Archival Treasures – Ultra-Orthodox Life in the Holyland

Just before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the National Ukrainian Archives sent the Israel Film Archive a never-before-seen selection of films documenting Jewish life in 1930s Pre-State Israel and Poland. There was no decipherable information about the materials, the filmmakers, or those captured on film. After the connection with the Ukrainian Archives was severed due to the current war, the researchers at the Israel Archive set out on a comprehensive historical investigation that led to a Gur Hassid in Tel Aviv, an ultra-Orthodox settlement in the Jezreel Valley, and a delegation of rabbis who perished in the Holocaust.