History of Jerusalem and Israel
Why Was a Nazi Flag Flying from a Jerusalem Hotel FAST in the 1930's? - Jerusalem Pearl Hotel - Draiman
It was replaced by The Jerusalem Pearl Hotel in 1995 by the Draiman family. See picture at the bottom.
Posted: 30 Aug 2015 11:11 AM PDT
We recently published pictures from the British Library's Endangered Archives Program, including this incredible picture of Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem's Old City which we have dated to the mid-1890s. Only in 1898 was the wall near Jaffa Gate breached so that carriages could drive into the city.
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| Jaffa Gate and A(braham) Fast's restaurant. (Debbas Collection, British Library) |
We wanted to know more about the store on the left with the sign "A Fast. Restauranteur." Was this a tourist establishment of Abraham Fast, who in 1907 took over a large hotel several hundred meters to the west of the building pictured above and renamed it "Hotel Fast?"
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| German troops marching in Jerusalem on Good Friday, April 6, 1917. The building on the left is the Fast Hotel. (Imperial War Museum, UK) |
Hotel Fast and its kosher restaurant was a well-known establishment in Jerusalem for decades, and was probably considered by many to be a Jewish-owned establishment because of its Jewish clientele.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The Fasts were German Templers.
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The German consulate in the Fast Hotel, 1933. (Wikimedia, Tamar Hayardeni) |
They lived in Jerusalem's German Colony and were exiled by the British after World War I and during World War II because of their support for Germany.
We recently uncovered pictures of German troops marching in Jerusalem streets on Good Friday 1917. Readers were able to identify the building on the left as the Fast Hotel.
Our biggest surprise was finding this picture of the German consulate in the Hotel Fast with the German Swastika flag flying from the building.
During World War II, the hotel was taken over by the British army command and turned into the Australian army club.
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The Hotel Fast housed Australian soldiers in World War II. Here they are greeting the Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies and the commander of the Australian troops in Australia, Lt. Gen. Thomas Blamey in February 1941. The Matson Photo Service, shown on the ground floor, was run by Eric Matson, originally from the American Colony Photographic Department. Matson left Palestine in 1946 for the United States. His collection of photos were bequeathed to the Library of Congress where many of the pictures in this website were found. (Library of Congress) |
Israel’s War of Independence 1948
ReplyDeleteOn 15 May 1948, one day after the reestablishment of the State of Israel on its own historical, ancestral land, the new Jewish State was invaded by five Arab armies (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon, plus numerous Arab militias), afterward reinforced by other Arab forces. By the time all hostilities ceased in January 1949, Israel had lost a significant part of its internationally mandated territory to the Arab invading forces—namely, Judea and Samaria (including the eastern part of Jerusalem) to Trans-Jordan, and the Gaza Strip to Egypt, and the Golan Heights to Syria. Such an invasion, unilaterally or collectively, for the purpose of acquiring territory, is contrary to and a flagrant violation of international law. Whereas Egypt only occupied its captured territory, Trans-Jordan illegally went ahead and annexed Eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and called the combined entity the "west bank" aka Judea and Samaria in order to link the territory with the east bank of the Jordan territory, which was created by taking Jewish allocated land.
This illegal annexation by Jordan was only recognized by two nations, namely, Britain and Pakistan. It should be noted that, in any case, recognition of annexation, however limited or general, has no bearing upon the question of legality under international law.
The areas captured by the surrounding Arab countries by the time of the 1949 Armistice Agreements continued to be under Arab control until the Six-Day War of June 1967.