kingdom ofJudah. For a century Jerusalem remained "a wilderness of thorns and thickets", as prophesied by Isaiah. The cultivated terraced hills fell into neglect for the first time since the conquest of the land by the twelve tribes.

IV A new social order based on equality before God in God's country had already developed during the time of the judges and Prophets. The Bible mentions the stratification into rich and poor, free and enslaved, but between these two strata there was a broad class of self-employed craftsmen and workers. The Prophets acted as a counterbalance to social injustice and the authoritarian centralized power ofJerusalem. They proclaimed God's will, admonished the people to keep God's commandments holy in his Holy Land, and decreed future punishment. The Prophets had a common function in that they proclaimed the holiness of the one and only God and thus, as his spokesmen on earth, promoted the pervasion of mutual respect ("love") and social justice throughout all life. They also preached against the abuse of riches (Isaiah 2: 5; Amos 5: I I) and the excesses of urban civilization, particularly against social injustice as the cause of imminent national ruin. Some of the Prophets were said to have performed miracles, as a sign of their God-given mission - for example, the raising from the dead of a child, bodily II

ascension into heaven, the multiplying of bread for one hundred men, the healing of a leper, and iron floating on water. In the year 43 5 BCE, fifty years after the beginning of the Babylonian captivity, King Cyrus of Persia, who had conquered Babylon, permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. For the Jews this was a sign that God's Divine Presence, the Shekhinah had returned to what was again the Holy Land. Thereafter, Judah experienced a time of peace under the Persians as an internally independent theocracy ruled by a governor appointed by the Persian king. In 332 BCE Judah and Israel were conquered for the first time by a non-Oriental, Alexander the Great. Alexander did not, however, enter Jerusalem, and the country retained its independent rights. Then began a period of Hellenistic despotism. The Maccabees (Hasmoneans) revolted during this period; the revolt ended on the twenty-fifth of December, 16 5 BCE, with the victory of the Maccabean armies and the cleansing of the Temple of every vestige of the Hellenistic cult that had been forcible imposed there. Today this victory is commemorated by the eight-day festival of Chanukah, the Feast of the Didication or festival of lights, which usually falls in December. In 63 BCE, a Roman army under Pompey conquered Jerusalem after a fivemonth siege. Jewish internal strife had contributed to Pompey's decision to conquer the city. This conquest meant, except for a few years interruption, the end of the ancient Jewish state. The last Hasmonean king was executed, and the Romans replaced him with their loyal king of Judea, Herod I, or Herod the Great. Herod's mother, Cypros, came from an aristocratic family of the neighboring non-Jewish Nabataeans. His father, Antipater, was the son of an Edomite, a member of a hated tribe that had been forced to convert to Judaism. Herod was the last Jewish king. He built the splendid Second Temple and made Jerusalem his strongly fortified city of residence. The life and ministry of Jesus began after Herod's death. The Romans then ruled the country through a series of Roman governors (procurators). Revolts against Roman tyranny became numerous and widespread, with bloody consequences, since the discrepancy between the "imageless" monotheism of the Jews and the Roman worship of sculptured idols, which culminated in the worship of the emperor and his statues, was irreconcilable. The open rebellion that broke out over the entire country in 66 CE was not only an anti-Roman revolt, but also directed against that part of the wealthy upper class of Judea, that had fraternized politically and socially with the Romans for years. In the spring of 70 CE Titus, who later became the Roman emperor, lay siege to the holy city. After much resistance he took Jerusalem and completely destroyed it, burning the Temple and slaughtering the population or selling them as slaves. For the time being at least, this meant the end of the Jewish state and its religious center after its revolt against the greatest military power in the world.

V Matthew, the evangelist, writes that Jesus lived strictly according to the laws of Moses and that he did not bring his message to the heathens but to the Jews: "I was 12

The destruction ofJerusalem by General Titus in 70 CE. Reliefs on the triumphal arch in Rome showing Jewish prisoners and some of the looted Temple treasures including the seven branched candelabrum

sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew r 5: 24), and he warned, "Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans" (Matthew ro: 5). But he also mentions a contradictory statement made by Jesus: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28: 19). Matthew also reports Jesus as saying, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matthew ro: 34). The Jews regard this as a relapse into the cruelty of earlier divine commands made during the conquest of the country and subsequently overcome by the Prophets. Since none of the evangelists knew Jesus personally, historians and Protestant theologians have attempted to free the four Gospels of personal interpretations and additions in order to find the historical Jesus. Today, many ecclesiastical dignitaries, such as the Bishop of Durham, question Jesus' virgin birth and his resurrection. The public ministry ofJesus in Galilee began when he was baptized by immersion in the Jordan by John the Baptist, who perhaps belonged to an Essene sect. Jesus went to Capernaum (Kefar Nahum, the village of Nahum, hellenized to Caper13

naum), where he found his first four disciples. He taught in the synagogue there, healed the sick, and preached, but he was also confronted with mounting opposition. However, his fame spread. He gathered together his twelve disciples (Matthew ro: 14) and gave the Sermon on the Mount. This was followed by healings, miracles, and the elucidation of his mission in sermons and parables. Jesus traveled on to Jerusalem, where he debated with other scholars in the Temple. As the son of a carpenter - which meant from a higher class - he probably had received a good education in his youth, at least in the holy scriptures. On his last journey to Jerusalem, he again went along the Jordan and through Jericho to avoid the land of the xenophobic Samaritans, where he saw no hope of finding understanding and hospitality. Shortly before his arrival in Jerusalem he stayed with Lazarus in Bethany. This visit was followed by the last, dramatic week of Jesus' earthly life, which included the Passion and his crucifixion on Golgotha, which for Christianity means the apotheosis of Jesus.

VI After Titus's destruction of Jerusalem and hundreds of villages during and after the killing of hundreds of thousands of inhabitants by the Roman legions, a large part of the uprooted population fled to Galilee. Others survived for shorter or longer periods in caves along the Dead Sea as far as the fortress of Masada, which had been built by Herod I. Here they resisted for another two years until the last 960 men, women, and children committed mass suicide in the year 72 CE, so as not to fall into the hands of the Romans. A rebellion under the leadership of General bar Kochba in 135 CE was quelled after bloody fighting. Emperor Hadrian had 500,000 Jews killed and then built a temple to Jupiter on the site of Solomon's Temple. He gave Jerusalem the name Aelia Capitolina and forbade Jews to set foot in the city. He renamed the country Syria Palestine, in memory of the Philistines, the enemies of Israel. However, rabbinitic schools of learning were created in Sepphoris and Tiberias, where laws were compiled under the guidance of the patriarchs. There the Jerusalem Talmud was completed in the sixth century. The Jews remained in the majority in galilee for a few more hundred years. Galilee became the center of the Jewish population, which numbered more than 500,000 inhabitants in more than a thousand villages and towns. The country was rich in grain, fruit, wine, cattle, and sheep. In Palestine even a desolate area of craggy hills becomes fruitful after intensive irrigation. The growing oriental-Christian population settled mainly along the coast. From the fourth to the seventh century Christianization was actively propagated under the protection of the Roman emperor Constantine I (280-337 CE); his mother, Helena, and their successors. Compulsory baptism was decreed for the Jews and other oppressive laws were imposed upon them, largely as a result of anti-Jewish assertions in the Gospels, which were to have a lasting effect, both in the Holy Land and in Europe, up to the present. Nevertheless, about a hundred synagogues, many 14

Top: Jesus talks to his disciples in the Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Lithography by].]. Tissot, about 1890. Jesus passing through a Galilean village. Lithography by].]. Tissot, about 1890

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quite magnificent, were built in Palestine during the Byzantine era. In Jerusalem, Christ's Cross and other relics were reportedly found by Helena or her advisers. Around 33 5 she commissioned the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, and another long-forgotten church in Hebron, where, she believed, she had found the oak under which Abraham and the angels sat. In 614 the corrupt rule of Christian Byzantium broke under the assault of the Persians. The latter, in turn, were swept away from Palestine by the armies of newly established Islam: the Moslems conquered the land in 638 under the caliph Omar. Thus began a century of peace for the Jews in the entire Mediterranean area. But at the same time Christian and Jewish agriculture entered a period of recession due to devastation by the Bedouins who came, in the wake of the Arabian armies. The Bedouin became the father of the desert. VII Jerusalem, and later all of the Holy Land, have been the longed-for goal of Jewish pilgrims since the time of King Solomon. Beginning with the Byzantine era and the pilgrimage of the empress-mother Helena, Palestine also became preeminent land of pilgrimage of the Middle Ages and of the Modern Age for Christians, too. As Sir Steven Runciman points out, "The Christian's lot in Palestine was seldom so good as around the middle of the eleventh century. The authorities were obliging; the German emperor watched over their interests. Trade with Europe blossomed, and the urban population became wealthy thanks to the pilgrimages and the sale of relics." An enormously profitable business was made out of trade in purported relics of all kinds, especially the bones of patriarchs, prophets, and saints, whose graves were doubtless suddenly "discovered" for this purpose by crafty dealers. Other relics included hands, fingers, pieces of the Cross, and infant bodies, supposedly from the massacre of the innocents at Bethlehem, which were very expensive and much sought after by ruling princes and rich merchants. Most were prepared by Saracens in Cairo from embalmed children. At the end of the eleventh century, however, Christians were again oppressed, this time by the Seljuk rulers of Palestine. When Christian pilgrims were waylaid and humiliated in Jerusalem, Pope Urban II called for a Crusade "against the infidels" at the time of a deep and demoralizing inner crisis and schismatic contests over the papacy in Christendom. VIII Pope Urban II developed the concept of a "holy war" in the Near East, an idea that his predecessor, Gregory VII, may have originated. In a famous speech at a council at Clermont, France, on November 26, 1095, Urban issued the call that led to the First Crusade. When those present exclaimed at the end of it, "Deus vult!" ("God wills it!"), Urban declared that that should be the Crusaders' rallying cry. He 16

Golgotha Chapel inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Illustration from C. Ninck, "Auf biblischen Pfaden", Dresden 1897

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promised full absolution of sins to all who died in the Crusade, and that those who survived would be given the land they conquered. Christian duty was thus linked with the free acquisition of land. OnJuly 1099,Jerusalem was stormed by some 1,200 Christian knights and 12,000 foot soldiers, who were joined by many pilgrims. From the afternoon to the next morning a massacre of Moslems and Jews took place "in the name of Jesus". The surviving Jews were burned alive in a synagogue. When the Crusader Raimund de Aguilers arrived at the Temple square, he made his way over corpses and through streams of blood up to his ankles. After the last inhabitants had been slaughtered, the princes of the crusading army made a festive procession to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for a thanksgiving service. From this day of murder on, the Moslems were determined to drive out the murderous "Christian dogs". Christian atrocities such as these fanned the anti-Christian fanaticism of Islam for centuries to come.

