A Medium’s Holy Grail

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

“By and large, photography operates as a secular medium,” a New York critic and teacher of photography, Max Kozloff, wrote in an article about the role of photography in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Mr. Kozloff’s statement is true. The medium does not seem to lend itself to religious expression the way music and poetry do, perhaps because music is so apt for dealing with the ineffable, and poetry for discussing abstractions and elevated thoughts. The other plastic arts, painting and sculpture, are more capable of handling overtly religious themes, as even a brief visit to the Renaissance section of any creditable museum will show: Gold-leaf halos are placed around the heads of ordinary humans to idealize them into saints, wings are added for angels, and miracles are easily accomplished. But photography can occasionally be put to religious uses, as illustrated by three current exhibitions at the Center for Jewish History.

The American Sephardi Federation, one of the constituent organizations of the CJH, has up “The Historic Synagogues of Turkey,” photographs by Devon Jarvis, curated by Joel A. Zack. The 51 handsome color prints on display are a small part of the 3,000 pictures Mr. Jarvis took in 1996 in an effort to document the large and small synagogues of Turkey, many of which were no longer in use and were falling into decay. In the heyday of the Turkish Empire, successive sultans had invited Jews to settle in Turkey where their talents were put to use and their communities thrived: Over the last century, emigration has left only Istanbul (20,000) and Izmir (2,000) with significant Jewish populations. The abandoned synagogues, no less than those still in service, are important examples of both Jewish and Turkish culture, as Mr. Jarvis’s images make clear.

The interiors of many of these synagogues are quite magnificent, incorporating architectural details from classical and Islamic models, and decorated with Oriental lavishness. The colors painted on the walls and ceilings, and woven into the various hangings and rugs, hint at the vivid ceremonial customs of the Sephardim.

Mr. Jarvis has the technical skill necessary to translate large three-dimensional spaces into comprehensible two-dimensional photographs, and a talent for the delicate rendering of ritual artifacts. “Synagogue, c. 1890, Antakya (Antioch) Detail of Seferi Torah” shows five Torah scrolls in their highly ornamented cylindrical boxes with intricate silver finials on each of the handles. The use of soft natural light preserves the rich color of the boxes, the dull sheen of the silver, and the modeling that give these historic objects a sense of physical specificity. One sees they are worn, but feels they are still cherished.

The Yeshiva University Museum, also housed at the CJH, is presenting “Rejoicing in Tsfat and Meron: Capturing the Fervor: Photography by Win Robins” and “Mehitzah: Seen by Women: A Photographic Essay by Myriam Tangi, Paris, France.”

The ancient Greeks had dithyrambic bacchantes prancing around their pottery urns in neat patterns, and El Greco showed spiritual ecstasy in his paintings by elongating body parts and using dramatic lighting, but religious fervor is not well served by fill flash. Mr. Robins’s 11-inch-by-17-inch color pictures of Hasidic men dancing, all taken in Israel between 2005 and 2007, make clear what is happening, but the lighting flattens the images without establishing any visual rhythm. Shadows, even at the expense of lost detail, might have preserved some of the emotion and a more firmly established a sense of place.

“Dance With Whistle — Hasidim carrying on at Lag Ba’omer in Meron” is a mass of young, black-hatted Hasidim in a sort of sanctified mosh pit. The one on the far right is seen in profile and has a witless smile, while the one next to him seems bemused. The younger one in the middle seems terrified, the one next to him entranced, and the one on the far left has a pale green plastic whistle in his mouth. The even lighting assigns equal importance to each of them, and there is something derisive about the picture as a whole. Is this what Mr. Robins intended? In “Virtuoso performance during Hakkafo Sh’niot in the Breslaver Synagogue,” a handsome young man in a white blouse and a fur shtreimel dances with his hands over his head and his eyes shut. Here, the intent of the picture seems clear, but the flash blanches the image, depriving it of drama and the hint of obscurantism that would be appropriate. This sort of lighting is used in advertising to display details of the merchandise and, if the extent of Mr. Robins’s ambition was solely to be documentary, it would be appropriate here. But, as it stands, one feels more could have been made of the material.

The 12 8-inch-by-10-inch black-and-white pictures in Ms. Tangi’s exhibition depict scenes in Orthodox synagogues in Paris and Jerusalem taken from behind the mehitzah, the screen that separates the women’s section from the men’s. In “Tsedaka (Charity) Collection for Purim, Tephilat Israel Synagogue, Paris” (2007), a woman stretches to put a contribution in the collection box held by a male arm thrust through a divide in the lace curtain. In “Zahor LeAvraham Synagogue, Pisgat Ze’ev, Jerusalem” (2006), the camera looks down from the women’s balcony on the service being celebrated by the men below; because the camera is close to it, the edge of the dividing screen is blurred. In “At the Kotel, Jerusalem, Israel” (1991), the arm of a very young girl reaches up the side of a wooden mehitzah so that her fingertips just barely make contact with an adult male hand draped over the top. In all of Ms. Tangi’s pictures, the sense of separation is painful.

wmmeyers@nysun.com

“The Historic Synagogues of Turkey” at the American Sephardi Federation through December 31. “Rejoicing in Tsfat and Meron: Capturing the Fervor: Photography by Win Robins” through February 24.

“Mehitzah: Seen by Women: A Photographic Essay by Myriam Tangi, Paris, France” through January 13 (15 W. 16th St., between Fifth and Sixth avenues, 212-294-8330).


The New York Sun

© 2025 The New York Sun Company, LLC. All rights reserved.

Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The material on this site is protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used.

The New York Sun

Sign in or  Create a free account

or
By continuing you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use