New exhibition sheds light on Jerusalem’s rich history
Jerusalem holds great religious and cultural significance for Judaism, Islam and Christianity. A new exhibition highlights 2,000 years of the city’s architectural heritage. ‘There is no other city where so many cultures come together.’
Elena Paskaleva, Assistant Professor in Critical Heritage Studies of Asia and Europe, regularly travelled to Jerusalem for her work. ‘I found it fascinating that an ancient city could play such an important role for different cultures over centuries. Everyone fights over Jerusalem.’ Her years of experience of the city gave her the idea for this exhibition.
Historical postcards, prints, photo albums, city maps and other objects show what the city looked like in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Given its charged history and the current war, attention to Jerusalem is a sensitive matter, Paskaleva acknowledges. ‘The exhibition features Christian, Jewish and Islamic monuments. I don’t want to be selective; I just want to show the full picture.’
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Coloured photograph of the Wailing Wall (1914) -
Photograph of the interior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (1917) -
Photograph of the Jaffa Gate (1925) -
Postcard with a view over Jerusalem (1919)
Migration history
With the exhibition, Paskaleva wants to show that Jerusalem has a long history of migration. ‘By the end of the nineteenth century, many migrants were already arriving from Iran and Central Asia. This isn’t widely known among the general public.’ For example, a large group of Bukharan Jews, originally from the city of Bukhara (in present-day Uzbekistan), moved to Jerusalem when Russia colonised Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century. ‘These Jews were driven out. Fearing persecution, they fled to the ”Holy Land, long before there was any question of a State of Israel.’
Religious traditions
The exhibition features several important monuments from the three religious traditions, depicted in historical photographs and prints. These include the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is believed to have been buried. Attention is also given to the Wailing Wall, or Western Wall, one of the most important places of prayer for Jews. Among the Islamic monuments featured are the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The exhibition also includes the two oldest photographs of Jerusalem, showing the Dome of the Rock in the foreground, taken by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1844) and Claudius Galen Wheelhouse (1849).
Layer upon layer
‘Jerusalem has such a remarkable history that the Old City is on the UNESCO World Heritage List’, says Paskaleva. ‘The city has been occupied by various empires: the Romans, the Byzantine Empire, the Umayyads and the Ottoman Empire. They all left their mark, layer upon layer. As a heritage researcher, I find that incredibly interesting to see.’
To do justice to the different communities that lived in the city, the exhibition features not only monuments but also the people themselves. These groups were depicted by photographers and artists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ‘In this way, I want to show how Jerusalem was seen at the time, and how that memory has been preserved. I want to show both the monuments and the people, because they are an inseparable part of the city's history.’
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The ‘People of Jerusalem’ display case shows past residents of the city. Top left is a photograph of a Bedouin woman. Semi-nomadic Palestinian Bedouin communities in the area around Jerusalem lived in the surrounding hills and desert fringes. Photo: Frederick Vester and Elias, before 1900. -
An elderly Jewish man from Eastern Europe. Migration from Eastern Europe began as early as the eighteenth century and peaked in 1903 following the pogroms in Russia. Photo: Frederick Vester and Elias, circa 1905. -
The silver menorah and Hanukkah lamp were made by Afghan craftsmen in the twentieth century. -
Sephardic women praying at the Wailing Wall. Photo: Frederick Vester and Elias, circa 1900.
The exhibition The Architectural Tapestry of Jerusalem runs until 22 October in the hall of the Oude UB, Rapenburg 70 in Leiden. The Oude UB is open to visitors from Monday to Friday, 8.30–17.00.