IX Church, state, and economic interests combined to initiate the Crusades. Younger sons of the higher aristocracy hoped to acquire land for themselves, and Italian cities wanted to trade with the East directly, which was less expensive than going through middlemen. Famine, which was prevalent from Flanders to Bohemia, led many poor people to hope for "gold from the Orient". Many of the Crusaders were religiously motivated; others, according to the notions of the time, were the dregs of society-vagabonds, bankrupt traders, fugitive monks, and escaped criminals. This combination of persons may explain why the Crusaders (under the banner "God wills it!") exterminated many European Jewish communities before continuing to 18

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Left: Map ofJerusalem at the time of the Crusades, thirteenth century. - Right: Medieval road map for pilgrims from England and France to Jerusalem , from London to Dover, Calais and Reims

the Holy Land, or indeed, before many of them were themselves killed when they marauded through Christian Hungary. Jews were also burned to death in their synagogues in Haifa, Acre, Caesarea, and Ramle. But they were left alone in most of the villages in Galilee, for their agricultural products were needed to feed the Crusaders and their men in Jerusalem and in the castles and luxurious villas of the aristocratic knights. The knights and their soldiers obtained food, interpreters, craftsmen, middlemen, and physicians from the Jewish population. In the thirteenth century a new Jewish school oflearning arose in Safed, near Acre, leading some Jews from Germany and other countries to settle in the Holy Land. In 118 5 Saladin, the sultan of Syria and Egypt, and afterwards the Mamelukes conquered the greater part of the country. Saladin issued a proclamation inviting Jews in Europe to settle in Jerusalem; thus messianic hopes again revived, following a period of persecutions in Germany. During the thirteenth century, French, Spanish, and Moroccan Jews migrated to the Holy Land. In 1210 and 1211, three hundred French and English rabbis succeeded in making the journey and settled in Safed. After 1144Jerusalem was finally lost by the Christian conquerors. In the thirteenth century the last Crusaders were decisively beaten - in 1289 by the Egyptian Mameluke general Khalil at Hattin, the mountain traditionally by the site of the Sermon on the Mount, and then in 1291 at the battle of Acre. The survivors fled via the 19

port of the fortress Athlit to Cyprus. This time it was the Jews and the Moslems who were convinced that they were doing God's will when the Crusades proved to be a complete failure in their religious aims. In 1291 Palestine again came under the absolute rule of the Moslems, an era that lasted until 1516. The country recovered only for short intervals from the destructions of the past. At various times, fruit, olives, oil, soap, and cotton were the major export products. The towns, however, including Jerusalem, began to decline and deteriorate because of corruption and mismanagement. About this time organized Christian pilgrimages to the Holy Land were resumed on a large scale. Despite many difficulties, especially the unceasing enmity and physical attacks of the Arabs, the holy places continued to make deep impressions upon the pilgrims. One report was of a pilgrimage in 1487 that turned into a series of disasters, as some pilgrims of high office were either killed or died as a result of dysentery and other diseases. The pilgrims were almost all wealthy aristocrats who were accompanied by one or two servants. Some pilgrims traveled in great luxury, notably the priest Santo Brasca, who came from Milan in 1481. In his report he quotes a saying of the pilgrims of that time: "Take two sacks along in your luggage, the first full of patience, the second full of money." Fabri, a priest from Ulm, visited the holy places in 1480 and 1483 with a few hundred other pilgrims. He found Jerusalem in ruins. The Franciscan monastery on Mount Zion was the only remaining bastion of Roman Catholicism in the Holy Land. One of Fabri's fellow travelers was Bernhard von Breydenbach, who had a dull book printed about the journey that is famous for its excellent woodcut illustrations. In his own profound and humorous travelogue of the (1480 and 1483) pilgrimages, Fabri describes how the pilgrims bought provisions in Venice for the sea voyage, as the food on board ship was inedible. Fabri also bought pillows, cow-hair mattresses, cushions, sheets, covers, and mats. From Ulm he brought woolen blankets. Other pilgrims brought feather beds. Then there were casks - one for water and two for wine, "Padua wine if possible", writes Fabri. "You'll have weak wine and stinking water for some time" (the crossing took six weeks!). On top of this came pots, frying pans, crockery, and glasses. The pilgrims also stocked up on flour, wood, salted ox tongue, sausages, cheese, eggs, bread, dry biscuits, fruit, ham, dried apples, dates, figs, raisins, pepper, saffron, cloves, and sugar. "Rent a cage for half a dozen hens and buy millet seeds for them", the writer goes on, "for on this journey you have to keep your purse open." In the Holy Land the pilgrims wore the cross of Compostella or the red cross of Jerusalem on their black or grey hats. They also carried a staff with an iron point, a bag, and a bottle. Fabri was accompanied by aristocrats and bishops from various countries, priests, monks, and laymen from Germany and France, as well as Englishmen, Scotsmen, Spaniards and Flemings. On the second journey, six rich matrons came along, much to the consternation of some of the aristocrats. Although they could hardly walk because they were so old, most of the pilgrims managed to finish the pilgrimage in good health. The several hundred oarsmen, Christian and non-Christian alike, were 20

Christian pilgrims pay toll money to city guards at the gate of an imaginary and european looking Jaffa. British Museum, London, fifteenth century 21

mostly slaves owned by the captain: "They lived, ate and slept on their rowing benches. In the ports they were chained together to prevent them from fleeing ... Their work is only fit for a beast of burden. They often have to bare their torsos so that they can be driven to work more quickly with lashes of a whip." The Mediterranean was teeming with pirates at this time. Storms, illness, and the indescribable stench between decks, where the pilgrims were allocated places on lengths of plank over the sand-strewn floor, made the journey a purgatory. The ship was infested with rats, mice, fleas, and other vermin. There were more worms than flour in the bread, and the drinking water stank. "I was often thirsty", writes Fabri, "and longed so much for cold water ... When I get back to Ulm, I'm going straight up to Blaubeuren, and there I'll sit down at the lake until I've quenched my thirst." His melancholy summary of the first trip was: "We spent no more than nine days in the Holy Land, and during that time we were hurried through the holy places, by day and by night, hardly given any time at all to rest." About his second arrival in the Holy Land, Fabri reports that they reached Jerusalem after many days of torment in foul-smelling caves on the coast at Jaffa, where they were brutally maltreated by the Arabs, and after a wearisome journey up to the city: "Jerusalem appeared before us like a flash of lightning ... " The next day Fabri again visited the holy places, "this time slowly and in a more dignified manner, guided by a Franciscan from the monastery on Mount Zion to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the principal destination of every pilgrim. Most of the pilgrims began to weep and cry out ... This weeping and sobbing", Fabri notes, "is common at the holy places. It is due to the following fact", he adds, as an observant psychologist of the fifteenth century: "If one pilgrim weeps, he infects his neighbor, and soon they are all whimpering together. Some shed vain tears and wail at nearly all the holy places - not because of the power that the places exercise on them, but because of the ease with which they can weep." Fabri was deeply moved by his experience in the Holy Land. He also traveled to the Sinai desert, undaunted by the fear of losing his life there. But he despised the mass hysteria he often encountered. Apart from the journey to Jerusalem, there were also visits to Bethlehem, the Jordan, the Dead Sea, and the Mount of Temptation, where Jesus had fasted. On one excursion Fabri traveled with one hundred and f~fty other pilgrims. On the way to Bethlehem a group of Arabs blocked their way. " ... Bandits rode into the procession of pilgrims, laughing maliciously and shouting. They pushed and pulled us for a distance." Then Fabri had another adventure. Riding on his donkey he saw an Arab on horseback riding straight toward him, "his lance aimed directly at my face, but because of the throng I couldn't get out of his way, or fall off my donkey, which I would have liked to do ... The Arab, however, just lifted the hood off my head with a strong stab of his sharp lance and rode off laughing ... I was very much relieved that he was so good at his art, for if he had held his spear a finger's breadth lower, he would have run it through my skull." On the other hand, Fabri admired "the Moslems, who throw themselves devotedly to the ground at sunrise, no matter where they are, and pray, whereas our pilgrims get up at sunrise and begin to laugh and talk even before they say their prayers". To his disgust, the 22

holy churches were "as filthy as the Lateran church in Rome, and mouldy with dirt. Our people behave in them as though they were in an inn." The German knight Konrad von Griinemberg from Constance had an even worse time in 1486 than did the pilgrims who traveled to the Holy Land between 1480 and 1484. In 1486, apparently, a new emir had been appointed over Jerusalem who did everything in his power to make the Christian pilgrims' stays unpleasant. An important reason for Konrad's pilgrimage, as for many other pilgrims, was the giving of what were called indulgences. "On the following pages", Konrad writes, "I have ... illustrated, described, and faithfully recorded the way and the journey to the land which our Lord Jesus Christ, through his presence there, and the Most Holy Mother, the eternal Virgin, have sanctified. And I have done the same for the sacred places in the Holy Land itself (as I have seen them), for the visit to which absolution is granted by the Holy Roman Church. So that where a whole cross is marked (in my report), you can find complete absolution from guilt and agony. A tau, or the letter T, however, symbolizes less, namely seven years and seven times forty days." Indulgences were first decreed by Pope Urban II for the participants in the First Crusade. An indulgence freed the sinner not only from temporal punishment, but also, in case of death, from the guilt of all his sins. Indulgences were therefore partly responsible for the killings by the Crusaders in Europe, against which Urban neither protested nor interfered. It was not until Martin Luther's fight against the sale of indulgences that a change occurred. In the Middle Ages, however, indulgences provided one of the strongest motives for pilgrimages to the Holy Land, especially by criminals and sinners of all kinds, who then became guiltless through absolution of their sins.

