Audio webcast
interview with the author below
Documentors
of the Dream: Pioneer Jewish Photographers in the Land of Israel 1890-1933
(Magnes
Press and Jewish Publication Society), is the first comprehensive book
to chart the origins and development of local photography seen through
the eyes of Jewish photographers. The book is part of the series Israel
Studies in Historical Georgraphy, edited by Yehoshua Ben-Arieh and
Ruth Kark.
The material in Documentors of the Dream is based on primary research
mostly from Israeli archives, and interviews with descendants of the early
photographers. Documentors of the Dream is the work of photographer
and photo historian Vivienne Silver-Brody, of the Silver Print Gallery
in the Israeli artists' village of Ein Hod on the Carmel (audio webcast
interview with Ms. Silver-Brody below).
The
photographs, largely unknown and unpublished, testify to a moment when
a nascent society set in motion utopian ideas that were to lead towards
institutions of contemporary Israeli society. They depict old Yishuv and
new Zionist lifestyles, village society, the beginnings of the kibbutz,
labor battalions, the guarding of settlements, development of agriculture
and land reclamation, construction of roads, the growth of new cities,
immigration and community welfare.
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Vivienne
Silver-Brody, of the Silver Print Gallery in the Israeli artists'
village of Ein Hod on the Carmel, is a photographer and photo
historian, collector, freelance exhibition curator, writer and
lecturer. Her articles have appeared in the book With Eyes
toward Zion; in journals such as Cathedra, Ariel,
Eretz, and The Jerusalem Post.
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The
following passage is an excerpt from the essay, "The Photographers in
Context," with selected photographs
from the book.
Archives and private
and family collections have yielded unexpected finds. Although this book
covers only ten photographers, there were others who were active for lesser
and longer periods, whether established in the country as part of the
newly formed Zionist movement or visitors curious to see the Zionist activity
for themselves. Continuing research reveals a growing list of local studios
which offered their services both before and after World War I. Sometimes
tourists with their own cameras contributed by taking snapshots, thus
providing evidence of unexpected situations.
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The photographers,
as personalities, have generally been obscured by the imperatives
of the period. Their works reflect not only the period but are
also a photographic achievement. Five devoted most of their working
lives to the pursuit of photography; they were recognized in their
time and yet have not been written about. Some have become known
through exhibitions of their work, others produced albums which
have become collectors' items, while others are hardly known at
all. Books on every aspect of Zionist history have used their
photographs as illustrations, almost universally without acknowledgment.
This book is an attempt to reverse that process: to acknowledge
the photographer and to set the images in the content of the oeuvre....
Tsadok
Bassan.
Etrog (citron) harvest by the Citrus Fruit Association.
Place unknown, c. 1900
Central Zionist Archives / Jewish National Fund Archive
Click
to view photo enlarged
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It
was not until World War I that photographic exhibitions began to take
place, and albums were published in Eretz Yisrael. Four of the photographers
included in this book displayed a facet of entrepreneurship by publishing
art portfolios during the British Mandate (1917-1948), when an interested
audience began to emerge. Most of the albums were printed in Europe
and were enhanced by the rich tonality of the photogravure process
which was then in fashion. |
Yosef
Schweig.
Lodzia textile factory, Tel Aviv, 1920s
Jewish National Fund Archive
Click
to view photo enlarged
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The
creation of albums and the mounting of photographic exhibitions (such
as that of Schweig, held in the Steimatzky bookstore in 1927 and in
1933), and the press reports of these events, indicates an attention
to the work of the individuals even during a period when emphasis
on the collective spirit was pronounced. The albums and exhibitions
were some of the few instances when photographers could indulge in
personal statements without being directed to by the demands of the
Jewish institutions and their publicity demands. |
The photographers who appear here were an integral part of the time frame.
They were just as motivated as other idealists who willed the hebrew language
into an everyday event, worked the soil, built farms and thenew cities.
The initiators of Hebrew theater, music, poetry, dance, art and photography
were all pioneers, but somehow photography was never studied, and the
photographers are literally in danger of being forgotten
I am as interested
in the artists as I am in their prodigious output. In the process
of looking at their work, each photographer emerges as a work unto
himself, linked by different facets of this century's history.
Leo
Kahn.
Washday at the cooperative village Kinneret,
on the shores of the lake of Galilee, 1912
Central Zionist Archives
Click
to view photo enlarged
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It
may be said that these photographers are unsung heroes. Some of them
devoted most of their working lives to documenting the remarkable
period when society was small and integrated, and everybody knew everybody
else. Unknown in the international history of photography, they championed
not a particular movement in photography, but the settlement of the
land. They were indispensable observers of history in the making. |
Avraham
Soskin.
Tel Aviv's water tower, and the first kiosk erected
on the corner of Rothschild Boulevard and Herzl Street, 1910
Silver Prints Collection
Click
to view photo enlarged
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Documentors
of the Dream: Pioneer Jewish Photographers in the Land of Israel 1890-1933
(Magnes
Press and Jewish Publication Society) |
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