Jerusalem in the 1970s Through Fascinating Photos

Jerusalem is a city in Western Asia, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital; Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there, and the State of Palestine ultimately foresees it as its seat of power. Neither claim, however, is widely recognized internationally.

These fascinating photos were taken by Andrey Zeigarnik that show street scenes of Jerusalem in the 1970s.

Jerusalem, 1972

Jerusalem, Temple Mount from North-East, 1972

Kidron Valley, Jerusalem, 1972

Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, 1972

Aerial view of Temple Mount, Jerusalem, 1973

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18 Black and White Photographs Capture Everyday Life in Jerusalem, 1981

These pictures of Jerusalem in 1981 were taken by Simon Nowicki, a street photographer who has practiced the art of photography for over 35 years. His works are influenced by the likes of Henry Cartier-Bresson, Paul Strand, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander and Rennie Ellis. 

Take a look back at life in the city in 1981 through these 18 beautiful black and white pictures. More fascinating photographs of daily lives could be found at Nowicki's amazing Flickr site.

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22 Wonderful Color Photographs of Jerusalem in the Early 1950s

You've never seen Jerusalem like this. In fact, no one has. These rare photos of the divided city in 1952 have been recovered by Found Slides.

Here's a glimpse of the old Jerusalem:

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Rare and Beautiful Color Photographs of Jerusalem in the 1950s

One of the oldest cities in the world, Jerusalem was named as "Urusalima" on ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets, probably meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BCE). During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE (Iron Age II), and in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah. It is considered a holy city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries.

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The Earliest Pictures of Jerusalem in 1844

These earliest pictures of Jerusalem were taken ​​in 1844 by French photographer and draughtsman Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey (1804–1892), who was active in the Middle East. In 1844, Jerusalem was a small town with a population of 15 thousand people on the outskirts of the Ottoman Empire. Remarkably, his photographs were only discovered in the 1920s in a storeroom of his estate and then only became known eighty years later.

Girault de Prangey studied painting in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts and in 1841 he learned daguerreotypy, possibly from Louis Daguerre himself or from Hippolyte Bayard. Girault de Prangey was keenly interested in the architecture of the Middle East, and he toured Italy and the countries of the eastern Mediterranean between 1841 and 1844, producing over 900 daguerreotypes of architectural views, landscapes, and portraits.

Old Portraits of Jews From the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Until the 1860s, all Jerusalem residents lived within the walls of the Old City. The walls were built in the 16th century by Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, secure in the knowledge that the city gates were locked from sunset to sunrise and that residents were protected from marauding Bedouins. But as Jerusalem's population grew from 9,000 to 18,000 in the first half of the 19th century, new houses spilled outside the walls, and the one-square- mile inside.

Here's a small collection of rare portraits of Jews from the 1870s to 1920s...

1870. Three elderly Jewish men, settlers in Jerusalem. (Photo by Felix Bonfils/Getty Images)

1880. Elderly Jews at the Western, or Wailing, Wall, Jerusalem. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Circa 1885. A group of Ashkenazi jews in Jerusalem. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

1887. A Jewish cobbler ready for Sabbath Eve in a coal cellar in New York, where he is living with his family. This photograph is one of a series taken of New Yorks slums, using the newly invented technique of flashlight photography. (Photo by Jacob A Riis/Getty Images)

Circa 1890. A middle-class Jew from Tangiers in traditional cloak and cummerbund. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

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