X In 1428 the pope Clemens forbade the Italian fleet to transport Jews to Palestine. This was a blow to Jewish immigration. From then on, they followed such a route as from Nuremberg to Posen, Lublin, and Lemberg and then on to Aleppo, Damascus, and the Holy Land. During the persecution of the Jews in Spain and Portugal and following their deportation in 1492, numerous Jews migrated to Palestine, where often they became destitute if they were not craftsmen or scholars. In 1517, after Palestine was conquered by the Turks, the rule of the Ottoman Empire began in the Holy Land. At first the Jews lived in safety, and Jews driven from Spain founded soap, textile, and dye manufacturies, especially in Safed, which was also a center of Jewish scholarship. Safed is where Rabbi Karo of Toledo (1488-1577) wrote his principal work, Schulchan Aruch ("The Prepared Table"), which still remains an easily understood compendium ofJewish ritual law, although it contributed to the rigidness of Orthodox Judaism. Also in Safed, the mystic Isaac Luria (1534-1572), probably from Germany, gave the Cabbala its last, complete form for meditation, asceticism, and the striving toward a "world of perfection". A new wave of refugees arrived in Palestine following the Cossacks' rebellion against the Poles in 1648 under the leadership of Khmel'nitskii. 23

continued on page 78

One of the three ancient wells of Beersheba. The photograph dates from a time when the centuries-old or, perhaps, millennia-old curbstone round the 120-foot-deep well was still present. A large bucket of goatskin attached to a long rope was lowered into the well. There girls would then hitch themselves to the rope and pull it over the sandy ground until the full bucket appeared at the stone rim. The grooves resulted from the rubbing of the ropes against the stone. Beersheba, which is situated on the edge of the Negev desert, played a prominent part in the story of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar, and Ishmael. It is the most southerly place in the Holy Land, as it was before King Solomon. Photo: Frank Good, 1883 (collection Colin Osman) 24

Mount Sinai, in Arabic Jebel Musa, in the Sinai desert. It is considered the mountain of divine revelation where Moses received the Ten Commandments. There are also two other mountains that are traditionally regarded as the "mountain of divine revelation". Photo: Francis Frith, I 8 57 (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

Samaria. Ruins of the palace of justice that King Herod the Great had built during his reign to replace the palace of King Omri. A few fragments of the columns of the assembly hall (a magnificent basilica) and four rows of the stone seats arranged in a semicircle are still standing. Photo: Underwood and Underwood, ca. 1895 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 28

Jerusalem, Valley of Jehosaphat on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. According to Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan tradition this is where the dead will rise again at the coming of the Messiah. These slopes thus have a long history as the favorite place of burial of Orthodox Jews. In the centuries before and after our era, the large monuments for the tombs were hewn from the rock. Photo: Francis Bedford, I 862 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 30

Jerusalem. The pool of Siloam inside the first city walls. This water reservoir is fed by the only spring in Jerusalem, the spring of Gihon, which lay outside the walls. Anxious about what might happen in time of war, King Hezekiah ordered an underground tunnel 1777 feet in length to be carved through the rock to convey water from the spring of Gihon to inside of the city. The account in the Bible of this remarkable feat of engineering was confirmed when in 1880 an inscription dating back to 700 BCE was found in the tunnel describing how it was carried out. Photo: Bonfils, ca. 1880 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 32

St. George's Monastery in the Wadi El Kelt. Clinging like a fortress to the cliff face of a gorge, and not far from the old road from Jerusalem to Jericho, is St. George's Monastery. Through the gorge flows the Cherit brook, which makes life in this desert monastery possible. The monastery was built in Byzantine times at the place where the Prophet Elijah survived a famine, being fed "bread and flesh" by ravens (I Kings 17: 2-7). Elijah was one of the most dynamic Prophets. In the ninth century BCE he contributed vastly to the humanistic development of Judaism. According to the Bible Elijah ascended to heaven bodily, as Jesus did after him. In celebration of his feats, the Evangelists recount miracles similar to those performed by Jesus. Elijah brought the son of a widow back to life; jars of oil and flour remained miraculously full, however much was taken out of them. For the Jews, Elijah is the symbolic herald of the coming Messiah. He will appear before Him to announce His commg. Photo: Elijah Meyers & Frederick Vester, ca. 1910 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 34

Easter in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The structure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as it stands today was erected in the twelfth century during the Crusades as a Norman cathedral; the front and the tower have been preserved almost unchanged. Inside, however, many Christian denominations (except the Protestants) have made basic changes over the centuries, carrying out continual alterations and adding chapels. It is the traditional site of the crucifixion as well as of the burial and resurrection of Jesus. A visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has always signified the culmination of every pilgrimage. Easter is celebrated here on different days with great pomp by the Greek Orthodox, the Armenians, and the Roman Catholics. Photo: Frank Good, ca. 1880 (collection Colin Osman)

Russian pilgrims at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Between 1880 and 1914 the Russian government organized and financed the yearly pilgrimage of ten to twenty thousand peasants and their wives to the Holy Land. For the Greek Orthodox believers the climax was and still is the Miracle of the Holy Fire on Easter Saturday. At the appointed time the archimandrite receives in the chapel of the Sepulchre a blazing torch from heaven. He shows it to the crowd, which then light splinters of wood or a candle from it. Photo: Lewis Larsson, ca. 1905 (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

Tombs on the Mount of Olives. The relations of a deceased Ashkenazi inhabitant of Jerusalem (member of a Russian or Polish community) assemble on the anniversary of his death at his tomb to pray. Photo: anon., 1898 (collection Zionist Archives Jerusalem) 40

A Bukharian family in Jerusalem celebrates the Feast of Tabernacles. On the eight days of the Feast of Tabernacles all meals are eaten in a hut specially erected for this purpose. Since this is not only a religious festival but also a harvest festival commemorating the forty years of wandering in the desert, led by Moses, the hut is decorated with lemons and dates, leaves and palms. "On the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the fruit of the land"(Leviticus 23:29ff.). Photo: Elijah Meyers, ca. 1904 (collection Dr. T Gidal) 42

top: A Yemenite artisan studying the holy scriptures. Photo: M. E. Lilien, 1906 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: Ashkenazic Heder (Orthodox primary school). Among Orthodox Jews, boys' education begins with the alphabet, to be immediately followed by the Five Books of Moses. Primary school for four- to five-years-old boys in Jerusalem. Photo: anon., ca. 1914 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 44

Women in the quarter of the Bukharian Jews, Jerusalem, 1906. Photo: M. E. Lilien (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

Nazareth. Mary's fountain, the only fountain in the town with spring water. It is fed by a spring in the surrounding hills. Nazareth, which is possibly Jesus' birthplace and certainly his home town, claims holy sites (some of them double) of the Armenian, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches. Photo: Eric Matson, ca. 1925 (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

top: Jerusalem. The City of Peace, where in fact religious strife was more often the rule. The walls were last rebuilt in the seventeenth century by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. View from Bethlehem road north to the Jaffa Gate. The road crosses the former Sultan's Pool, the site of big cattle markets. Today it is the biggest open-air music stage in the country. On the left are the houses of Yemin Moshee. Photo: Elijah Meyers & Frederick Vester, ca. 1899 (collection Dr. T Gidal) bottom: View from the Jaffa Gate to the hills of Bethlehem in the south. The houses of the Jewish quarter Yemin Moshee, built around 1870 by Sir Moses Montefiore, are now to be seen on the right. Photo: Bonfils, ca. 1880 (collection Dr. T Gidal) 50

top: Bethlehem, the traditional birthplace of Jesus. The English Crusader Tancret took Bethlehem in 1099, even before the fall of Jerusalem. Since then Christians have formed the majority of the inhabitants, renowned over the centuries for their prosperity, their distinguished dress, and their proud bearing. Photo: Bonfils, 1899 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: The basilica of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, built in the fourth century by Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great. The Byzantine basilica is flanked both left and right by two rows of eighteen-foot-high Corinthian columns of dark red stone. A flight of steps leads down from the choir to the grotto of the Nativity. Here in the chapel of the manger, which is richly hung with carpets and gold- and silver-lamps, a wax figure of the baby Jesus is displayed during religious festivals in a hollow of precious marble. A star is inscribed with the words HIC DE VIRGINE MARIA JESUS CHRISTOS NATUS EST. De virgine "of a virgin" was an erroneous translation of a word in the Evangelist from Hebrew via Greek into Latin. The phrase relates to the prophecy that Messiah would be born of "a young woman". The demand of the Greek Orthodox co-owners of the church that the inscription should be displayed in Greek was one of the causes of the Crimean War 1853-1856. Photo: Elijah Meyers & Frederick Vester, ca. 1905 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 52

Kfar Nachum (in Greek Capernaum), on the Sea of Galilee. Kfar Nachum was a center of Jewish settlement at the time of Jesus and up to the end of the Byzantine era. In the Gospel according to Mark it is related (1: 21-26) that Jesus preached in the synagogue of this place, the center of his activities in Galilee. It was here, according to the Gospels, that Jesus performed several of his miracles. The synagogue of Kfar Nachum, which Franciscan excavators succeeded in elegantly restoring from the ruins, dates back to the third century. The site of the synagogue at the time of Jesus is unknown. Photo: Bonfils, ca. 1875 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 54

top: Ruin of a khan (inn) of the 18th and 19th centuries on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. A similar caravanserai on this road provided the setting for the story of the Good Samaritan in the Gospels. Nonetheless, the Samaritans were at times avoided by Jesus because of their hostility to strangers. They can be traced back to a mingling of races consisting of settlers from Babylonia, Syria, and other countries who were settled here following the victory of King Sargon II (722-701 BCE) and the deportation of the original inhabitants to Babylon. There followed a religious and cultural rupture with Judah and its sanctuary in Jerusalem. Photo: Elijah Meyers & Frederick Vester, ca. 1907 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: The Jordan. The Jordan is Christianity's holy river. "Then came Jesus from Galilee to Jordan to John to be baptized by him" (Matthew 3: 5, 16, 17). According to the latest research based on the manuscripts found from 1947 onward in caves in the cliffs near the Dead Sea (the Dead Sea scrolls), John may have been an Essene or belonged to an ascetic sect related to the Essenes for whom baptism by immersion was customary as a ceremony of bodily and spiritual cleansing. The Jordan is a small river, seldom more than fifteen yards wide. Its four sources arise in the Hermon mountains. It flows through the Sea of Galilee (also known as the Sea of Kinnereth and the Lake of Gennesaret) and pursues an extremely meandering course, to end in the Dead Sea or Salt Sea. Photo: Elijah Meyers & Frederick Vester, ca. 1913 (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

The ruined portal of the synagogue of Kfar Bar' am in Galilee. The synagogue was an impressive building, erected in the third century by a wealthy Jewish community. Kfar (=village) Bar'am was also a place of pilgrimage to the tomb of the general Barak, who under the leadership of the judge and prophetess Deborah inflicted a decisive defeat on the Canaanites on the plain of Jezreel at the foot of Mount Tabor. Photo: anon., ca. 1870 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 58

En-Dor. The village lay a few miles to the south of Mount Tabor. As recently as 1936 it was described as consisting of some pitiful mud huts and a few caves (Land of the Bible, London 1936/37). Today a kibbutz next to En-Dor is situated among fertile fields. On the eve of the fateful battle against the Philistines on nearby Mount Gilboa the aging, doubt-ridden King Saul went to a well-known necromancer, the witch of En-Dor. He ordered her to conjure up the ghost of his former mentor, the Prophet Samuel, who had anointed him king (I Samuel 28: 7-20). The fearful Saul thus violated the divine command forbidding idolatrous conjuration of spirits. The ghost of Samuel appeared to him and said that God had left him because of his transgression. The Israelites lost the battle. Among the fallen were Saul's own sons. The wounded king committed suicide rather than be taken by the Philistines. Photo: Erik Matson, 1936 (collection Dr. T Gidal) 60

top: Athlit, ruins of the Crusaders' stronghold. In 1218 the order of the Tern plars started extending the small Phoenician harbor of Athlit, making it one of their best-fortified strongholds. It commanded the narrow passage between the sea and the Carmel mountains, and thus also the road from the south to Damascus. Following the loss of Jerusalem the Templars extended the port, which was protected on three sides by the sea, as a precaution in case of complete defeat. For eighty years Athlit provided a safe harbor for voyages of pilgrimage, being known as Castellum Peregrinorum. After Acre's fall in 1291, the surviving Crusaders fled with their families and followers to Athlit and embarked for Cyprus. This marked the final collapse of the Crusades. Photo: Lewis Larsson, ca. 1905 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: Ruins of Kedesh Naphtali. Since prehistoric times a town with a presumably pre-Israelite shrine had stood in the fertile, gentle hill-country of the Naphtali tribe in upper Galilee. In the time of the Judgess Deborah it was the town of the army captain Barak. Sisera, the Canaanite general whom he defeated, fled here after his defeat and was slain by Jael. Under Roman rule Kedesh Naphtali was turned into a fortress. The ruined walls are those of a Roman temple, presumably of the first century CE. Photo: Elijah Meyers & Frederick Vester, ca. 1910 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 62

