Photo album documenting the soldiers of the 51st Battalion of the Givati Brigade during the War of Independence. [Israel, late 1948 / 1949].
Album with roughly 750 photographs taken by a soldier in the 51st Battalion of the the Givati Brigade during the War of Independence and thereafter. The photographs document the opening of the road to the Negev in the course of Operation Yoav (October 1948); and the day-to-day functioning of soldiers of the battalion and brigade during the war, in battle sites where the Egyptian army was defeated and evicted, during ceasefire periods, and while performing routine tasks on the army bases.
Among other things, the photographs highlight the work of the Givati Brigade's technical units, responsible for radio, mapping, and other matters; equipment, including mortars, armored vehicles, and aircraft used in Operation Yoav; specific sites, including the vicinity of the Arab village of Beit Jibrin and the Beit Jibrin villa, the Iraq Suwaydan police station (site of today's Yoav Fortress) and presumably the village of Iraq Suwaydan as well, Tegart forts, and unidentified Arab villages in the regions of the Coastal Plain and northern Negev; roll calls; erecting a sign for "Givat Arnon" (a hilltop outpost, No. 113 – one of the so-called "junction" hilltop outposts – named after Ya'akov Arnon who fell in the line of duty in the battle for the site); erecting a sign for “Migdal Yoav” at the site of the Iraq Suwaydan police station; erecting a sign for “Mishlat Haim” (named after Haim Bolman who fell in the line of duty in the course of one of the battles for Huleiqat, adjacent to Kibbutz Gvar'am); erecting a sign for "Givat Shimshon"; various sites in Beersheba following its capture by Israeli forces; water wells excavated in the desert; Arab villagers; portrait photographs of soldiers; and photos of leisure activities, including trips and excursions. A few photographs are signed in the plate (in Hebrew) "Photo Service – Givati." A handful of photographs are of personal events or trips of a non-military nature.
The photographs were mostly likely taken by Yosef (Joachim) Ehrenberg, born in 1924, who studied at the Technion (Haifa) in the mid-1940s and served in Givati Brigade during the War of Independence.

Photographs of varying sizes, from approx. 4X5.5 cm to approx. 11X15 cm. Mounted onto thin paper leaves bound into an album. Leaf size: 25X36 cm. Overall good condition. Stains to edges of some photographs and minor distortions resulting from mounting. Several photographs detached, at times along with paper leaf.

Enclosed: two photo albums with photographs by Ehrenberg, comprising roughly 200 personal photographs, including photos from trips throughout the country and from his student days at the Technion. The photos seem to indicate that Ehrenberg's role in the military was somehow related to his professional training at the Technion, possibly in what was known as the “Photographic Service” or in some other technical capacity.