More than 140 black-and-white photographs by contemporary French photographer Frederic Brenner are on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art from Oct. 2003 to Jan. 2004. The Jewish Journey: Frederic Brenner’s Photographic Odyssey – A Portrait of Jewish Diversity takes highlights from his 25-year photographic odyssey through some 45 countries. His work helps us confront the question of “Who is a Jew?” with greater honesty and considerably more openness.   Self-portrait, 2002 Born in Paris in 1959 and trained as a social anthropologist, Frédéric Brenner uses a camera to document Jewish people living in Diaspora — Jews scattered in such places as India, Italy, China, Ethiopia, Yemen, Mexico, Russia, Canada, America and Israel. Drawing upon history and philosophy, Brenner establishes visual histories of Jewish communities in flux. He records the evolution of Jewish civilization, and in doing so debunks stereotypes and illuminates the concept of cultural diversity while exploring the myriad reinventions of the Jewish people. Brenner’s began his journey in 1978 when he was 18 years old, by photographing members of the orthodox community in Jerusalem; his first photo was of a child dressed as an angel running down a back alley in the Mea Shearim quarter. Since then, he has since visited over forty-five countries in twenty-five years. His tens of thousands of photographs have created a new vision of Jewish life in far-flung corners of the world. Rather than discovering continuity and commonality in his photographic odyssey, Brenner has found discontinuity and paradox; instead of answers, only more questions.         View gallery   While examining differences as well as commonalities created by the shared exilic experience. Brenner also examines the vision of Israel, the Jewish homeland, as another aspect of the notion of Diaspora. His Israeli photographs suggest that Israel itself, with its multiplicity of cultures, is itself diasporic (see also JHOM feature Brenner’s Exile at Home). The exhibition begins and ends with black-and-white images of Purim celebrations from different parts of the world (the story of Purim as metaphor for the interlocking themes of identity and masquerade recur throughout Brenner’s work). The exhibition is arranged both chronologically and geographically. It includes works from long-term projects documenting the Sephardim (Jewish people who settled in Spain and Portugal before the Inquisition and their descendants), Jewish communities scattered throughout the former Soviet Union, and the diversity of Jews in the United States. Along the way, Brenner’s work unveils hidden histories of Jews in Portugal, Argentina, and Poland. His subjects include an Ethiopian village woman, a man of Iraqi origin in Calcutta, a leather-clad biker in Florida, and barbers with Muslim clients in Tajikistan (see photos in JHOM Judaica Art Gallery). Brenner publication: Exiles at Home Odyssey photographs in Judaica Art Gallery Frederic Brenner, born in Paris in 1959, has a master's degree in social anthropology from the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. From Rome to New York, India to Yemen, Morocco to Ethiopia, Sarajevo to Jerusalem, he has spent twenty-five years chronicling the Jewish diaspora. He has had solo exhibitions at the International Center of Photography, New York; the Rencontres Internationales de las Photographie, Arles; and the Musée De L'Elysée, Lausanne. Winner of the 1992 Prix de Rome, among other awards, Brenner has directed an original film, The Last Marranos, and has published several books, including Jerusalem: instants d'étérnite (1984), Israel (1988), Marranes (1992), Jews/America/Representation (1996), and Exile at Home (1998).