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Tiberias. In the background the Sea of Galilee (Sea of Kinnereth) and the Syrian mountains. Tiberias was founded in the first century CE by a son of Herod the Great in honor of Emperor Tiberius. The town was fortified both by the Arab conquerors (in the seventh century) and by the Crusaders (in the twelfth). Yet already after the destruction ofJerusalem in 70 CE Tiberias became the most important Jewish town and was for centuries the center of rabbinic learning as well as the seat of the legislative assembly, the Sanhedrin. In its famous Talmud schools the Mishna, the core of the Talmud, originated. To preserve the pronunciation of Hebrew, vowels were here introduced into the alphabet. This represented the foundation of Classical Hebrew. Tiberias is mentioned by none of the Evangelists in connection with the life of Jesus. Saladin took Tiberias before the fateful defeat of the Crusading army on the nearby hill of Hattin in u87. In 1204, Moses Maimonides, Sultan Saladin's personal physician and the outstanding Jewish scholar of the Middle Ages, was buried in Tiberias. Today people still assemble at his tomb to pray. Photo: Bonfils, ca. 1890 (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

top: Circassians arriving in the Holy Land. Time and again groups of Circassians, a proud, independent people from the Caucasus, fled to Lebanon and Palestine. They came with their cattle and carts, whose solid, ironrimmed wooden wheels stood up to the long journey over mountain passes and stony deserts better than more modern wheels could have done. There are a number ofCircassian villages in the mountains in the northern part of the country. Photo: Lewis Larsson, ca. 1900 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: Bedouins on the way from the south to Galilee. The reason for such migrations, in contrast to the seasonal wandering from pasture to pasture, was usually to link up with members of the tribe in another area. Photo: Lewis Larsson, ca. 1900 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 66

A Druse sheikh. The Druse, who are mainly settled in mountain villages in Lebanon, the mountains of western Syria and northern Israel, are to be found in great numbers in large villages in the Carmel mountains. They are a heretical sect of Islam which sprang up in the 1 rth century. They look upon the Caliph Al Hakim (996-1020) as the tenth and last incarnation of God. They are respected as peaceful and extremely industrious peasants, yet they are fiercely independent and make fanatical warriors. Photo: Lewis Larsson, ca. 1910 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 68

Bedouin sheikh with horse and servants on a visit to Jerusalem. Bedouins have always been entitled to carry arms. Previously unknown in Palestine, they accompanied the Arab conquerors as dreaded warriors into the country in the 7th century. Their camps are mostly to be found in the southern Negev, but Bedouin tribes also exist in Galilee and in the Jordan basin between Beth-Shaan and Jericho. A few tribes also live in the Sinai desert. Photo: Lewis Larsson, ca. 1904 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 70

Jericho in the Jordan plain. Famous from the story in the Bible about the spies in the house of Rahab, their flight, and the fall of the walls. In the course of excavations remains of human habitation from the seventh millennium BC were discovered. In the background is the "Mount of Temptation" Qebel Kuruntal). This was the hiding place of Joshua's spies. In the Gospel according to Luke the mountain is the site of Christ's temptation; at this time the successors of Herod the Great used Jericho as a luxurious winter residence. "And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time" (Luke 4: 5). Photo: Frederick Vester, ca. 1920 (collection Dr. T Gidal) 72

top: Jaffa. Since Biblical times the country's main port. In the Hebrew Bible it is connected with the story of the Prophet Jonah, who boarded a ship here to avoid having to foretell Nineveh its coming destruction. A whale threw him up on land again. In the Middle Ages and in modern.times it was the main port for Christian pilgrims and Jewish immigrants. Photo: American Colony, Jerusalem, ca. 1920 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: Jaffa. View of the dangerous reefs outside the harbor entrance. Photo: American Colony, Jerusalem, ca. 1920 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 74

The Dead Sea (also called the Salt Sea). According to Jewish and Arab tradition, the sites of the destroyed cities of Sodom and Gomorrha were in this area. The earth is mixed with pitch and because of the high salt content often looks white. In Biblical times salt for domestic use and for export came from these salt coverings. In the book of Ezra, the priest, who was the spiritual leader after the Babylonian exile and foretold the future fertility of the land, this area on the Dead Sea was explicitly excluded so that enough essential salt would always be available in the country. The Dead Sea is approximately sixty kilometers long and sixteen wide. The Jordan flows on its 160-kilometer course through the Sea of Galilee and ends in the Dead Sea, yet its fresh water has no effect on the salt content. Photo: anon., ca. 1918 (collection Dr. T. Gidal)

Napoleon in Acre. He directs the unsuccesiful attack against the town in 1799. Acre, under Admiral Sidney Smith, held out. Lithograph by C. Mothe

After the decline of the Ottoman Empire's centralized power, in the seventeenth century the Holy Land fell prey to brigands and mutinous Janissary groups and suffered from economic distress. In the eightheenth century devastation of the country reached a climax as a result of corruption and heavy taxation, with which the province governors paid their private armies. Anarchy was then rife in Palestine, as it was throughout Turkey. XI Napoleon's invasion in 1798 took Palestine by surprise. The emperor was welcomed by the population, but the English came to the Turks' help at Acre. Moreover, Napoleon had omitted to bring big cannons with him powerful enough to pierce Acre's enormously thick walls. Thus Napoleon was forced to return to Egypt. The nineteenth century saw the rediscovery of the Holy Land as a place for religious, historical, geographical, archaeological, and literary research into Hebrew scripture, resulting in verification of much of the factual material in the Bible. It was Napoleon who redirected the attention of the Western and the Eastern and Russian world to the Holy Land. The new political interest inspired a new religious

interest, which mostly served, however, as a pretext for political struggles between the European states. One outcome was the Crimean War, fought between England, Turkey, Italy, and France on one side and Russia on the other. The war took a toll of several hundred thousand dead and maimed, and it changed nothing. The immediate disagreement that led to the war was between the Roman Catholic (Latin) church and the Greek Orthodox (Russian-influenced) church over an inscription on the Star of David in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The disagreement developed into a power struggle between the different Christian denominations for prerogatives in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Shortly after the Crimean War the construction of the Suez Canal was begun, which gave England a sea route to its Indian possessions and made Palestine strategically important. Every European country demanded and obtained from the sultan in Constantinople permission to open and maintain consulates in Palestine with extraterritorial rights. European consuls built villas, and religious communities built monasteries, churches, and hospices for pilgrims, as well as missionary institutions and hospitals. Because of the expanding foreign population with its huge financial resources, agriculture and trade became indispensable. A network of railways and roads developed, and the post and telegraph services expanded. In the seventies and eighties the appearance and social structure of the country underwent fundamental changes with the founding of agricultural settlements by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and by Templars from Wiirttemberg. With compasses and surveying equipment, biblically educated English engineers drew up the first topographical maps of the Holy Land. In 1858 and 1865 the British Ordnance Survey, led by British Army officers, started a geographical survey of the country. The expedition's gifted photographer was Sergeant James McDonald. In 1865 in Westminster Abbey Queen Victoria presided over the foundation of the Palestine Exploration Fund, which enjoyed unlimited financial resources. Expeditions of this society investigated conditions oflife and carried out archaeological excavations; towns, people, customs, geology, climate, flora, and fauna were described. Photography was extensively used and provided a much-needed correction to the romantic, glorified, and completely distorted picture of the landscape then prevalant. The researchers were spurred in their painstaking work by the knowledge that they were discovering the country of the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Gospels. Between 1800 and 1878 roughly five thousand books and major articles on travel in the Holy Land were published. Some visitors went home disappointed, however. English Protestants, in particular, such as the popular author G. Lang Neil, were repelled by the hubbub everywhere and the decoration with gold and precious and semiprecious stones of the places associated with Jesus' life and work. In his Rambles in Bible Lands, Neil refers to the Holy Fire on the Greek Orthodox Easter Saturday as a "false miracle, disgraceful". He calls the many holy places and relics in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre uninteresting and the church itself an impossible place for Jesus' grave, and he speaks of "idolatry" inside the church. No travel guides were able to match the accuracy and knowledgeability of Karl Baedeker's Palestine and Syria, a Handbook for Travelers, the first edition of which appeared in 1876 in Leipzig and London. 79

Bethlehem, according to Mark, Matthew and john birth place of Jesus and therefore important for all Christian pilgrims. Illustration from C. Ninck, "Auf biblischen Pfaden", Dresden 1897

The Geographical History of the Holy Land, by the great Scottish scholar and researcher George Adam Smith, appeared for the first time in 1894 and went through twenty editions in a few years. It remains unsurpassed today, succeeding brilliantly in coveying a vision of the land and its religious history through the scenery of the country and its reflection in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Christian Gospels. Smith's book influenced the educated classes, including many politicians, for generations, by deepening their interest in the Holy Land. This newly awakened interest later contributed to the readiness of a leading statesman such as Lord Balfour to make feasible the idea of creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The first person to succeed in drawing up an accurate topographical map of Jerusalem was the architect Frederic Catherwood. In 1836, as construction engineer of the tolerant ruler Mohammed Ali, he succeeded in carrying out the remarkable feat of entering the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque and drawing a survey map there. In 1838 the English painter David Roberts visited Palestine. He traveled with two friends, an armed bodyguard, and Bedouin guides and camel-drivers. Though realistically oriented, his pictures were somewhat idealized. In 1842 and 1846 his still famous lithographs of the Holy Land came out in expensive editions. Rabbi Joseph Schwarz, the first modern Jewish geographer, emigrated to Palestine in 1833. In 1845, based on his own research, he published inJerusalem the first book in Hebrew on his investigations. He had spent years researching the country, the

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Hebron, living place of Abraham, seen from the south. Book illustration in a typical nineteenth century style. From Dr. Sepp, ''Jerusalem und das Heilige Land", Schaj]hausen 1873

villages, the place names, and the customs and language of the Arab peasants in order to spread knowledge of the Holy Land.

