Armenian pioneers of images in Palestine

Photography has performed a pivotal position in society since its invention within the early 1800s. It has documented historic, army, non secular and social occasions, in addition to well-known non secular and historic websites world wide. Thanks to images’s growth, historical past has develop into higher understood.

Photography has additionally been an essential technique of documenting the lives, occasions and tradition of the Palestinian folks. In its early days, Palestine was among the many first locations outdoors Europe to be extensively photographed attributable to its non secular significance because the land of the three divine faiths and its numerous non secular websites.

The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, based in 638 A.D., is positioned within the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem. For greater than 4 centuries, Palestine was topic to Ottoman rule (1516-1918).

As a results of the Armenian genocide by the hands of Ottoman Turkey (1915–1923), Armenian crafts and industries unfold to the areas of Armenian asylum within the japanese Arab areas of the Levant, Iraq and Egypt, in addition to Iran and Central Asia. By 1923, virtually the whole Armenian inhabitants of Anatolian Türkiye had disappeared.

Starting within the 1850s, Armenians turned dominant amongst Palestine’s photographers. The central determine on this growth was the main cleric Yessai Garabedian, a priest who moved to Jerusalem from Anatolia to develop into archivist on the Armenian Cathedral of Saint James. He served as Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1864–65 and began photographing in 1857. In 1860, he established a images college within the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem. 

Garabed Krikorian (1847-1920) and his brother Kevork counted amongst his college students. Other Nineteenth-century Armenian photographers from Jerusalem are J.H. Halladjian, M. Mardikian and Yusuf Toumaian. In the aftermath of the Armenian Genocide, different photographers joined, together with Hrant Nakashian and Elia Kahvedjian.

Garabed Krikorian opened a images workshop on Jaffa Road within the 1870s and have become a trainer. One of his college students was Khalil Raad, generally known as “Palestine’s first Arab photographer.” Another pupil, Abraham Guiragossian, labored for the well-known Maison Bonfils studio of Beirut and finally purchased it up.

Palestinian photographers within the early Twentieth century extensively documented Palestinian life. Among probably the most distinguished was Wassef Jawhariyya (1904-1972), who collected 900 pictures for his seven-volume e-book, A Photographic History of Palestine.

Given its political significance—notably the Arab-Israeli battle, the institution of the State of Israel on historic Palestinian land and the emergence of the Palestinian refugee difficulty, which is taken into account one of the crucial essential outcomes of World War II—photographers competed to doc these occasions. Armenian photographers have been pioneers on this discipline.

Kegham Djeghalian (1915-1981), an Armenian genocide survivor and refugee, opened Gaza’s first images studio in 1944.

He was a key determine in mid-Twentieth-century Gaza images, documenting the folks and metropolis for practically 4 a long time. 

Elia Kahvedjian (1910-1999), one other refugee survivor of the Armenian Genocide, was certainly one of Jerusalem’s main photographers originally of the Twentieth century. He labored for the Christian Hanania brothers, who ran a images store within the metropolis heart (now generally known as West Jerusalem). 

When the brothers wished to shut the store, Kahvedjian took out a mortgage and acquired it. He shortly achieved nice skilled success. Days earlier than the outbreak of the 1948 Palestine War, Kahvedjian moved his negatives to a small room within the Armenian Quarter of Old Jerusalem and closed the store. He fled to the Old City, and by 1949, he had a studio within the Christian Quarter, the place it stays to at the present time. During the British Mandate and Jordanian rule, Kahvedjian devoted himself to documenting historic and spiritual occasions and websites in Palestine, notably Jerusalem.

On July 7, 2025, the Jerusalem Municipality named a small, modest sq. outdoors Damascus Gate within the Muslim Quarter of Old Jerusalem after Kahvedjian. While this initiative is commendable, it might have been extra applicable for the municipality to call a sq., plaza or road outdoors or inside Jaffa Gate (the place the Armenian Quarter begins), or inside the Armenian Quarter itself, after this completed photographer.

Dr. Gaby Kevorkian lives within the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem.