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| Israel, 50 Years: As Seen by Magnum Photographers
     
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Hardcover
256 pages
Aperture
Published 1998
Amazon.com
Magnum, the international documentary photographers' cooperative, was established in 1947, just one year before the founding of Israel. Two of the most famous Magnum originators, Robert Capa and David Seymour, were Jewish American TmigrTs from Central Europe; they took a special interest in the new state. This anniversary volume, organized by decade and interspersed with written observations by the photographers who were there, is an unflinching record of Israel's first 50 years. The pictures are truly historic: Menachem Begin in 1948, making a passionate speech, is caught with his fist in the air by Capa; in 1951 a baby named Miriam, the first child of a new Jewish settler, is depicted in her Italian baptismal robe; pools of blood congeal in a Jewish classroom; terrified Arab waifs cringe at the approach of Israeli troops; and a beautiful bride marrying a man with a furrowed brow is captured on film by the mischievous Elliott Erwitt in 1962. These are but five of the terribly moving pictures of "the hardest place one can live," as Seymour wrote in 1948. But, he added, "the young sing at night, and even the old ones talk about the future."
From Booklist
Members of Magnum, a photographers' cooperative formed in 1947, have courageously and sensitively documented major world events, including the birth and growing pains of Israel. Their vital photographs go far beyond headlines and sound bites to delve into the very soul of the nation, a state created by sheer willpower in a barren land by a people subjected to the most systematically brutal form of genocide ever conceived and perpetrated. The determination that defines Israel is apparent in... read more |
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