XII After the restoration of Turkish rule in 1840, a comprehensive rediscovery of the country began. For the first time the non-Moslem citizens of the Ottoman Empire enjoyed equal rights with the Moslems. This was reinforced by a special extraterritorial status given to the consuls and the Christian churches. England nominated itself the protector of the Jews and the Druse. And it was the English-Jewish philanthropist Moses Montefiore (1784-1885) who then began to transform the face of Palestine with the assistance of his erudite secretary, Eliezer Halevi. Before 1840, beginning in 1827, Montefiore's activity extended no further than the bringing of charitable gifts. But starting with his second visit, in 1839, he decided to embark on a comprehensive program of economic and educational development; this stood in sharp contrast to charity performed within a stagnating social framework. His work altered the social position of the Jews for the better. Montefiore encouraged them to live by their own productive work rather than by depending on charity. This was in sharp contrast to the attitude of most rabbis, who were convinced that to live and die in the Holy Land was a privilege and that life there should be spent in prayer for the early coming of the Messiah. 81

Jerusalem, seen from the Mount of Olives. Lithography after a daguerreotype by Horace Vernet and Frederic Goupil-Fresquet, made in October 1839. The foreground was drawn in to enliven the scene

France opened a consulate in 1843 and proclaimed itself protector of all Roman Catholic, the Latins, as they were known in Palestine, and of the holy places. In 1845 a Greek Orthodox archimandrite of the eastern church arrived from Russia, which then made its claims known as well and engaged in intense missionary work in Palestine. The family of the tsar arranged for the construction and upkeep of churches, schools, and hospices and organized huge pilgrimages involving ten to twenty thousand Russian peasants a year. Pope Pius IX restored the Latin patriarchate in Jerusalem, which had been dissolved shortly after Saladin's defeat of the Crusaders in 1244. The French protested, although Roman Catholic themselves, vigorously, since the patriarchate made their position as exclusive representatives of the Roman Catholic West in Jerusalem questionable. The new Latin patriarch immediately initiated a political campaign against Orthodox Greeks and Russians and against the Protestants. In 1878, in the face of protest from other Catholic countries, the Treaty of Berlin recognized France as "protector" of the Roman Church in Palestine. The Protestants were the least successful in their missionary work, but provided the largest group of religiously motivated immigrants. The Templars from Wiirttemberg, for example, founded successful agricultural colonies in Haifa, Jerusalem, Sarona, and Wilhelma. A few American sects, such as the American Colony, were able temporarily to carry out charitable work for the benefit of the suffering population, and at the end of the century Italian and German organizations erected churches, monasteries, hospices, and hospitals; their hospital for lepers was built during this period. 82

The western city walls ofJerusalem. Photograph by Auguste Salzmann, 1854. On the left can be seen the opening in the wall at the Jaffa Gate (Coll. Agfa-Gevaert, Leverkusen)

XIII The Orthodox Jews had always organized their own educational system, from primary school to Talmud high school, in a rigid fashion. However, the Western methods of the Christian institutions gave some support to a small group of Jews who were fighting for additional secular education - especially for the inclusion of natural sciences, mathematics, and languages. The welfare organization Alliance Israelite Universelle, which was set up in 1860, financed both Orthodox and secular schools and kindergartens, as well as the agricultural school Mikweh Israel, which up to the present day has produced most of the Jewish agronomists and agricultural experts in the country. From 1900 onwards the Hilfsverein DeutscherJuden founded and financed nursery schools, secular primary schools, and teacher-training schools in Jerusalem. The Christian missions also taught secular subjects, but the aim of winning converts was always present.

XIV The British clergyman Dean Arthur P. Stanley, who traveled through the country in 18 52 and 1862, came closest to explaining why the face of nineteenth-century Palestine was so radically different from that of the biblical land with its flourishing agriculture. He pointed out that it would indeed be a "land of milk and honey" if

it were irrigated and terraced and, above all, continuously cultivated and looked after. Today the fertility of the country closely approximates that described in the Bible. In fact, areas referred to in the Bible as barren wilderness, such as the Arava in the Jordan depression, south of the Dead Sea, have now been made fertile. As Palestine grew in strategic importance, the next power after France, Britain, and Russia to announce its interest was Prussia, the leading German state. In 1898 Kaiser Wilhelm II and his wife paid a visit to the Holy Land. The most memorable events of that visit were the consecration of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem and the laying of the foundation of the Catholic Church of the Dormition on Mount Zion. The trip represented a remarkable political coup for the Kaiser: he became the patron of both the German Lutherans and the Catholics of German origin. Illustrated magazines in Germany, America, England, and France sent photographers to Palestine to cover his visit. The Kaiser's retinue included an official photographer, Ottomar Anschutz, who in l 888 had patented a hand-held camera (9x 12 cm) with a focal-plane shutter allowing exposures of as short as a thousandth of a second. The camera, manufactured by Goerz, ushered in the age of live, unposed photography of actual events. A number of photographers were already working in Jerusalem at that time, among them two members of the American Colony (Frederick Vester and Elijah Meyers) and the Christian Arab Chalil (Karl) Raad. The first event in Palestine to be documented with unposed photos was the Kaiser's journey. Some impressive photo-documentation was carried out on this journey by a woman, probably the first female photo reporter, the Kaiser's wife Auguste Viktoria. An album of her pictures was produced and sold in a small edition, the proceeds going to charity.

xv Photography in the Holy Land started in 1839, the year that Daguerre's invention became known. The publisher Lerebours equipped a team of artists with cameras and sent them to many countries. This was the reason why the successful painter Horace Vernet went to Egypt and Palestine. He made photographs together with one of his nephews and Frederic Goupil-Fresquet. "We are daguerreotyping like lions", he wrote home. Perhaps, as in the case of the Scottish photographers Hill and Adamson, Vernet, the first of the pair, was the artist while Goupil-Fresquet was mainly the technician. Three of the daguerreotypes - taken at Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Acre - were published in the important Excursions Daguerriennes in 1842. In all three the foreground has been enlivened with figures sketched in by hand, since at that time the exposure time was so long that it was impossible to include people. In the years 1849 and 18 50 two artistically gifted photographers arrived, the· English medical doctor C. Wheelhouse and Maxime du Camp. The latter had been commissioned by the Ministry of Education in Paris to document early monuments in Egypt, Nubia, Palestine, and Syria. Many of his photographs are magnificently composed, but they do not imitate paintings. Their subjects are seen photographically. Also, they avoid trying to be picturesque or exotic - unlike the work of many later photographers. Both men looked at and photographed the landscape of the 84

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Top: Old olive trees in Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives. Photo by Vester & Meyers, about 1899. - Bottom: The Hill of the Skull, in 1883 claimed as identically with the true burial place ofJesus. Anon. photo, about 1890

85

Holy Land as Europeans thoroughly familiar with the Bible. This way of looking has remained the most salient characteristic of most of the convincing photographs of the Holy Land up to the present day. "Honest" photos, without "extras" posing in the foreground, were also produced by Auguste Salzmann, from Alsace, and Francis Frith and Francis Bedford, from England. Salzmann had made his name in Paris as a painter of religious subjects. At the beginning of 18 54 he spent four months photographing ruins from antiquity as an aid in dating Jewish, Christian, and Islamic architecture in Jerusalem. Captivated by the sun-drenched walls and columns, he returned home with photographs of remarkable beauty. The realistic approach of these photographs mark them as predecessors of the great architectural photography of the twentieth century. The last of the major photographers of the nineteenth century whose work in Palestine was informed by the spirit of the Bible was the Englishman Francis Frith. Like his family he was well versed in the Bible and a committed Christian. Between 1856 and 1859 he made three journeys to Egypt and the Holy Land and brought back hundreds of exposed glass plates, 2ox25 cm and 4ox50 cm in size. He had over 2,000 prints made of each plate and sold a total of nearly two million prints, either individually or mounted in luxury albums and complemented by his knowledgeable explanatory texts. Given the state of photographic technology at that time, all these photographers had to work under extraordinarily difficult conditions. With the exception of Vernet they initially used waxed paper as the recording medium. In 1851 the Englishman Frederic Scott Archer discovered the so-called wet collodion process, which used glass plates to record the negative image. However, the collodion emulsion could be applied to the glass only shortly before the picture was taken. Application of the chemicals had to be followed in quick succession by exposure and by development of the plate. This meant that a darkroom was needed "on location" - either a wagon with a darkened chamber on it or at least a darkened tent. Also required were various chemicals and a heavy tripod, since the shortest exposure outdoors still lasted one second or more. Francis Frith's activities marked the beginning of photographic representation of the Holy Land for commercial profit. However, he did let the landscape and the places of the Bible speak for themselves and refrained from popularizing them with "biblical" figures posed in the foreground and from including falsification and market-directed anachronistic elements, a practice that some photographers of the Bonfils family and some of the American Colony Stores photographers later developed extensively to illustrate religious books and magazines and for the tourist trade. During the reign of Queen Victoria large sections of British society had become prosperous. The economic situation of the country, and particularly ofits bourgeoisie and aristocracy, was stable. Thanks to this prosperity, thousands of people from this country with its deeply rooted biblical tradition were now traveling every year to the Holy Land. For these people and for the large number of other deeply religious people in England and Scotland, that astute businessman Francis Frith published seven huge, lavishly produced tomes in which were pasted photographs of Sinai, the Holy Land, and of Egypt and Nubia. 86

Left: Members of the Palestine Exploration Fund in 1868/69. In uniform the photographer James McDonald. Stereograph. Right: Russian pilgrims in a baptism ceremony in the Jordan. Anon. Russian photo, 1906

In I 862 the queen commissioned Francis Frith to illustrate the Authorized Version of the Bible (the King James translation of 16II) with photographs: this was the famous "Queen's Bible", through which Frith shaped millions of people's image of the Holy Land in the nineteenth century. The Palestine Ordnance Survey of the British Army and the Palestine Exploration Fund later sent long-term expeditions to Palestine for strategic reasons. Both organizations had excellent photographers in their service, James McDonald being the most eminent. In I 870 the American Palestine Exploration Society was founded, paralleling the British Palestine Exploration Fund. And in I 877 the Deutscher Verein zur Erforschung Palas tin as was founded. These were fallowed by the Russian Palestine Society, which was mainly concerned with the organization of pilgrimages, most of them being accompanied by a photographer. A Roman Catholic Palestine Society was founded and in 1902 the Deutsches Archaologisches Institut; later still came a number of Italian and French research institutes in the Holy Land itself. Frith has remained the most famous of the many photographers who took pictures of the Holy Land in the nineteenth century. After the invention of the Kodak box camera in I 88 8, thousands of amateurs followed in the footsteps of the professional photographers. During the last forty years of the nineteenth century, probably prompted by Frith's extraordinary success, photo studios were opened in Constantinople, Cairo, Beirut, and Jerusalem. The most successful firms dealing in photographic prints of the Holy Land were La Maison Bonfils in Beirut, comprising Felix and Marie Bonfils, their son Adrien, and probably Tancred Dumas. In landscape photography they mostly rephotographed scenes that had been photographed by Frith and others. In their studio they often photographed fantastically dressed individuals and whole groups of "natives" in various poses. However, there also

November, 1898. The German Kaiser Wilhelm II rides out with his entourage from Jerusalem towards Bethlehem. Photo by Vester & Meyers (Coll. Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.)

