WO
041
"I came from a family that
did not believe in any formal
religion," she said. "My
parents had a socialist bent.
[The children] were sent to
kinder shul and learned
Yiddish and Jewish history.
We were progressives."
It wasn't until her fresh-
man year at the University
of Arizona that she began to
explore her Jewish heritage
— taking classes at a tem-
ple, getting confirmed and
"reading everything I
could" about Judaism.
After a bachelor's degree
in education and graduate
work in photojournalism,
she received a master's de-
gree from the Brooks Insti-
tute of Photography in San-
ta Barbara in 1984.
While earning her degrees,
she combined her growing
interest in Judaism with her
training in photography.
"In Jerusalem, on
my last day, it was
a Saturday night at
the Wall and I knew
it was a card."
Weinstock spent several
months researching the
greeting card industry.
With an initial investment
of $50,000, she hired a secre-
tary and a network of in-
dependent sales representa-
tives and arranged to turn
her photographs into
greeting cards.
By May 1987, she had a
brochure and a booth at an
important stationery show
in New York. There were 44
designs, but no printed
cards.
However, by the end of
that year, customers had
purchased 15,000 cards for
sales of $10,000. Sales have
increased each year.
She expects to gross be-
tween $50,000 and $80,000
this year on sales of more
than 100,000 cards. Ms.
Weinstock said her company
should break even this year
and see a profit in 1992.
To allow her business the
time and capital to grow, she
sold about a quarter of Carol
Weinstock & Associates Inc.
(doing business as
EthnoGraphics) to outside
investors.
—Carol Weinstock
(
She photographed Jews in
Israel, Egypt, Ethiopia,
Ireland and the South-
western United States. She
also developed a Holocaust
curriculum for the Tucson
(Arizona) Unified School
District. And in 1981, she
went to Jerusalem and pho-
tographed the World Gath-
ering of Jewish Holocaust
Survivors for Arizona news-
papers.
In late 1986, the Tucson
congregation to which Ms.
Weinstock belonged got a
new Torah. To raise money
and celebrate the event, they
asked her to produce a pho-
tograph to depict the pass-
ing of knowledge.
People suggested by the
congregation were not right
for the photo, Ms.
Weinstock recalled. "Then I
walked into the chapel and
there was Meyer Neuman, a
Holocaust survivor, reading
the Torah with his grand-
son" by his side.
She photographed them
recreating the scene the next
day. Soon after, the man's
wife, Susie Neuman, saw
more of Ms. Weinstock's
work and suggested making
the photographs into
greeting cards.
Ms. Weinstock was a so-
cial documentary photogra-
pher teaching college. She
had no business experience.
But she liked Mrs.
Neuman's idea. So Ms.
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Meanwhile Mr. Neuman
and his grandson's scene has
become a card for birthdays
and Father's Day.
Now that business is look-
ing up, Ms. Weinstock
wants "to get back out there
doing some photography."
Already in the works are
trips to Spain and Portugal
and to Israel to photograph
newly arrived Ethiopian
Jews.
Usually she sees an inci-
dent that would make a
good card — like an
animated preschooler blow-
ing a small shofar — and
then makes that scene into a
posed photograph. Many of
her subjects are members of
her synagogue, Reform
Congregation B'nai B'rith in
Santa Barbara — including
her two children.
But when she travels, her
camera is always with her.
"In Jerusalem, on my last
day, it was a Saturday night
at the Wall and I knew it
was a card," she remem-
bered. "It turned out to be
my most popular Rosh
Hashanah and Passover
card."
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❑
NEWS)
Last Bucharest Flights
Create Concern
SHAFER B. STOLLMAN
Special to The Jewish News
B
ucharest, Romania —
"Don't even say it,"
said Eli Izhaky when
I told him that I had been
sent by the Jewish Agency to
watch the last flight of Jews
from Bucharest before the
new Soviet passport law goes
into effect.
The law requires that as of
July 1 all emigrating Soviet
Jews have passports rather
than the traditional exit
visas. The law catapulted
60,000 Soviet Jews, who had
already received exit visas, in-
to instant panic. Some would
beat the deadline but most
would reenter a bureaucratic
quagmire in an effort to ob-
tain passports.
Mr. Izhaky is director of the
Bucharest transit - station,
which is one of four stations
in Eastern Europe for Soviet
Jews to pass through on their
way to Israel.
Personnel at all the stations
are over-worked and over-
pressured. But Mr. Izhaky's
reputation for obsessive con-
cern for the emigres and their
trifling belongings has left
him with an especially large
number of nervous charges.
Realizing the symbolism of
objects that represent a life
left behind, Mr. Izhaky says,
"For these people their bags
are the bridge between the
past and the future. They
have to be handled as careful-
ly as the people themselves?"
Yigal Shneidman, 19, was
one who was able, with his
carefully handled baggage, to
catch the last flight out.
Yigal, fluent in Hebrew and
a trained nurse, is leaving
behind his mother, who is a
chemist, and his father, a
Hebrew teacher.
If disgruntled by the sudden
family good-byes, Yigal is
quite realistically looking for-
ward to a bright future in
Israel.
In a sense, the Landbergs
from Kishinev are luckier. All
16 members of the family
managed to barely meet the
deadline to board one of the
last planes out. Despite their
exhaustion and Herculean ef-
forts to organize themselves,
they later sat on the plane
debating whether their
relatives would be on hand to
greet them and take them
home to Ashkelon. Others,
like 37-year-old Lunia
Blausman, a watchmaker,
were less concerned about
their Israeli destinations.
Shrugging, he says, "I'll just
choose where I'm going by
closing my eyes and putting
my finger on a map.''
WISHING ALL OF
OUR CUSTOMERS
AND FRIENDS
A HEALTHY,
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Bloomfield Hills
Hair Removal Clinic
wishes ad their clients
a Happy Rosh Hashanah!
I
Present this coupon and receive I
$5.00 off Any Procedure!
Expires October 1, 1991
I
a
One Coupon Per Customer
❑
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
81