This is a photograph of a snowy alley in Jerusalem’s Old City at the end of the British Mandate. From the rooftops that surround the alley, it is apparent that a large quantity of snow has fallen in a short period of time as that snow lies untouched. In the alley, however, most of the snow has been trodden into dirty ice, and this can be seen in the foreground of the picture, even though the image is in black and white. In the background, a figure can be seen walking away from the photographer, dressed in winter clothing and carrying some sort of satchel.
The photograph is one of a group of twenty-seven silver prints of black and white photographs, including portraits and landscapes of various locations in Jerusalem, especially the Jewish Quarter. These photographs were produced by a group of students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, members of the Yavneh Group who lived in the Jewish Quarter between 1939 and 1947 and acted as a kind of “urban kibbutz” with the encouragement of Dr. Judah Leon Magnes (the first president of the Hebrew University).
Each photograph includes a description written by one of the photographers, Joshua Markowitz, who donated them to the National Library in 1964.