exist a number of impressively realistic views of Palestine from this firm, possibly all taken by the same person. Some of the photographers of the American Colony Stores in Jerusalem, whose first successful venture had been an excellent documentary report on the visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II, later went further in adapting their business to the tastes of their customers. On the one hand, they produced many fine photographs of ruins from the time of the Crusades as well as posed and unposed village scenes and landscapes, sometimes copying Frith and the Bonfils photographers, the latter of whom had often copied Salzmann and Frith. On the other hand, they also "brought the Bible to life" by posing in the landscape Arabs and Bedouins dressed as biblical characters. They also posed pastoral scenes - "living pictures" - illustrating passages in the Bible. These anachronistic and romanticized distortions were prompted by the desire to meet the everrising demand for illustrations for English and American books and magazine articles and for religious slide lectures. Notable exceptions to this approach were the early photographs of Elias Meyer and Frederick Vester, and especially those by Lewis Larsson of the same company, whose photographs were taken without business considerations or spiritual compromise. His photographs of people and scenery, probably taken with an handheld mirror-reflex a camera, show a remarkable relationship to the best documentary work in America and Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century and later, which turned away from the imitation of painting. 88

In the twentieth century a number of immigrant photographers have been working in Palestine in a tradition that could be called "photography in the Land of Israel". Among them have been S. Narinsky from Russia, Lewis Larsson from Sweden, Schmuel Schweig from Poland, Frank Hurley from Australia, and Karl Grober, Alfred Bernheim, Zoltan Kluger, and I hope the author of this book, all from Germany. Making use of the new technical possibilities and participating in the spiritual movements abroad in the world after World War I, these photographers have been naturally integrating mankind in all its aspects into their photographs. In addition, many portraits have been taken of people in their natural settings people of the most varied origins, belonging to many different ethnic and religious groups and communities. These portraits reflect the widely heterogeneous nature of the population of the Holy Land and provide a documentation of great depth from a sociological and historical - and above all from a human - point of view. The work of these photographers has been much more inspired by their unifying experience of this country than by their individual backgrounds in their countries of origin. These photographers are the most recent links in the chain constituting a photographic tradition in the Holy Land and the Land of Israel.

XVI In 1864 the German-Jewish socialist Moses Hess published a book entitled Rom und Jerusalem. In it he asserted that the only possible solution to the Jewish question was a return to Palestine, there to bring the untilled land back into cultivation and to build up a socialist state based on the biblical ideals of justice. In the year 1897 the Zionist World Union, which had been founded by the Austrian writer Theodor Herzl, held its first congress in Basel, Switzerland. Here the so-called Basel program was formulated and adopted unanimously. It begins: "The Zionist movement seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine guaranteed by public law." Its first resolution advocates "the promotion, by appropriate means, of the settlement in Palestine ofJewish farmers, artisans, and manufacturers". At that time there were already eighteen Jewish settlements in Palestine. For many Jews, particularly those in the east who had waited steadfastly for the Coming of the Messiah while suffering inhuman oppression under the tsars, Zionism had an effect as if the hoped-for arrival of the Messiah had suddenly become a reality that was within their own grasp. As a secularized form of Messianism, Zionism demanded active cooperation in working for a definite redemption, now located in the here and now as well as in the immediate future. The growing number of immigrants began right then and there the development of Palestine into a modern homeland for the Jews. From 1908 onward the country began to be settled in an organized way by young pioneers inspired by the ideal of a socialist Zionism. Inherent in this ideal was the personal commitment to manual labor, preferably in a communal agricultural settlement called a kibbutz. In the course of this movement large areas of the country were reclaimed, settled, and cultivated by members of such kibbutzim and of village

commun1t1es. The Jewish people experienced again the fact that sand and rock becomes remarkably fertile if properly irrigated and cultivated. The Jewish settlements south and north of the town of Tel Aviv (founded in 1909) continued to develop; the reclamation of malaria-infested areas such as the plain ofJezreel and upper Galilee made progress. The immigration of young working-class pioneers and members of the petite bourgeoisie from Eastern Europe led to the expansion of the Jewish town of Tel Aviv and the Jewish quarters of Haifa and Jerusalem, even in times of famine and economic distress. This slow but steady progress was interrupted by the First World War. A large number of Jews from Russia were deported to Egypt as enemy aliens. The last Turkish governor of Palestine, Djemal Pasha, toyed with the idea of getting rid of the Jews by means of a massacre similar to the massacre of Armenian Christians in Turkey. He was prevented from putting his plan into execution by the Zionist representative in Constantinople, Georg Lichtheim, and by the German and American ambassadors, who intervened with the Sultan. However, many Jews died of hunger and disease. The decisive political event was the end to the struggles between the European powers over their assumed interests in the holy places; in 1917 the British and Australian troops under General Allenby conquered Palestine, defeating the Turks and their German auxiliaries. A newly created British-American Jewish Legion took part in the campaign on the British side. Between 1917 and 1930 over eighty thousand Jewish immigrants arrived in Palestine, and between 1931 and 1939 over two hundred thousand. The number of inhabitants has risen from two hundred thousand in 1920 to four million today. In 1920 the British Military Government was converted by a resolution of the League of Nations into a civilian mandatory government. The first high commissioner was Sir Herbert Samuel, an English-Jewish parliamentarian and industrialist (1920-1925). Around this time began the anti-Jewish riots that led, under the leadership of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, to the formation of an anti-Jewish front in Palestine. It resulted in many deaths. During the Second World War the grand mufti lived as Hitler's guest with Moslems in Yugoslavia. Under British rule English judicial and administrative procedures were introduced. The open struggles between the Christian religions came to an end during this period. Yet they continued to smoulder beneath the surface. For example, the damaged front to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre could not be repaired because the churches could not agree on which of them was entitled to carry out the repairs. In the Second World War Jewish volunteers from Palestine served in the British Eighth Army in Egypt. The Jewish Brigade, established in 1944, took part in the fighting in Italy and organized important parts of the "illegal" immigration of Jewish survivors into Palestine. The brutal slave camps and mass murders perpetrated by the German and Austrian Nazi government on the European Jews practically meant the end of Jewish history in Europe. The British Labour government under the leadership of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin put a halt to Jewish immigration, apart from a quota of 1 ,ooo per month. The hypocritical justification for this was the pretense that the country could not provide food for more people. Immigrants whose ships had been captured by 90

Top: Jewish inhabitants ofJaffa meet in the dunes to the north and found the city of Tel Aviv, 1908. - Bottom: Tel Aviv, Herzl Street, 1913. Photos Abraham Soskin

91

Soldiers of the British-American Jewish Legion, initiated by Vladimir Jabotinsky, visit the Western Wall after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1917. Anon. Photo

the British Navy on the open sea were mostly deported via Haifa to Cyprus, Mauritius, and even Hamburg. The resistance to British policy of the Jewish defense organization Haganah ("defense") grew, as did the number of attacks carried out by Menachem Begin's organization, Ezel, which used terrorist methods against the British Army. In November 1947 a majority of the United Nations, under the leadership of the Soviet Union and the United States, voted for the division of Palestine between Jews and Arabs. This was the end of British rule. The Jews accepted the resolution, but the Arabs rejected it. Arab armies from seven countries, among them Egypt, Syria, Iraq, and Jordan, began to attack the Jews. The English had previously disarmed the Jews as far as they could, but 1948 saw the victory of the Jewish citizens' militia, which had been organized as an army only after the Arab attack had already begun. On May 14, 1948, the independent State of Israel was proclaimed by David Ben-Gurion, its first Prime Minister, and Professor Chaim Weizmann was elected President. In 1949 and 1950, an air lift brought fifty thousand Jews from Yemen to Israel. In 1950 and 1951, one hundred and twenty thousand came the same way from Iraq. After the murder ofJews in Algeria, Tripoli, Libya, and Morocco mass immigration from these countries got under way, followed in 1956 by most of the Jews in Egypt. These new immigrants lived for years in tents and then for a further long period in wooden barracks. Widespread famine was prevented by a planning policy for 92

continued on page 96

Top: A unit ofJewish volunteers of the Polish troops march through the Zion Gate to the Hurva Synagogue. - Bottom: British troops on King's Birthday Parade,Jerusalem 1935. Photos Dr. Tim Gidal

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Top: The kibbutz Neve Ilan, founded 1946. The inscription reads: "And you, mountains of Israel, shall give your branches and carry fruit (to my people Israel)." - Bottom: Ceremonial cutting of the first crain. Photos Dr. Tim Gidal

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Top: Water seller in the Old City ofJerusalem, where there was no piping. - Bottom: One of the rare occasions, when it snowed in Jerusalem. Jaffa Road 1942. Photos Dr. Tim Gidal

95

Left: David Ben-Gurion, a mufti ofJerusalem, and Mrs. Ben-Gurion, March 1946. Photo Dr. Tim Gidal. - Right: Chaim Weizmann as the first President of the State of Israel. Photo Government Press Office, Jerusalem

nutrition and taxation, based on Zionist community ideology and worked out by the Minister of Nutrition at that time, Dov Joseph. He was popularly known by the nickname of Joseph the Underprovider, in contrast to the biblical Joseph the Provider. In the construction of the State of Israel, full and unrestricted freedom for all religions is guaranteed for the first time in the history of the Holy Land. Despite this, ultra-Orthodox Jewish minorities abuse their political influence by exploiting the civil law to the disadvantage of the predominantly non-Orthodox Jews. XVII The problem ofJewish-Arab tensions has not yet been solved, since the only possible solution requires a measure of cooperation that the Arab leadership refuses to accept, while nonreligious Jewish politicians - for reasons of expediency - often join forces with ultra-Orthodox ones to support policy of extremism. The deeper underlying problems in the Holy Land, however, have remained much the same for thousands of years: struggles of the great powers for strategic positions in the Near East, on the one hand, and on the other hand, the perennial internal problem of water. This remains the problem crucial to the peoples very existence, today just as in biblical times. Whoever controls the springs ofJudea and Samaria and the waters of the Jordan has political power over the country as a whole. Only cooperation can solve this problem. Human labor and the most effective possible use of the available water were able successfully to transform vast areas of a largely desert land into a remarkably fertile country of four million inhabitants, to make the promised land of the Jews once again into a land flowing with milk and honey. DEEP IS THE WELL OF THE PAST: NO ONE CAN PLUMB ITS DEPTHS. BUT DEEPER STILL IS THE WELL OF THE FUTURE. 96

The Rock Masada near the Dead Sea. The fortress on its top withstood a two-year siege by Roman legions till become a symbol for the New Israel: "Masada shall not fall again." Photo Dr. Tim Gidal, 1947

97

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Jerusalem in Judea. The city lies about 750 meters above sea level. Like many other places situated at high altitudes Jerusalem became a sanctuary early on, in this case the site of the holiest shrine in • the Western world. Here were no material reasons of the kind often recorded in history for the founding of a town. It lies far from any harbor, does not lie on a caravan route, and has virtually no strategic importance; the roads leading there were difficult, and it possesses only a single spring, without which its existence would have been impossible. Perhaps it was this very absence of material reasons that impelled the Hebrews of the Bible to choose Jerusalem as their spiritual capital. "Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God in the mountain of his Holiness. / Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion ... " This is the praise for Jerusalem in Psalms 48: 1, 2. Photo: Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, Miinchen, ca. 1916.

