black background for striking
effect. Robert Frank also did
not want to be photographed
but, after they found rapport in
conversation, he agreed to have
Wolin photograph his desk. As
she was working, he walked right
into the frame and she captured
the moment. He was surprised,
but agreed to let her use it. Her
photo includes his desk, with rel-
ics of his travels, framed photos,
a magnifying glass, an unopened
bottle of wine and half of him —
his face in profile — at the edge.
Several of the photographers
have been shooting since they
were very young. Peter Aaron,
who got a Nikon F for his bar
mitzvah, tells her, “Even though I
don’t associate with the religion,
when I am in the company of
Jews I feel like I am closer to
home.”
Jason Eskenazi believes “there’s
something about Jews picking up
cameras. Though I take pictures
in the physical world, it’s really
about self-reflection; the inquiry
of knowing oneself that Jews
have made for so many millen-
nia.”
Abe Frajndlich, who was
born in a DP camp, credits all
the years he spent moving from
country to country, adapting
to different languages and cul-
tures, to enabling him now, as a
photographer, to walk into any
situation, encounter people “and
immediately get into their fre-

quency to win their trust.”
In some cases, the photog-
raphers Wolin was interested
in were deceased, and she met
with family members of Walter
Rosenblum, Nickolas Murray,
Garry Winogrand and others.
She also names other pho-
tographers who, despite her
persistence, chose not to par-
ticipate, like Lee Friedlander,
Sylvia Plachy and the families
of Richard Avedon and Carl
Mydans. And, understanding
that there are so many leading
“photographers of Jewish ances-
try,” whether photojournalists,
fine artists, portraitists, fashion
photographers or street photog-
raphers, she includes a further
list of names.
In an interview in New York
City, Wolin is careful about
her terminology, speaking not
of Jewish photographers, but
photographers with Jewish
backgrounds or ancestry. Many
of her subjects were ambivalent
about being identified as Jewish
photographers as they weren’t
practicing Jews, didn’t focus
on Jewish subjects and weren’t
comfortable with any label. But
as long as she steered clear of
religion and the notion of “a
Jewish eye,” they were intrigued
to participate.
“For me the work is semi-
autobiographical,” she writes. “I
am a Jewish photographer pho-
tographing other photographers

of Jewish ancestry. We all intently
question and answer what we
see before us. And one way or
another, we continue to master
our Jewish American identities
as well as the continuing cultural
and technological revolution of
photography.”
Wolin doesn’t think there’s a
particular Jewish vision in the
work of these photographers,
but she does believe that there’s
something in their collective his-
tory of exile that motivates them
and enables them to observe
their surroundings deeply. “If we
look like our ancestors,” she asks,
“might we act like them, too,
with a certain muscle memory?
How does that experience affect
our abilities to be photographers,
to live on the edge of a host cul-
ture?”
“It is not a coincidence,” she
writes, “that Jews are attracted to
the alchemy of photography, and
that photography has found its
storytellers in Jews.”
She quotes the gallerist
Howard Greenberg, whose
eponymous New York gallery
specializes in photography:
“Photography has almost a genet-
ic appeal to the Jewish mind, the
universal Jewish culture.”
Wolin became interested in
photography while growing up in
Cheyenne, Wyo. She studied her
family’s subscription to Life mag-
azine, and with the heightened
sense of Jewish identity that often

accompanies small-town Jewish
life, she realized that many of the
photographers she admired were
Jewish. She went on to study
photography in California and
continued to notice how many
people whose work she was fol-
lowing were Jewish — and began
thinking about the connections
between Jewish roots and the
skills involved in photography.
In 1984, she began a proj-
ect documenting 150 years of
Jewish history in Wyoming, the
“Cowboy State.” She put together
a photographic book and exhibi-
tion, The Jews of Wyoming: Fringe
of the Diaspora.
Wolin, the recipient of grants
from the National Endowment
for the Arts and the National
Endowment for the Humanities,
has worked in commercial,
editorial and documentary pho-
tography. Her work is held in
the Smithsonian Institution and
museums around the country.
She divides her time between the
north and south of California,
Wyoming and New York. Her
self-portrait included here, shot
at the Dead Sea, captures her
vibrance.
Descendants of Light: American
Photographers of Jewish Ancestry
is a large-format, handsomely
designed book with photography
that’s beautiful and captivating;
readers will enjoy lingering in
these pages and in their ensuing
questions.

OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT:
Wolin’s first self-portrait,
age 10, Cheyenne, Wyo.

OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT:
A photo of Henry
Hollander’s
grandparents, circa
1925, with tefillin

ABOVE, LEFT:
A self-portrait of Wolin
in the Dead Sea

ABOVE, RIGHT:
Photographer Ryszard
Horowitz ended up
alone at Auschwitz
when he was 6. When
the camp was liberated
by the Red Army, a
film crew came with
them. “Later, my
mother happened to
see a newsreel of the
liberation and saw me
in it,“ he told Wolin.
“She demanded that the
projectionist give her
some frames of the film.
With this, she knew that
I was alive and found me
through an orphanage
in Krakow. I happen to
be lucky … many times
in my life.” The frames
of that footage are
included with Horowitz’s
portrait in Wolin’s book.

*

June 30 • 2016

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