Press Release: 1 Millionth Visitor Arrives Next Week on Israel Daily Picture

For Immediate Release

The Western Wall, 1859

Jerusalem -- Israel Daily Picture (IDP), an online album of antique photographs of the Holy Land, will reach a historic milestone this week when its millionth visitor arrives on the site, Israeli Daily Picture

Austrian troops, Turkey's allies, marching into Jerusalem, World War I

IDP was first launched in 2011 and has now published more than 350 historic essays containing more than 1,000 antique pictures taken between the 1850s and 1946.  We present samples of the photos on this page.

The pictures were digitalized and posted to websites in recent years by the U.S. Library of Congress, New York Public Library, Emory University, Harvard, the University of Dundee Medical Archives, and others.  In recent months, private individuals have also shared with IDP their private albums and family collections.

Jews fleeing Arab pogrom in Jerusalem's Old City, 1929

"There's an important, almost secret, message in many of these antique photographs," reveals IDP's founder and publisher, Lenny Ben-David.  "The pictures show Jewish life in the Holy Land throughout the last 160 years -- since the invention of photography -- well before the founding of Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel. Jews were always in Eretz Yisrael even after the fall of the
Jewish Temple in 70 CE, and here is visual proof."

Jewish children in Ben-Shemen (circa 1920)

"Most of the photos were taken by the American Colony photographers who began their work in the late 19th century. Among their goals was to seek out and  photograph Jews in Jerusalem and in the countryside," Ben-David explained. "The return of Jews to Palestine was seen by the Christian photographers in messianic terms. A recent exhibition and book by today's American Colony Hotel proprietors, however, virtually ignored the Jewish presence in historic Palestine."

British commander Allenby meeting Chief Rabbi in the
Old City after the Turkish surrender of Jerusalem 1917

The IDP exhibits photos of key events in the Middle East -- World
War I and its clashes in Gaza, Be'er Sheva, Rishon LeZion, Jerusalem, and the Dead Sea; the establishment of Jewish communities in the Galilee; the arrival of the German Emperor in 1898; the role of the Jewish Legion in 1917; the development of industries and infrastructures by the Jewish population; Jewish holidays; Jewish children of the Old and New Yishuv; Jewish life in Jerusalem's Old City, and many more.  The photographers also chronicled the lives and shrines of Arab and Christians.

[For further information see The Zionist Message Hidden within Antique Pictures of the Holy Land, by Lenny Ben-David, Published in the Jewish Political Studies Review]

IDP pictures are all published with permission of the collection owners.

To subscribe, enter your email (free) on the website Israeli Daily Picture. Voluntary contributions are welcome via PayPal.

For journalists only: Publisher Lenny Ben-David is available for interviews at (US) 202.241.5241  (Israel) 972.542.168155  (Not Sabbath)

Twitter: @lennybendavid     
Facebook Lenny ben David

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