A well in the Negev desert, southeast of Beersheba. The Bedouins move with their herds from pasture to pasture with the changing seasons. Once a day they assemble their sheep and goats around a cistern or well where the lifegiving water is drawn up from the depth. Photo: Dr. T Gidal, after 1944 100

Jerusalem. The Jewish Old Town with the domes of the two principal synagogues Nissan Bek (on the right) and Churva. For many centuries, certainly since the Middle Ages, the Old Town has been divided into four overlapping quarters; the Jewish one extends southeast up to the west wall of the Temple of Herod. Adjacent to it to the north is the Moslem quarter, which stretches up to the Damascus Gate and to the temple square with the Dome of the Rock and the El Aqsa mosque. To the northwest this quarter turns into the Christian area (Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic) with the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The southwest is mainly occupied by the Armenian quarter, where the Armenian monastery and its priceless treasures are to be found. Photo: G. Hellmann, ca. 1930 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 102

top: Tel Aviv, 1942. Allenby Road, named after the conqueror of Palestine in the First World War. Orthodox Jews, a soldier from the Jewish company of the British Eighth Army, strollers, children - immigrants from all over the world and many different cultures who here have a feeling of having returned home. "You only have as much sky over your head as you have soil of your own under your feet." This saying of the foremost modern Hebrew poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik, has always applied equally to the towns and villages of the land of Israel. Tel Aviv was founded in 1909 in the dunes north of Jaffa. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1942 bottom: Grandfather and grandson, Tel Aviv, 1936. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal 104

In the Arab quarter of the Old Town of Jerusalem. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 193 8 106

Jerusalem. Sephardic Jews in the forecourt of the western wall of the former Temple of Solomon the so-called "Wailing Wall". From the twelfth century onward Jewish immigrants came from Morocco and other countries to spend their life here in prayer. They lived mainly from donations from their country of origin and from the alms of Jewish pilgrims and tourists. Photo: Dr. T Gidal, 1930 108

Jerusalem. Prayers are said at the western wall of the Second Temple (the Temple of Herod). It was built on the foundations of the Temple of Solomon. The name "Wailing Wall" is used only by Christians; Jews refer to it as "The West Wall" (of the Temple). Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1945 IIO

Sycamore tree. The Mediterranean sycamore is related to the wild fig tree. The tree grows to a height of twelve meters. It is often planted along country roads for its shade. The small fruit are edible only if a hole is drilled into them about three days before they ripen. Just as for the olive plantations, King David appointed a special overseer for his sycamore groves. The Prophet Amos was a shepherd who turned sycamore gardener at harvest time and would carry out the drilling of the fruit. Photo: Dr. T Gidal, 1937 112

Franciscan monks on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. When in 1291 the last Crusaders fled with their followers, women, and servants from Athlit to Cyprus, a few Franciscan monks remained in Jerusalem. From this fact they deduce their right to the title of "Guardians of the Holy Places". Their abbot is usually an Italian. Photo: Zvi Goldmann, 1941 114

Jerusalem. The feet-washing ceremony on the part of the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre belonging to the Greek Orthodox church. The ceremony takes place on the Greek Orthodox Maundy Thursday. The Patriarch, crown on head, takes the part of Jesus, and other high-ranking priests play the parts of the twelve disciples, whose feet Jesus washed. Sitting as guest next to the head of the Greek Orthodox church is the King of Greece who at that time was in exile. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1942 II6

Two Greek Orthodox priests at the feet-washing ceremony. The privilege of becoming priest in the Greek Orthodox church of the Holy Land is confined exclusively to Greeks and Cypriots. Arab Christians in this church may perform only lowly duties. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1942

II8

Yemenite agricultural worker in the fields of the kibbutz of Mishmar Haemek. Yemenite Jews first arrived in the Holy Land at the end of the 19th century after monthslong walks. Like the Moroccan Jews before them and the Ethiopian Jews later, they were disregarded and oppressed by Orthodox Jews from Europe. They are a respectable and industrious part of the population, now fully integrated into the working classes and into the political and cultural leadership. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, after 1945 120

Jerusalem. A young girl gathers wheat on the outskirts of the town where the new city center stands today (corner ofBenJehuda and King George's Street). She is wearing the garments usual among new Jewish immigrants at that time: a long white dress, a scarf as protection against the burning sun, and sandals. Photo: Yaakov Ben Dov, 1912 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) 122

In Galilee. A man from Safed walks home through the countryside of the Upper Galilee coming from the festival at the tomb of the Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who is traditionally regarded as the founder of the Cabbala in the second century. Photo: Dr. T Gidal, 193 5 124

Acacia tree in the Arava desert. The Arava is the desert region south of Beersheba and the Dead Sea. The acacia is the only tree able to grow even on a salty ground. Since the low-humidity earth here has a salt content of up to twenty percent, and since no plant can flourish when the salt content exceeds five percent, the acacia remained for thousands of years an inexplicable riddle, the Bedouins regarding it as holy. Each one of the thousands of tiny roots has, it was discovered, a filter that lets through no more than five percent of the salt content of the water. Filters like this were then produced artificially, which made it possible to put the salty groundwater to good use. There is reason for assuming that the acacia was already an object of veneration during the forty-year sojourn of the children of Israel in the Arava desert following their departure from Egypt, since all their wood carvings and the Ark of the Covenant in the Tabernacle were of acacia wood, covered with gold leaf. In the Ark of the Covenant the two stone tablets of Moses with the Ten Commandments were kept. Photo: Dr. T Gidal, 1943 126

The Sea of Galilee. In Biblical times as well as today it was also called the Sea of Kinnereth or Lake Tiberias Ooshua 13: 27), and in the Greek of the Gospels, Gennesaret. Its water, which is turquoise in spring, turns in summer a deep azure at sunrise and sunset, against the purple of the Syrian-Jordanian mountains in the background. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1930 128

Samaritans celebrating the Feast of the Passover on Mount Gerizim near N ablus. Accompanied by his two sons the high priest climbs the mountain on which all Samaritans live in tents for the seven days of the Passover in remembrance of the exodus from Egypt. Following to the letter the commands given in the Bible, on the fourteenth day of the month of Nissan at the precise moment when the sun sets, year-old lambs are slaughtered, roasted, and then eaten at midnight, "with your loins girded ... and your staff in your hand" (Exodus 12). This is the first festival mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Joshua, who led the Israelites into the Promised Land, gave names to the two hilltops between which lay the town of Shechem, a town that is mentioned as early as Abraham. He called Gerizim the "Mount of the Blessing" and Ebal, the hill opposite, the "Mount of the Curse", because of its pagan shrine. Today the Samaritans number about five hundred, half of them living in Nablus. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1943 130

Neve Ilan (Home of the Tree). A new kibbutz, an agricultural commune, is being founded by French immigrants in the mountains of Judea, west of Jerusalem. On this barren, uncultivated soil they decided to plant a beautiful forest and transform the bare, rocky landscape into a "home of the tree" - in which they succeeded. lh accordance with the Turkish law in force at that time, which the British mandate took over, land purchased had to be ploughed immediately in order to pass legally into the possession of the buyer. The land of all kibbutzim and villages belongs inalienably to the Jewish people in Israel and can only be leased, not resold. The purchase of the land by the Jewish National Fund and its subsequent cultivation are regarded as "redemption of the land", which gives it a secular Messianic significance. Photo: Dr. T Gidal, 1945 132

Rabbi Joseph Zvi ben Israel Duschinsky (1868-1948), leading rabbi in an ultra-Orthodox community in Jerusalem. Widely recognized as an authority on the Talmud, Duschinsky also had political influence in the ultra-Orthodox community, which was opposed to the Zionist work of reconstruction and to the founding of a state of Israel. Some of these groups rejected the creation of the state as being inconsistent with an attitude of humble waiting for the Messiah. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1946 1 34

Hebron. The walls around the tombs in the Machpelah cave in the grove of Mamre. Abraham bought the grove from Ephron, its owner, for 400 silver shekels to bury his dead wife Sarah. He himself, as well as Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah, were also buried in the Machpelah cave. It is regarded with equal reverence by Jews and Mohammedans. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 193 5 136

top: Bedouin tent in the Negev desert. The Bedouins came to Palestine in the 7th century, accompanying the Islamic armies that conquered the country. Photo: G. Hellmann, ca. 1941 (collection Dr. T. Gidal) bottom: The tent of the Bedouin sheikh is divided by a curtain into two parts. In the right-hand part friends and guests are received. In the left part live the Bedouin's wives. They are not allowed to be seen, but can listen to the conversations and negotiations. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, after 1944

Snow in Jerusalem. Every two or three years it snows for two or three days in Jerusalem. To the left above the valley of Kidron rises the village of Siloam; to the right the hill on which Ophel, the Biblical city of David, was situated. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1941

Passage to the land of Israel. Steerage passengers on a ship carrying immigrants from Trieste to Jaffa in 1930. Most of the immigrants were members of the socialist-zionist movement in Poland and joined the agricultural communes, the kibbutzim. Among them were a few Orthodox families. Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, 1930

Number 177633. After the Second World War over a hundred thousand Jewish survivors of the German concentration and extermination camps poured into Israel. However, the British government under Prime Minister Attlee and Foreign Minister Bevin (which exercised the mandate over Palestine), restricted the number of Jewish immigrants to one thousand per month. This was the start of the so-called illegal immigration. Most of the immigration ships, sometimes laden with as many as six thousand passengers instead of their normal complement of eight hundred, were captured on the open sea by the Royal Navy, often with bloodshed, and forced to put into Haifa. The passengers were interned in camps, one of them being in the Crusaders' ruins in Athlit, or were deported on English ships to Cyprus, France, or even Germany. This deportation was one of the reasons why the United Nations voted for the division of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish State of Israel. Number 177633 was an internee in the Athlit camp in 1946. On his left forearm this survivor bears the "mark of the Christian occident", as it was called, or "the brandmark of European civilization". Photo: Dr. T Gidal, 1946 144

Passover Festival in the kibbutz of Mishmar Haemek. Mishmar Haemek ("Guardian of the Plain ofJezreel") is a left-socialist kibbutz. The festival of the Passover is celebrated here at the beginning of the wheat harvest as a spring harvest festival and as a national festival in memory of the deliverance from Egyptian slavery and the return to the home of the ancestors. The walls are decorated with pictures of the Egyptian slavery. The climax to the evening is the reading of the Haggadah, the story of the exodus from Egypt, interwoven with the history of the kibbutz. It culminates in the words, "Yesterday we were slaves, today we are free." Photo: Dr. T. Gidal, after 1945

CHRONOLOGY

Date

Archaeological Period

1900- 15 5o

BCE

Middle Bronze II (Hyksos Period)

Patriarchs: Abraham/ Sarah, Isaac/ Rebecca, Jacob/ Leah/Rachel, Joseph. Immigration from Mesopotamia (Ur and Haran) and descent into Egypt. Beginnings of alphabetic writing in Canaan and Sinai.

