Jewry's Role in
Human Affairs

MASTERS OF PHOTOGRAPHY - II
The first notable Jewish American photographer, Solomon Carvalho,
served with General John C. Fremont's fifth expeditionary survey of the Far
West in 1853, and was also a portrait painter of stature. Not until the recent
mid-Twenties did another Jew rise to importance in the profession--Erich
Salomon, a German who originated documentary, candid photography with
the newly invented 35 millimeter camera.
Thereafter, the founding of Life magazine in 1936, and the
emergence of Time and Look, sent out a call answered by many talented
Jewish photojournalists whose pictures blazed a indelible record of their
times. Among them were Eliot Elisofon, Bernard Hoffman, Dmitri
And, one of history's most
Kessel, Ralph Morse and Philippe Halsman.
Joe
Rosenthal of the U.S.
memorable combat photos was snapped by
Marine flag raising on Iwo Jima's Mt. Suribachi. Several others preceded
them:
ALFRED EISENSTAEDT
b. West Prussia The widely
(1896-1995)
acknowledged father of photojournalism turned
professional at age 28, ten years after his
discharge from the German army with serious war
wounds. Eisenstaedt was caught up in the
excitement of his homeland's fast growing news
medium: documentary candid photography
pioneered by his colleague, Erich Salomon. His
arresting work saw print in many European pictorial magazines, featuring
dramatic events such as the nonstop flight of the Graf Zeppelin to Brazil,
the Ethiopian-Italian battlefront and the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.
Escaping the Holocaust in 1935, he joined the staff of the newborn
as
one
of its first four photographers. With the magazine as his
Life
showcase (more than 2,500 photo stories and ninety covers) he became one
of the most respected and influential photographers in the nation.
Eisenstaedt was equally gifted as a photo portraitist whose strong, formal
compositions of celebrities are immortal classics: Albert Einstein, John F.
Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, T.S. Eliot and Bertrand Russell are among
them. Explaining his technique behind the camera, he credited his success
to instinct: being in the right place at the right time, and finding and
catching the storytelling moment. His forty-year personal odyssey as a
(1966), was followed by several
photographer, Witness to Our Time
acclaimed anthologies and an autobiography, The Eye of Eisenstaedt (1969)

MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE
1906-71) b. New York City Half-Jewish by
birth, she paced Eisenstaedt's steps as another of
first four photographers and
Life's
photojournalists, and a chronicler on film of world
affairs from the Thirties through the Sixties.
Bourke-White was among the originators of the
photo-essay which she progressively evolved after
entering the field as an architectural and industrial
photographer for Fortune magazine. Before the outbreak of World War
Two, she toured the USSR by camera and produced two impressive
documentary films: Eyes on Russia and Red Republic.
In collaboration with novelist Erskine Caldwell, who she met in
1935, Bourke-White issued three outstanding photo-eSsays on American
and pre-war European themes. The couple's marriage in 1939 dissolved
four years later. As the first woman accredited as an armed forces photog-
rapher, she flew in combat, survived a deadly torpedo attack and followed
American infantrymen in close range during their struggle up the Italian
boot. Later, Bourke-White captured the heart-wrenching scenes of Nazi
savagery after the death camps were liberated--for many, hers were the
pictures that shocked the world.
A critical review of her lifetime's work finds an astute and socially
concerned artist with a highly personal photographic style whose examples
are displayed in many museums. Stricken with Parkinson's disease in 1952,
she devoted her last years chiefly to writing, but always \.\ , ithin arm's reach
of her camera.
- Saul Stadtmauer

7/23
1999

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18 Detroit Jewish News

Ancient Ilistory
Anew

GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Jerusalem

n July 15, 900 years ago, the
first Crusaders conquered
Jerusalem, plunging the city
•
into a bloodbath.
"Men rode in blood up to their
knees and bridle reins," wrote a
Crusader eyewitness. "Indeed, it was
a just and splen-
did judgment of
God that this
900
place should be
filled with the
blood of the
unbelievers,
since it had suf-
feted so long
from their blas-
II
phemies.
Arabs and
Jews were
slaughtered together. Yet some mod-
ern-day Arab historians, politicians
and clergymen are using this legacy
as a further wedge between the peo-
pies, equating Zionists with the con-
querors of nearly a millennium ago.
The Crusades lasted from the 11th
to the 13th centuries, when nobles led
armies from across Europe in holy
wars aimed at taking the Holy Land
from the Muslims or at repelling their
various counterattacks.
The Christian faithful who heeded
.
Pope Urban II's call in 1095 to con-
quer the "infidels" attached ,c to their
• ,,
outer oarments
crosses — croises or
b
,. crociati" in local tongues — from

which came the name "Crusaders."
In the Holy Land, the Crusades
resulted in repeated slaughters of Jews
and Muslims. In Europe, they led to
repeated acts of anti-Semitic savagery.
No one knows for sure how many
people were killed in Jerusalem on
July 15, 1099.
Estimates range from between
3,000 to 70,000, including Muslims
and Jews. The Jews tried to find

local synagogue;
the Muslims
gathered at the
Al-Aksa
Mosque. The
invaders set fire
to both holy
sites.
As they look
_/
back over the
centuries, many
Arabs recall with
pride how in 1187 the great Muslim
warrior aladin struck a devastating
blow to she Crusaders, who had
believed they were in the Holy Land to
stay. And these Arabs hope a similar fate
governing Israe l.
will befall those
"Th A b have leaned on the
,--/
h ill e that the fate of
past wits
a the w that that o f the
the Cruders
Zionists," said Professor Ben-Zion
Kedar of the Hebrew University, an
expert on the Crusades. "This is an
attempt to use the past in order to
hardly a
p
e e t but it is hardly
present,
mold
historic study."
The significance of Saladin's victory
over the Crusaders cannot be overesti- C—/

years later,
Arab memories of
Crusades shape a
view of Zionism.

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Prince Albrecht Zu
Castell-Castell, center,
a descendant of Prince
n n in
aCrus ,4,„ ader
woig i La na
L
thieldH
embraces
• Mamka, a descendant
of Saladin, the Nfuslirn
warrior who recaptured
Jerusalem from the
Christian Crusaders in
1187, at a 7'neeting in
east Jerusalem July 15.
At left. is Musa Seder;
also a descendant
of Saladin.

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