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Young Israel, in Color

A British soldier’s 1949 home movies

by
Liel Leibovitz
June 23, 2009
(YouTube.com)
(YouTube.com)

In 1949, an English soldier named Bernard Beacham was posted to Israel. To fight off boredom, he brought a movie camera with him, and he captured scenes, in color, of the Jewish State in its nascent year. The footage is stunning. It also contains a shocking revelation: folks in Israel used to wear ties.

Liel Leibovitz is editor-at-large for Tablet Magazine and a host of its weekly culture podcast Unorthodox and daily Talmud podcast Take One. He is the editor of Zionism: The Tablet Guide.