Do you ever wonder why somethings were filmed and others you feel were ignored. What if that really wasn’t how things happened, what if you heard about a film crew coming to film festivities and thought you'd also like to join that wagon. In 1930 Paramount News sent a sound film crew to film the Nebi Musa festivities. As mentioned in the Davar paper "An English film company filmed the procession with all the noise on its machines". In the archive's Matis documentation center I chanced upon a letter from 1930 written by someone from Keren Hayesod how they had convinced this crew to also film the opening of the Jewish National and University Library as well as items of interest to Keren HaYesod and Keren Kayemeth such as the tree planting in the Petr Forest. Paramount filmed 600 feet of these activities. This letter encouraged the recipients to be in touch with Mr. N. Cohen in order to receive copies of these materials. They seemed to have been successful for the archive holds two films from these materials.
Dedication of the Hebrew University Library. The film held by the archive in 2 formats 35 mm with an unusable soundtrack and 16 mm.. In the film Judah Magnes is seen giving a very long speech, followed by the High Commissioner John Chancellor. The university choir opens the event and the Massad choir made up of groups from Tel Aviv, Petach Tikva, Rehovot and Ness Ziona ends the filming. You also see the newly built Wolfsohn building which has an entrance on street level which may surprise people today as it is well above ground level. The original dedication was supposed to have happened a year earlier (Passover 1929) but bookcases which had been ordered from Germany had still not arrived, and it was postponed. There was a gathering in April 1929 for people to see the building but not an official opening. The revised plan was for November 1929 but the bookcases still had not arrived and following the Arab Disturbances of August 1929 it was thought not advisable to have a gathering which would include the High Commissioner. It was decided eventually to hold it on April 14th – the second day of Passover but a request by the rabbinate to delay to April 15th, 1930 the third day of Passover which indeed became the final date. The speeches given both by Dr. Magnes and John Chancellor included references to Lord Balfour who had passed away the previous month. Dr. Hugo Bergmann also gave a speech but he is not seen in the film. (Thanks to Ofer Tzemach and the central archive of Hebrew University for all the background material.)
Palestine in song and Dance according to the letter from 1930 Keren Kayemeth had the following items filmed -The tree planting in Masyrk forest with speeches by Menachem Ussishkin and Col. Kisch. Children's day in Tel Aviv which included a gathering of 2000 children between the ages of 4-10 with an orchestra, choir and dancers. 500 students of the Herzilya Gymnasia doing exercise in the school yard accompanied by an orchestra and a Maccabi Tel Aviv youth gathering. Articles found in Davar of 1931 talk about a film with Ussishkin and Kisch in a forest called Petr which had been filmed a year earlier to be seen in Jerusalem in March 1931 but if you had time you could wait to see the movie in Tel Aviv in August of 1931 where there were added materials of Ussishkin in New York, children in Gan Rina, the Sholmit children's orchestra, a speech by Mrs. Shoshana Persitz and Chana Kipnis and also scenes of the students in the Gymnasia. By the time the archive received the movie Palestine in Song and Dance from the Narodni Filmovy Archiv, the 2000 children were singing with Chana Kipnis, there are dancers on stage with her, Ussishkin was planting the 1,000,000th tree in the Petr forest and talking about Jews in Yugoslavia, there is a mini orchestra of students perhaps they are Shlomit's and indeed the 500 students are doing exercises under the able eye of Zvi Nishri. This film ended with a request by Emanuel Neumann, President of the Jewish National Fund in the USA speaking about the importance of settling the land and contributing to Flower Day June 7th. Petr's forest, which is located in the Valley of Jezreel in Northern Israel, near Kibbutz Ginegar was founded in 1930 on the same day the Maseryk forest was dedicated thus the confusion in the letter. Part of Menachem Ussishkin's speech is heard about Yugoslavian Jewry who had donated funds for the King Peter the Liberator forest. Childrens day which was a celebration of the opening of school took place in Gan Rina which was an open-air cinema and ballroom, located at the corner of Ben Yehuda and Shalom Aleichem streets in Tel Aviv, opposite Beit Ha'am. In the afternoon after filming the children's celebration in Gan Rina the 500 students of the Herzliya Gymnasia exercised and danced the hora. In between the shots of the Herzliya Gymnasia, there are shots of an orchestra or band made up of children – perhaps this is the Shulamit Student Orchestra. (With thanks to the late Yosef HaLachmi's website http://www.filmography.co.il/ and the National Library newspaper site https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/ )
The materials of Ussishkin with Mayor Jimmy Walker of New York seem to have disappeared. Searches for the original materials which the film crew came to film Nebi Musa have not been located however materials from a few months later of Nabi Rubin are online.
