This photo shows what a beach in Palestine looked like before the founding of Israel. We delved into its history

In late 2023 and early 2024, as the war between Israel and Hamas raged, a photograph circulated on social media with several versions of a similar image. claim (archive). The articles posited that the photo was taken in Palestine, before Zionism and before the founding of Israel:

(User X @HumaZhr)

A publication on X has been viewed 5.7 million times, 17,600 likes and more than 6,000 shares. The photograph also appeared on Reddit, with the tag “imperialism”, where it was upvoted 5,100 times.

What year was the photo taken?

The photograph is difficult to date. A reverse image search using TinEye and Google turned up several references for this image, all of which confirm that it is an aerial view of part of the Tel Aviv promenade. Tel Aviv is the second largest city in Israel.

One reference is the catalog for a 2013 exhibition “White City: Bauhaus Architecture in Tel Aviv” at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Another item is a 2013 blog post, which includes photography from a 2002 book called “Bauhaus Tel Aviv” by Nahoum Cohen. The blog post dates the photograph to 1940, presumably citing the book.

We found a very similar – but not the same – image on the eBay page of an old and vintage photography dealer. The product detail page was titled “Epic Aerial View of HISTORICAL TEL AVIV Israel VINTAGE 1953 Press Photo.” » It includes a photo of the reverse side of the photograph, which reads:

There is a purple ink stamp on this text that says “RECEIVED EXAMINER REFERENCE LIBRARY APR 12 1953”.

This photograph shows a less built-up landscape, smaller trees, and few people on the beach, indicating that it may have been taken earlier than the photograph in the viral posts.

Nonetheless, we used this information in a search of journals.com, a site that compiles newspaper archives, and found several references to articles that published this photograph on April 12, 1953 and a few days later – using Gottgetreu's article and part or all of it. from the legend cited above. This one is from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (note that the headline is incorrect: in 1953, Israel had existed for five years, not two):

(journal.com)

Unfortunately, even this date and stamp cannot guarantee that the photo was taken in 1953, as press practices regarding the use of images were not as rigorous at the time as they may be today. 21st century. Not to mention, a deep dive into Tel Aviv's history confirms that this waterfront was most likely built in the 1930s.

Bauhaus and Tel Aviv

As soon as Adolf Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany in 1933, thousands of Jews left Germany for Mandatory Palestine. The wave of emigration intensified in 1935, when the Nuremberg Racial Laws – which deprived Germany's Jews of their rights – came into force. This continued until 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland and France and the United Kingdom declared war. In 1941, Hitler decided that instead of encouraging the emigration of Jews from Europe, he would focus on the extermination of the Jews.

Hitler's rise to power also caused the Bauhaus art school to close in 1933. According to journalist and Pulitzer Center grantee Verónica Zaragovia, the Nazis were hostile to the Bauhaus “because it was pre- guardist and utopian. Because some of its members had ties to the Soviet Union or the Communists, others were Jewish. » This led to at least half of its students and professors leaving Germany, but instead of marking the end of the Bauhaus movement, it led to its rebirth elsewhere in the world, notably in Tel Aviv.

In the 1930s, Tel Aviv was in the midst of a construction boom. Founded by Jews under Ottoman rule in 1906, its first name was Ahuzat Bayit (“farm” in Hebrew). To circumvent laws prohibiting the sale of land to Jewish subjects of the Ottoman Empire, a Jewish banker named Jacobus Kann used his Dutch citizenship to purchase the first 60 plots in his name.

The construction of Tel Aviv began in earnest in the 1920s and accelerated in the 1930s with the arrival of German Jewish immigrants. The timing helped make Tel Aviv a jewel of Bauhaus architecture. Zaragovia wrote:

The more than 4,000 buildings constructed in the 1930s became collectively known as the White City. The White City was listed as a protected site at the UNESCO World Heritage Center in 2003 (see map of conservation areas). Architecture Digest published an article in 2019 showcasing some of the best examples of this architecture in Tel Aviv.

In summary, the photograph is a snapshot of early Tel Aviv. Although founded under Ottoman rule, it was built during the British Mandate of Palestine by a growing community of Jews. In other words, it was a city created by the Zionist movement before the founding of Israel.

In 2023, Snopes investigated whether a different photo showed a Jerusalem street before the founding of Israel.

Sources:

“10 of Tel Aviv's Best Examples of Bauhaus Architecture”. DézeenAugust 24, 2016, https://www.dezeen.com/2016/08/24/10-tel-aviv-best-examples-bauhaus-residential-architecture/.

“April 12, 1953, page 19 – Fort Worth Star-Telegram at Newspapers.Com”. Journals.ComAccessed April 17, 2024.

“100 years of Bauhaus”. @GI_weltweitAccessed April 17, 2024.

Azoulay, Yuval. “Rue Jacobus, corner of oblivion”. HaaretzApril 1, 2009, https://web.archive.org/web/20120404193456/http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/jacobus-street-corner-of-oblivion-1.273311.

Center, UNESCO World Heritage. “White City Tel Aviv – the modern movement”. UNESCO World Heritage CenterAccessed April 17, 2024.

Cohen, Alina. “Emerging painter Kira Maria Shewfelt transforms moments of passion into surreal canvases”. ArtisticApril 16, 2024, https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-emerging-painter-kira-maria-shewfelt-transforms-moments-passion-surreal-canvases.

Emigration, 1933-1941 – The Holocaust explained: designed for schools. January 4, 1933, https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/responses/emigration/.

Warkentin, Elizabeth. “How did Tel Aviv become a beacon for the dazzling Bauhaus architecture?” » Architectural summarySeptember 25, 2019, https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/how-did-tel-aviv-become-beacon-stunning-bauhaus-architecture.

Updates:

April 24, 2024: This report has been updated to include additional information about when the photo was taken.