Photograph Collections

The Photograph Collection of the Central Zionist Archives contains approximately one million prints and negatives from various sources. The Collection documents the entire spectrum of life in the Land of Israel and Zionist activity in the Diaspora from the late 1890s until the 1990s.

The Collection contains more than 50,000 photographs of Keren Hayesod, more than 100,000 photographs of the Information Service of the Jewish Agency and the Photograph Service of the Jewish Agency, the Youth Aliyah Documentation Center Collection, the Philadelphia Collection, etc. The Archives holds collections of photographs and albums of personalities who contributed to the Zionist enterprise, in addition to collections of important photographers of the Yishuv's history, such as Zadok Bassan, Zvi Oron (Oroshkes), Nahum Tim Gidal, Anna Rivkin-Brik, Fritz Schlesinger, Zoltan Kruger, Hazel Greenwald, etc. Unique collections reflect the history of USSR Jewry over the 20th century (the Arie Zenziper Rafaeli Collection, the Prisoners of Zion Collection) in addition to the history of Ethiopian Jewry (the Viterbo Collection). Thousands of photographs were donated in the past to the Archives, and they constitute an important source for the study of the history of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. The CZA continues to collect photographs and add them to its collections and we will be happy to receive additions to the collections from the public.

A special section of the collection is dedicated to the life and activity of Theodor Herzl.

Language of registration: Most of the photograph descriptions are in Hebrew.

The structure of the collections: Photographs

The section is arranged by collections. The name of the collection is composed of a prefix reflecting the type of the collection:

PH – is the prefix of all the printed and scanned photographs in the Archives. Thus, for instance, PHG represents the General Collection, composed of photographs from various sources and PHKH represents the prints of the Keren Hayesod Collection.

N – is the prefix of negatives that were scanned. Thus, for instance, NKH represents the negatives of the Keren Hayesod Collection.

GN – is the prefix of the collections whose source is glass negatives.

The items within a collection are represented by a unique number. For example a photograph in the PHG collection, will receive a unique number, for instance PHG\1000343.

In contrast, a photograph found as an item in a file will receive, for example, the notation L18\4285-1p. If another photograph is found in the same file, its notation will be L18\4285-2p.

Lists of the Archival Records Groups and Collections - Photographs