1550- 1250

Late Bronze

The Exodus. Moses. The Ten Commandments. Birth of the Hebrew Nation. Joshua. Beginning of Israelite invasion of Canaan.

Iron Age I

Conquest of Canaan. Period of the Judges. Deborah, Gideon, Samuel, and others. Organization of the Israelite State. The United Monarchy: Saul, David, Solomon. Economic expansion and prosperity: mining, foreign trade. The struggle with the Philistines. Political expansion of Israel at its peak. The early Prophets.

930-586

Iron Age II

Divided Monarchy: Kingdoms of Judah (south) and Israel (north). Development of fortifications and warfare. Phoenician and Aramaean influence. Aramaic (similar to Hebrew) becomes official language throughout Assyrian Empire. Height of Judean and Israelite culture. The later Prophets. Egypt and Assyria-Babylonia compete for rule of the country. Conquest of Samaria by Assyrian King Salmanassar V (722): end of the Kingdom of Israel. Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroys Jerusalem and the First Temple (586).

586-322

Persian

Babylonian Captivity. The Persian Empire: Cyrus takes Babylon (536). The return from exile. Rebuilding of the Temple (520-515) and the walls of Jerusalem led by Ezra and Nehemia (445-433). Rule of the High Priests and the "Great Assembly" at Jerusalem.

332-63

Hellenistic

According to traditional legends, Alexander the Great visits Jerusalem and the Temple (332). Rule of Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty in Egypt (312-198) and of the Seleucids (198- 167). Hellenization of Palestine: Greek despotism and outlawing of Judaism. Religious reaction in the Maccabean War of Liberation (167-141). Hasmonean (Maccabean) Dynasty (141-63).

63 BCE-324 CE

638-rn99

rn99- 1291

Roman

Roman general Pompey conquers the country and plunders Jerusalem and the Temple (63). Palestine becomes Roman province (Syria). Revolt under Hasmonean king Mattathias Antigonos: helped by the Parthians, he manages to expel the Romans for a short period (40-37). Herodian Dynasty and Roman Governors including Pontius Pilate. Appearance ofJesus of Nazareth. Extension of the fortifications and the Second Temple of Jerusalem under Herod the Great. Beginnings of Christianity. Zealot revolts against the Romans. First War of Liberation, the "Jewish War", ends with destruction ofJerusalem, of the Second Temple through Titus (70), and the taking of Masada (73). New religious center ofJudaism at Yavne. Second War of Liberation (132- 135) under Simon bar Kochba. Final defeat by Hadrian. Complete destruction of Jerusalem and building of a new city (Aelia Capitolina). Patriarchate of the house of Hillel, the acknowledged leaders of Jewry in the Roman Period. Completion of the Mishna (Basis of the Talmud) about 200 in Tiberias. General decline of culture and agriculture in Palestine in third century.

Byzantine

Constantine the Great becomes supreme ruler of the Roman Empire (324-325). Christianity promoted to state religion throughout the Byzantine Empire. AntiJewish laws. Emperor Julian (known as "the Apostate") plans to restore the Temple and the Jewish State (361-363). About 120 synagogues built throughout the country. Art of mosaic and fresco. Flowering of religious scholarship. Completion of the Jerusalem Talmud about 425.

Arab

Arabs under Caliph Omar I (634-644) conquer Palestine. Building of the islamic Dome of the Rock on the site of Solomon's Temple. Special taxation for Jews. Jewish cultural center moves to Babylonia.

Crusaders

Conquest ofJerusalem (rn99) by Godfrey de Bouillon. Massacres and persecutions of Jews and Moslems. The city is declared Kingdom of the Crusaders. Sultan Saladin frees Jerusalem from the Crusaders (1187). Last Crusaders flee the country in 1291. Persecution of Jews in many European countries leads to immigration towards the Promised Land.

Mamelukes

Christian pilgimages. Agricultural devastation and general corruption. Deforestation begun under Romans and the Crusaders, continues because of need for building material.

149

Sultans open gates of Holy Land to Jewish refugees from Spain, Portugal, and Germany. Regeneration of Galilean cities. 1516- 1917

Turks

Turks conquer Palestine under Selim I (1516). Reconstruction of Jerusalem's walls by Selim's son Suleiman the Magnificent (1540). Religious centers in Safed and Tiberias. Isaac Luria ( 153 5- 1579) establishes cabbalistic school in Safed. Russian Jews settle in Galilee under Hasidic leadership (1777). Napoleon I. invades Palestine, is repulsed at Acre (1799). Egyptian ruler Mohammed Ali conquers Palestine (1832), starts reforms and modernization in the devastated corrupt country. He is defeated by the Turks with the help of the English (1841). Internal strife between Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Armenian churches in Jerusalem and Bethlehem is main pretence for European powers' expansionist policies leading to the Crimean War between England, France, Turkey on one side, Russia on the other side (1853- 1856). European powers, politically inspired, compete for missionary and legal rights to the Holy Land. Beginning of Zionist inspired settlements in Palestine since 1882: The First Zionist Congress in Basel (1897) declares as the aim of the Zionist Organization the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Founding of the first all-Jewish city since Roman times: Tel Aviv (1909). Founding of many Jewish villages and communal settlements (kibbutzim) after 1900. Balfour Declaration: "The British Government considers with favour the creation of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine" (November 2, 1917). The British Army under General Allenby conquers Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine: the end of Turkish rule.

1920- 1947

British Mandate

Great Britain receives from the League of Nations the Mandate to govern Palestine (1920). First High Commissioner is Sir Herbert Samuel (1920- 1925). Violent attacks by hostile Arabs. Waves of Jewish immigration from East Europe and since 1933 from Nazi Germany. Jewish units and the Jewish Brigade from Palestine volunteer as part of British Eighth Army during Second World War. Survivors of death camps try to immigrate, are declared "illegal" by British Government under Clemens Attlee and Ernest Bevin. Fight of underground organizations against British Mandatary Government. The United Nations votes for division of Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish part (November 29, 1947). The Jews accept, the Arabs decline. The armies of seven Arab countries attack.

State of Israel

End of the Mandatary Government and evacuation of British troops. Proclamation of the state of Israel by David-Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv (May 14, 1948). He becomes first Prime Minister. Recognition of the new State by the USA and the USSR, followed by others. Armies of seven Arab countries invade Palestine: beginning of the Israeli War oflndependence, which continues till January 7, 1949. Professor Chaim Weizmann becomes first President of the State of Israel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY William Foxwell Albright: From the Stone Age to Christianity. Monotheism and the Historical Process. Baltimore 1948. John Marco Allegro: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth. Newton Abbot 1979. Schalom Ben-Charin: Bruder Jesus. Der N azarener in jiidischer Sicht. Munich r 977. Simon Dubnow: History of the Jews. South Brunswick 1967. Simon Dubnow: Weltgeschichte desjiidischen Volkes. Von seinen Uranfangen bis zur Gegenwart, vol. r-IO. Berlin 1925-1929. Andre Dupont-Sommer: Die essenischen Schriften vom Toten Meer. Tiibingen 1960. Heinrich Graetz: Volkstiimliche Geschichte der Juden, vol. r-3. Berlin, Vienna 1923. James Parkes: A History of Palestine from 135 A.D. to Modern Times. London 1949. Eli Rothschild: Die Juden und das Heilige Land. Zur Geschichte des Heimkehrwillens eines Volkes. Hannover 1971. George Adam Smith: The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. Especially in Relation to the History of Israel and of the Early Church. London 1918. Harry Torczyner: Die Heilige Schrift. Neu ins Deutsche iibertragen. Frankfurt/M. 1934-1937. G. Vermees: The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery in the Judean Desert. New York 1973. 151

INDEX

Abraham 7-9 Acre 19, 84 Agriculture 9, 14, 19 pp., 79, 83 pp., 89 pp. Alexander the Great 12 Athlit 20

Indulgences 23 Immigration 19, 23, 77, 79, 90, 92 Isaac 9 Islam 7, I 6, 20, 22 Israel, State of 92, 96

Philistines 9 pp. Photography in Palestine/ Israel 79, 84-89 Pilgrimages 20, 22 pp. Pius IX (pope) 82 Prophets 9, 11 pp., 16

Babylonian Exile (first) 11 Balfour, Arthur James So Ben-Gurion, David 92 Bethlehem Io, 16, 22, 79 Bible and Gospels 7, 86pp.

Jacob 9 Jericho 14 Jerusalem 7, 9, 11 pp., 14, 16, 18-20, 22, 83 pp., 86, 88 Isaiah (prophet) 11 Jesus 7, 12pp., 23, 79f. Jezreel 90 John the Baptist 13 Jordan 13, 22, 84, 96 Joseph 9, 96 Joshua 9 Judea 96

Raimund de Aguilers 18 Ramle 19 Ramses II 9 Rebecca 9 Rehoboam 11 Relics, trade in 16 Romans 12 Rome 7, 23

Cabbala 23 Caesara 19 Canaan, Land of 8 pp. Capernaum I 3 Church of the Nativity 16, 79 Church of Redeemer 84 Constantine I 14 Crimean War 79 Crusades 16, 18-20, 23, 88 Cyros (king) 12

Leah 9

Fabri (priest) 20, 22 Festival of Chanukah 12

Maccabees (Hasmoneans) 12 Mameluke rule 19 Masada 14 Matthew 12 pp. Merneptah 9 Messiah 7, 8 1 Michmash 9pp. Missionary 83 Mohammed Ali So Monotheism 7 Montefiore, Moses 8 1 Moses 8pp.

Galilee 14, 19, 90 Gibeah 9 Gregory VII (pope) 16, 18 Griinemberg, Konrad von 23

Napoleon 78 pp. Nathan 11 Nazareth 84 Nebuchadnezzar 11

Hadrian 14 Haifa 19, 82 Hebron, Cave of Mahpelah 8pp. Helena 14, 16 Herod (the Great) I 12, 16 Herzl, Theodor 89 Holy Sepulchre 16, 18

Omar (caliph) 16 Osmanic rule 20

Daguerreotypes 84 David (king) IO pp. Dormition (church) 84 Ephron 8 Exodus from Egypt 7, 9 Exploration Societies 87

Safed 23 Saladin 19, 82 Samaria I I, 96 Samuel 9 Sarah 8pp. Sargon II 11 Sarona 82 Saul (king) 9-11 Sennacherib 11 Sepphoris 14 Scholarship, Centres of 14, 23 School of Talmud 83 Solomon (king) 11, 14, 16 Talmud 14, 83 Tel Aviv 90, 96 Temple ofJerusalem 11 pp., 14 Tiberias 14 Titus 12 Topographical Surveys 79 Urban II (pope) 16, 23 Victoria (Queen) 86

Palestine Exploration Fund 79, 87 Passover 7 Persecution 23, 90 Persians 16

Weizmann, Chaim 92 Wilhelm II 84, 88 Wilhelma 83 World War One IO, 90 World War Two 90 Zionism 89