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A sweeping collection of historic photographs documenting Jerusalem across several eras has been made accessible to the public, offering a rare visual record of the city’s architecture and everyday life.
Titled "Memory of Jerusalem," the archive was compiled through years of meticulous research. It presents a continuous visual panorama of Palestine’s architectural and social history.
Jerusalem was part of the Ottoman Empire for four centuries, from 1517 until the end of 1917. The walls that still enclose the Old City were rebuilt under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th century.
In the 19th century, Jerusalem spread beyond its walls onto the olive groves, vineyards and farmland that surrounded it.
After Istanbul placed the city under its direct administration in 1872, new neighborhoods, consulates, schools, hospitals and religious institutions rose on land that had long been worked by farmers.
A railway linking Jaffa and Jerusalem opened in 1892, and the clock tower at Jaffa Gate was added in 1901. Ottoman rule ended in December 1917, when British forces entered the city during World War I.
British forces entered Jerusalem in December 1917, and the city was placed under military rule before a civil administration took over in 1920.
The League of Nations confirmed Britain’s mandate over Palestine in 1922, and it took effect in 1923, with Jerusalem as the seat of government.
The mandate’s terms drew on the 1917 Balfour Declaration, in which Britain backed a Jewish national home in Palestine while pledging to protect the rights of the existing non-Jewish communities.
Tensions grew as Jewish immigration and land purchases increased and Arab leaders opposed the mandate’s direction.
Violence broke out in Jerusalem in 1920 and again in 1929, when a dispute over access to the Western Wall and the Al-Aqsa compound spread across the country.
Between 1936 and 1939, an Arab revolt brought a prolonged general strike and armed uprising against British rule. In response, Britain issued a 1939 White Paper limiting Jewish immigration and land sales, which angered Jewish leaders and fueled armed Jewish resistance.
In the 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed or expelled from their homes. By 1949, the city was divided, with Israel holding the west and Jordan ruling the east, where the Palestinians who remained came under Jordanian rule.
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