Tucked away in the Christian Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City, there stands a quaint photo shop that has been operating since 1949. Inside, you will be transported to Jerusalem of years ago, through an extensive archive of photos taken by Elia Kahvedjian, one of the greatest photographers in Jerusalem of the early 20th century. Today, the shop functions as a small museum, of life in Jerusalem before we can remember it- photos that pieces together history to better understand our roots.

Elia Kahvedjian was born in Urfa, Southeast Turkey in 1910. A survivor of the Armenian genocide, most of his family was massacred in front of his eyes when he was just five years old. Joining his mother on a death march towards the Syrian desert, with her quick thinking and desperation to save her son’s life, she gave him to a passing Kurdish stranger. As soon as the Kurd took little Elia beyond the hill, he remembers gunshots, screams and after a few minutes, total silence.

The Kurdish family cleaned him and fed him, and then sold him as a slave to a Syrian Christian blacksmith for two gold coins. When the blacksmith’s wife passed away, he remarried a woman who told Elia that he was free to go. While freedom may sound like a prize, for Elia it was a frightening reality. As an Armenian child in the throes of war, homeless and hungry, every day was a fight to survive. Elia’s grandson George— who operates the shop today— is certain that his grandfather’s will was a force to be reckoned with, the only way to explain his survival. Elia miraculously found his way, until the American Near East Relief foundation gathered one hundred thousand Armenian orphans and brought them to orphanages in the Middle East. Elia was brought to an orphanage in Nazareth and found solace in his new home. When asked for his last name, he couldn’t remember it— but he recalled that his father was a coffee merchant. And so they called him Kahvedjian— "kahve" being the Turkish word for coffee— the family name that remains to this day.

As the strongest boy in the group, Elia was chosen to assist his teacher— who was also a photographer- to carry the negatives (which were big glass plates in the 1920s)— a task that gave Elia a peak into the world of photography. He was intrigued by how an image was captured on a glass plate, and he started asking questions which built the foundation for his lifelong passion.