Photographing the Jewish Nation: Pictures from S. An-sky's Ethnographic Expeditions

by Eugene M. Avrutin (Editor), Valerii Dymshits (Editor), Alexander Ivanov (Editor)

From 1912 to 1914, S. An-sky and the photographer Solomon Iudovin gathered materials and took photographs of Jewish daily life in pre-Revolutionary Russia’s Pale of Settlement. Photographing the Jewish Nation offers English-language readers their first look at over 170 extraordinary, recently rediscovered photographs from their expeditions. The pictures provide visual texture―in remarkable detail―that rarely appears in written sources. This volume includes a critical introduction and five chapters that document all aspects of Jewish life inside the Pale, including work, education, and religious and cultural traditions.

Genres: Jewish

228 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2009

Reviews

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

The photographs in this book are amazing. Very rarely, do glimpses of pre-Holocaust Jewish life appear. The images are mostly crisp and clear, and they do capture An-sky and cohort's goal of showing "the world" what shtetl life is like.

This book is great for genealogists, as well as anthropologists, social scientists, historians, and other interested in Jewish of the earlier part of the 20th century.