Photography in Israel (review)

170 SHOFAR Fall 1998 Vol. 17, No. I Photography in Israel, guest-edited by Yeshayahu Nir. Special issue of History of Photography, Vol. 19, No.3 (pp. 185-276). London: Taylor & Francis, Autumn 1995.1 This thematic issue of a journal edited at Linacre College in Oxford combines a select historical portfolio of Israeli photography with an array of essays approaching the subject from various perspectives. Nir is a professor of visual communication at the Hebrew University. Nir's own opening essay is concerned with Holy Land photographic images from the nineteenth century. In one episode, villagers shown their picture failed to recognize themselves in it, as "a photograph seems to have connoted a ruler or other notable figure, the most likely subjects of any photographs they may have seen" (p. 185), "overshadow[ing] the perception ofthe referential link between a photograph and its subject." Nir contextualizes such patterns of interaction within Western "paternalist and appropriating relationship towards the Orient" (p. 193). Orna and Micha Bar-Am's paper, "The Illustrator E. M. Lilien as Photographer" in the Holy Land, reveals a littleknown side of an artist whose etchings and Jugendstil Biblical illustrations feature prominently in the history of modern Jewish art. Jugendstil and Bible is invariably Lilien. "Lilien's most famous photograph is generally not associated with his name or with his biblical project. It is the image of Zionist leader Theodor Herzlleaning on the balcony of the Drei Konige Hotel in Basel, Switzerland, and gazing over the Rhine" (p. 198). (As an aside: such is the instant recognition this image prompts, that when, recently, the Shas party openly adopted Zionism, a cartoon in the Jerusalem Post glossed the event by placing on the head ofthe leaning Herzl a Charedi wide-brimmed hat. It was a glaring evocation of that photograph, but did you know it was taken by Lilien?) In "Zionist Photography, 1910-41: Constructing a Landscape," Ruth Oren deals with pictures that were mainly published by the Jewish National Fund and the Keren Hayesod. Photography, indeed, is an important tool for overt propaganda, as well as a medium for subtle conceptualizations which assert an idea rhetorically, whether the photographer is aware or not (cf. e.g. the interesting but, in treating his data, unquestionably anti-Israeli essay by Derek Gregory, "Imaginative Geographies," in Progress in Human Geography, Vol. 19, No. 4[1995]: 447-485). The next essay is by Nir's colleague at the Hebrew University, Prof. Erik Cohen: "The Representation ofArabs and Jews on Postcards in Israel." An otherwise interesting subject is unfortunately spoilt by ebullient theory and an ideological ax to grind, by vociferously demonizing anti-Israeli proclamations, and by an academically inexcusable inattention to his data. Counterexamples probably could be found, but the argument is generally weak. He fails to consider, further to the Jewish vs. Arab dichotomy in life IDistributed by Dawson (UK) Ltd., Cannon House, Folkestone, Kent CTl9 5EE, UK. Price as a back issue: £25 or $39.50, plus postage (total: $47.50). Journal ISSN: 0308-7298. Book Reviews .........:;~ 171 and imagery, such intra-Jewish divisions that also feature prominently in national or semi-official or dominant rhetoric (are all ethnic postcards only on Arabs?). Visually, he fmds a pattern, in Israeli postcards, ofhappy sovereign Jews vs. dignified dominated Arabs. Is it really all grins and "Hava Nagilah" in cards depicting the Jewish camp? Is it only Charedi or Oriental Jews who are advertising toothpaste in all postcards? It boils down to his thrust to denounce, in the facial expressions he detects in postcards, the evidence of (and at a time the plot to mask) "a most telling metonymy of the political as well as symbolic domination of Jews over Arabs in contemporary Israel" (p. 210). The relatively quite bland phrase (and mind you: possibly a true insight) quoted here, in its original context is related to a postcard that shows falafel balls in half a pitta, with a small Israeli flag stuck in a ball on the left. Not that the essay is' overly original. It takes a theory on ideologically biased American images ofNative Americans and tries to apply it to the Zionist villain (with all this author's...