A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward [Hardcover]

Alana Newhouse (Editor), Pete Hamill (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 17, 2007

The finest photographic account of Jewish life in America.

This extraordinary volume features classic photographs of the history one has learned to associate with the Forward—Lower East Side pushcarts, Yiddish theater, labor rallies—along with gems no one would expect. The premiere national Jewish newspaper has opened up its never-before-seen archives, revealing a photographic landscape of Jews in the twentieth century and beyond. From shtetl beauty contests and matchmakers caught mid-deal to the streets of the New World; from diaspora communities and mandate Palestine to the Holocaust, the Soviet Jewry movement, and the emergence of Jewish suburbia; from Paul Muni and Barbra Streisand to Woody Allen and Madonna—this book is a kaleidoscopic array of modern Jewish life. Original essays are included by leading intellectuals and historians, including Leon Wieseltier, J. Hoberman, Roger Kahn, and Deborah E. Lipstadt, plus an introduction by Pete Hamill. A great gift book in the tradition of Roman Vishniac's A Vanished World and Frederic Brenner's Diaspora: Homelands in Exile. 531 duotone photographs

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Founded in 1897, the Jewish-American newspaper the Forward was in its heyday of the 1920s a powerhouse daily Yiddish newspaper with a larger circulation than the New York Times. Drawn from a treasure trove of 40,000 photos, the pre-1925 pictures are the most gripping here, depicting New York's pushcart-teeming Lower East Side, soldiers in the czar's army celebrating a seder, Polish pogrom victims, and men who deserted their families in America—printed to aid in tracking them down. Pictures from 1926 through 1945 show Yiddish theater's "royal" couple, Bessie and Boris Thomashefsky; a Jewish portrait artist sketching Mussolini; and an emaciated Jewish orphan being rescued from an Auschwitz crematorium by former Jewish inmates after the Nazis' retreat. Later decades show Bess Myerson, the first Jewish Miss America, and Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, but also a disturbing 1986 visual of a neo-Nazi computer game. Notable recent photos depict a New Orleans synagogue that was flooded after Katrina, and a Kraków souvenir stand offering yarmulkes and wooden klezmer figures, emblematic of the 1990s preoccupation with all things Jewish in European areas where Jews were largely exterminated in WWII. Gathered by Forward arts & culture editor Newhouse, this is a worthy, provocative group portrait of modern Jewish life in all its misery and glory. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The Jewish daily Forward was founded in 1897. Published in Yiddish, by the 1920s it was selling around 250,000 copies a day. When it moved in 1974 from New York City's Lower East Side to East Thirty-third Street, its 40,000-strong photography collection was transferred to a storage room. The selection of photos published here chronicles the story of the newspaper and more than a century of Jewish life: scenes of Lower East Side pushcarts, Yiddish theater, labor rallies, Jewish peddlers and merchants, village beauty contests, and matchmakers. Settings include not only New York but also Warsaw, Tel Aviv, Cracow, and rural areas of the Carpathian region of eastern Europe. Shots include such celebrated figures as Barbra Streisand, Woody Allen, Al Jolson, Paul Muni, and Emma Goldman. All 531 duotones are augmented by essays by noted historians such as Deborah Lipstadt and an introduction by Pete Hamill. An illustrious photographic journey through Jewish life. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (April 17, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393062694
• ISBN-13: 978-0393062694
• Product Dimensions: 12.3 x 9.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #542,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Leftist Jews Carry On the Tradition for All Immigrants!, May 13, 2007

By 

John N. Kennedy (New York, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward (Hardcover)

The Forward captured and related news for the new Jewish immigrants, and for some of them not so recent, in both a special political and social way.

Obviously, with my name as a Christian Irishman, I did not live the experience, but my significant other grew up in the rare environment of a Leftist (read, Socialist) community in the Bronx that continues to enrich the American political experience, as well as the peculiarly American, secular Jewish experience.

As a fourth-generation Irish-American, I am obviously somewhat removed from immigrant issues. On the other hand, the family oral tradition very strongly pointed out why my ancestors fled Ireland during the potatoe famine of the mid 1840's and how English political suppression of the Irish led to my family's connection to events in today's Ireland.

This book, specifically the photos and 'back stories', enable all of us of whatever immigrant background to re-live some specific moments in the American immigrant past that led to the building of a great community and to our country, whatever its faults.

While new immigrants arrive from the Caribbean, Africa, Eastern Europe, India, etc., and have their own stories to tell with their own ethnic language newspapers, The Forward will continue to stand as a model of 1) helping new immigrants adjust to their new homeland; 2) keeping them informed of news of their former homeland(s); 3) providing advice as to how to adjust to their new land. These are, perhaps, timeless topics in helping new immigrants adjust to their new land and circumstances.

The book and photos should serve as a rich tribute to striving immigrants of whatever religion, regional, or racial background to show how almost every new arrival wants to 'fit in' and contribute. Maybe this book, in some small way, will add a few "positives" to the current, embarrasing, and rediculous controvery over immigration.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seeing Jewish history as it was, December 24, 2007

By 

Benjamin B. Sims - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward (Hardcover)

A Living Lens is a wonderful collection of photographs that not only demonstrate everyday life of Jews throughout the United States but it is accompanied by a rich text authored by witnesses to this history. Of all the photography books about the Jews of the 19th and 20th centuries thids one ranks at the top. A must see and read.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life From the Pages of The Forward, May 12, 2007

By 

Stan Oliner "Stan Oliner" (Denver, Colorado) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Living Lens: Photographs of Jewish Life from the Pages of the Forward (Hardcover)

A delightful, hefty volume that shows photographs from the past 110 years of both The Forverts (in Yiddish) and The Forward (English) newspapers of New York City. How amazing that this photo archive was not discarded in an economy move of "old stuff."