Chayei Ha'Yehudim Be'Eretz Yisrael - The Programme of the First Hebrew Film, which was made for the Zionist ...

Chayei Ha'Yehudim Be'Eretz Yisrael - The Programme of the First Hebrew Film, which was made for the Zionist Congress - 1913 -a Rare Historical Item
Chayei Ha'Yehudim Be'Eretz Yisrael (The Life of the Jews of the Land of Israel) is the first Hebrew film in cinematic history and the first full documentation of the Zionist settlement in the Land of Israel. Before us is the original programme (booklet) of the movie.
An extremely rare item! There are almost no copies of it. It does not exist in the National Library or other libraries in Israel. An exciting historical item!
On the title page of the programme, an illustration of Jews in the Land of Israel and a star-of-David with the word "Zion". On the copy before us there are several stamps (slightly faded), most likely of the Zionist branch of Bucharest, Romania.
The programme is written in Romanian with captions in Romanian and Hebrew.
For eighty years, the film "Chayei Ha'Yehudim Be'Eretz Yisrael" was considered lost. The traces of the movie, which was filmed in the Land of Israel in 1913, disappeared during World War I.
In 1975, a copy of the movie was found in a private collection in the USA; yet when the boxes were opened, it turned out that its reels had disintegrated. The researcher of the Hebrew film, Ya'akov Gross continued in his search for a copy of the film.
19 years ago, Gross was called to assist in identifying four boxes of about 170 unidentified reels of film which were discovered in a French Film Archive. A short examination of the reels revealed to Gross that the historical loss had been found!
The movie was silent yet its captions and subtitles were in Hebrew.
Today the film can be found on the internet.

The history of the film
The movie was filmed in the Land of Israel during April-May 1913 and was produced by the "Ha'Mizrach" company of Odessa. Its sponsor was Noah Sokolovsky, a Zionist businessman, who wanted to produce a film that will present the new Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel and which will be screened during the 11th Zionist Congress.
Thus, according to Gross, Chayei Ha'Yehudim Be'Eretz Yisrael became one of the first propaganda films. Sokolovsky appealed to the heads of the settlements in Israel and asked them to be prepared for his visit. His camera moved throughout the country documenting Rothschild Avenue and the Herzliya Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, the peasants working in the fields of Chadera, the building of the technion in Haifa, Yosef Trumpeldor plowing the land of the Galilee with his one hand, the poet Rachel, the Bezalel school of art, the Machpelah cave, the wineries of Rishon Le'Zion and the Biluyim in Chadera.
Size of booklet: 23.5cm. 8 pp.
Condition: Good. Typical wear. Filing holes.