The Racialisation of Jews in Israeli Documentary Photography

Bibliographic Data

ID3621149
AuthorsNoa Hazan (Yahoo (United Kingdom), corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume31
Issue2
Pages161-182
Publication date2010-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Intercultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0725-6868 • E-ISSN: 1469-9540
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07256860903579079
OpenAlexW2087411505
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited11

This paper explores the visual codes for representing Jews of different origins in Israeli documentary photography in light of the role of photography in constructing the identity of Jewish communities in Israeli space and considering the lack of race discourse in Israel. It reviews the field of Israeli photography while analysing photographs taken in Israel in the 1950s and 1960s and then shows how racist visual codes are replicated in the present. The author argues that, although the concept of race as such does not come up in everyday and academic verbal discourse in Israel, and despite the fact that the State of Israel stresses racial equality in its Declaration of Independence, Israeli photography constructs visual codes that enable a visualisation of race. The discussion points out the dialectic dimension of race in photographs, as both an invented and a camouflaged element which should be attended to, but also as one which should be dismantled and presented as fraudulent and empty. This analysis takes place at the junction of photography, race and nationality in Israeli society. Keywords: Documentary PhotographyImmigrationIngathering of the ExilesMelting-Pot IdealMulticulturalismPolitics of IdentitiesRaceRacialisation Acknowledgements I would like to thank all of the photographers and the holders of the rights to the photographs for permitting me to use the photographs which appear in this paper. Despite my great efforts, I was not successful in locating holders of the rights for some of the photographs and I beg their pardon. Notes 1. Among these researchers are Yehouda Shenhav, who observed that the state manufactures contradictory patterns of citizenship and ethnicity, simultaneously containing and excluding the Eastern Jews from the Israeli collective, and EllaCitationShohat, who analysed the relationships between ethnic groups in Israel based on post-colonial theory and claimed that by seeking to present a uniform and Western Sabra (native Israeli) identity, the Zionist movement engaged in double oppression: first, of the Palestinians, and second, of Eastern Jews, by effacing different identities and cultural characteristics. 2. Even if ‘race’ did appear in the title of the exhibition, the works of art as well as their accompanying text did not touch upon the deciphering of racist visual codes in Israeli society. 3. For more information on the immigration waves, including numbers and dates in English, see the Israeli Ministry of Immigrant Absorption's website: http://www.studentsolim.gov.il/Moia_en/AboutIsrael/AliyaList.html 4. In her essay “Beyond Boundaries, Within Borders” Andy Grundberg argues that since its early days, photography in Palestine has been associated with the imperialist motivation of European pilgrims and travellers. In spite of changes in the content and technique of photography, transforming it from a tourist medium to a propaganda tool serving the various Zionist institutions, one can detect the orientalist gaze at the indigenous – obvious in nineteenth-century photos – in Israeli photographers’ views of Eastern Jews and Palestinian citizens of Israel to this day (CitationGrundberg 2–17). 5. Jackson criticises the argument that the category of race is a social and cultural construct and thus, it does not have to be studied as a distinct phenomenon. He maintains that race and racialism still exist and are both concealed in political and social fields and affect them. 6. New Racism is a new manifestation of traditional and familiar racism, which disguises the exclusion of certain groups while employing historical and anthropological claims. It is assimilated in discourse and visual representations while organising itself around symbols of otherness, such as names, skin colour or cultural and religious customs. The ruling motif in this type of racism is not biological heredity, but rather the rigidity of cultural gaps. This type of racism focuses on the damage incurred by the diffusion of boundaries between these groups and the incompatibility between different cultures and lifestyles. Balibar maintained that ‘new racism’ succeeds in bypassing biological and genetic naturalism, proving that culture may also function as nature does. Clark pointed out that despite attempts to renounce the division into races, the new racism also conceals biological markers and distinct inborn tendencies at its basis (32). 7. The ability to release a photograph from its initial meaning, undermining it and using it to create new meaning, is based on Ariella Azoulay's perception of the photographic document (in CitationAzoulay). 8. This link, identified by Roland CitationBarthes in Mythologies as mythical speech is created through the dialogue between the associative world outside the photographic frame and the photograph itself (59–109). Similarly, a link is established here between the Israeli establishment and eastern European Jewish culture. 9. In this matter, distinction should be made between the men and the women immigrants from the former USSR whose acceptance in Israeli society was not at all self-evident (CitationLemish 333–49). 10. For a discussion of whiteness and of hegemonic whiteness in recent years, see CitationDyer. Additional informationNotes on contributorsNoa Hazan Noa Hazan is a PhD student in the Department of Hermeneutics and Culture at Bar Ilan University, Israel. Her research deals with the representation of race in Israeli institutional and private photography. She lives and works in Tel Aviv

Aesthetics · Art · Declaration · Declaration of independence · Immigration · Nationality · Photography · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Visual arts · Visual culture · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Photography and Visual Culture

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