Ben-Dov established the Menorah Film Company and became the sole cameraman filming key historical events. His first film,
Judea Liberated documents General
Edmund Allenby's historic entry into Jerusalem on 11 December 1917. Just a month earlier, the
Balfour Declaration, expressing British support for a Jewish state in Palestine, was issued. And thus, Allenby's entry was enthusiastically received. In addition, Ben-Dov photographed Hanukkah festivities in Jerusalem schools, craftsmen working in workshops, public gatherings, etc. under the title
Mirror of the Return to Zion. After the production of this film, he received some financial support from the official Zionist bodies who now recognized the value of his work. Ben-Dov immortalized images of the
Jewish Legion in Eretz Israel in his second film
Land of Israel Liberated (1919), which includes a portrait of Legion founder
Ze'ev Jabotinsky in uniform. In February 1915, a small committee in Alexandria approved Ze'ev Jabotinsky and
Joseph Trumpeldor’s plan to form a Jewish military unit that would participate in the British effort to conquer the Land of Israel from the Ottoman Empire. Instead a
Zion Mule Corps unit of 560 soldiers was formed fighting in the
Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey. After the dissolution of the Mule Corps, a number of veterans, Jewish soldiers from abroad and fresh recruits from Eretz Israel eventually formed an official Jewish regiment called the Jewish Legion in August 1917 seeing action north of Jerusalem, in the Jordan River and in the
Battle of Megiddo (1918). In addition to the fragments of the Jewish Legion, the
Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive holds one reel showing Jewish communities in north of the country including
Merhavia,
Sejera,
Degania,
Rosh Pinna,
Safed,
Migdal and
Metula. Ben-Dov shot some of the earliest footage of an archaeological expedition, the excavation of the
Hammat Tiberias Synagogue, in 1920. The footage was used in his film
Shivat Zion (Return to Zion). The film was screened at the 12th Zionist Congress in Carlsblad. In 1923, he produced
Palestine Awakening, the first film to be shot exclusively for the
Jewish National Fund. It is also the first Hebrew film using actors and containing dialogue. Yaacov Ben-Dov photographed key events in the life of the yishuv, such as the wedding of Rachel Ussishkin to Shimon Fritz Bodenheimer, the arrival of the first British Commissioner to Palestine
Herbert Samuel, the funeral of
Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and the opening of the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Baruch Agadati purchased Ben Dov's film archives in 1934, when Ben Dov retired from filmmaking owing to his inability to adapt to sound. Agadati and his brother Yitzhak used it to start the AGA Newsreel. ==Films==