Picture a Day: Now More than 650,000 Visitors to the Site

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Now More than 650,000 Visitors to the Site

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Readers Comments. Thank you!

"This site has become a wonderful blessing and I enjoy it so very much....Thank you and God bless you." -- J.A.B

"Excellent comments with interesting topics and very useful resources. Thanks for sharing." -- O.O.

"Truly amazing. These kinds of places should get a visit more often, aside from the common beaches that we used to go to during vacations. We get to learn about the place's history, the stories behind the buildings and monuments." -- C.A.

"Thank you for sharing these amazing photos. They bring back the pages of Daniel Silva's Fallen Angel so vividly. You not only write but also teach and I am fortunate that I am one of your readers. You are the reason my husband I traveled to Israel and we want to go back. Keep writing!" -- D.

Israel Daily Picture --

More than 800,000 visitors to the site

More than 300 photo essays, including "mystery photos"

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Now cited by the Library of Congress to update, correct, and provide context to its pictures

"I love this blog. I have to restrain myself almost every day from writing to you to say, 'Wow,' that's cool. But today, I cannot restrain myself." -- AA

אתר ייחודי זה מוקדש לצילומים ישנים של ארץ ישראל והוא מלא וגדוש להתפקע בצילומים מפתיעים ולא מוכרים, שנלקחו בעיקר מהאוספים העצומים של ספריית הקונגרס האמריקני בוושינגטון. אוהבי הנוסטלגיה וההיסטוריה של ארץ ישראל ימצאו שם את כל מה שאיוו לו
"דא, "עונג שבת

These are amazing pictures. The history of Jerusalem had always been a spectacle for me. I'm really hoping to get here after my tours in Jordan. -- MB

I have been receiving your "Picture a Day" and all I can say about it is it "Makes my Day" -- TW

"This stuff is amazing. You are providing a resource for the Internet generation that used to be available only to readers of tomes like From Time Immemorial or perhaps even only writers of books like that" -- GA, Israel

Thanks. This is a real treasure trove! -- BB, Toronto, Canada

Published by Lenny Ben-David

About the title photograph of Jerusalem

The photograph, from the Library of Congress collection, was taken between 1860 and 1880 by Frank M. Good, according to the Library. But we can narrow down the dates a little further. The photo shows the Churva Synagogue dome on the left horizon between the two mosques' domes. The Churva was finished in 1864.

Most of the Library of Congress pictures are from photographers from the "American Colony" in Jerusalem, a group of Christian utopians -- often eccentric -- who lived in Jerusalem between 1881 and the 1940s. They returned to the U.S. and bequeathed their massive collection to the Library of Congress in 1978. The photos were digitalized in recent years.

A history of the American Colony Photography Department can be found in Jerusalem's American Colony and Its Photographic Legacy by Tom Powers and in an Institute for Palestine Studies article, Western Consumption and "Insider" Commercial Photography. Unfortunately, the latter article pays little attention to the photographs of Jews and Jewish sites.

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

According to the Library of Congress, "there are no known restrictions on publication" of their photographs.