I just came across an interesting YouTube channel called The Travel Film Archive, a collection of old travel footage from around the world. Some really neat stuff there. Of particular interest to my readers might be the clips of old Palestine, and especially the video below, which shows Jerusalem in 1932, and some scenes of the Western Wall (jump to 5:45).
Times were indeed unimaginably challenging for religious Jews back then. I had always been told that the British authorities at the time treated the Jews unfairly, but the footage in this clip is indeed very disturbing. Apparently, the Brits were so cruel that they forced the Jewish men to do the unthinkable, to do something that no Torah Jew would ever be caught doing today - they made the men and women daven together with no mechitza present!
Oh, the horror... the horror....!
