Photos capture numbers and words of Nazis’  Final Solution

By Kirk Silsbee
Published on August 20, 2008

A selection of 52 color digital images from Ehrlich's documentation of Nazi bureaucracy from Hitler's Final Solution will be on display in "The Holocaust Archive Revealed" at the Craig Krull Gallery in Santa Monica beginning Tuesday

The photographer who defined urban L.A.

By Tom Teicholz
Published on November 15, 2007

An appreciation of Julius Shulman, the still much-in-demand architectural photographer famous for his photos of Modernist homes, who turned 97 a few weeks ago.

Books: Witness to horrors

By Rob Eshman
Published on April 26, 2007

At first glance, "Testimony" (Aperture, $40) looks like an innocent-enough coffee table book of Israel-themed photographs. Thumb through the first few pages and you'll see examples of photographer Gillian Laub's excellent portraiture. Each color image is accompanied by a simple enough quote from the subject, an Arab or Jew sharing the same bit of the Holy Land.

‘Living Lens’ celebrates 110 years of The Forward in pictures

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on April 19, 2007

The New York Post may be the oldest continuously operating daily publication in the United States, but The Forward, which began publication in 1897 during the waves of Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe, was the first paper in this country to have a national readership. In its heyday, the Yiddish- language daily, once known as The Forverts, had a larger circulation than even The New York Times.

Public Reactions Are Strong to A Personal Journey

By Orit Arfa
Published on August 31, 2006

Los Angeles photographer Naomi Solomon capped off her informal summer presentation series "Settlers: A Photographic Journey of the Life and Disengagement of the Jews Living in Gaza" at Nessah Synagogue in Beverly Hills last week, drawing more than 150 people.

Avoid an Oops in Shooting Your Video

By David Notowitz
Published on April 13, 2006

Whether you're trying to capture a wedding, b'nai mitzvah or 50th anniversary celebration, the day will come and go whether you're ready for it or not. Unless you're prepared, the opportunity to capture family history can easily slip through your fingers.

The Faces of War From Israel to Africa

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on March 9, 2006

Upcoming Photographic exhibitions.

Actor’s Missing Dad Takes Center Stage

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on August 25, 2005

In his raw, autobiographical monologue, "Who Is Floyd Stearn?" actor Michael Raynor struts onstage with a swagger reminiscent of James Caan. Raynor, playing himself, jabs a finger at a faded photograph.
The photo was taken on 185th Street in Queens, on his grandmother's lawn. In the photo, an athletic, brawny man embraces a 3-year-old. The man is Raynor's father, Floyd Stearn. The smiling boy is young Michael, who clutches a toy banjo, his blond bangs peeking out from a cowboy hat.

Raynor tells the audience that, even at 40, he cannot discuss the photo; should anyone pressure him, he angrily departs.

"Every time I see the picture I cry," he adds quietly. "That's why I can't look at it. I see the happiness in my face, and it scares me. I'm hoping it won't go away."

Israelis Sue Over Sept. 11 Arrests

By Uriel Heilman
Published on September 23, 2004

Paul Kurzberg, an Israeli from Pardess Hanna, was in the office of his New Jersey moving company on Sept. 11, 2001, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

Like many Israeli movers in the New York area, Kurzberg, who was in his late 20s, was not legally authorized to work in the United States. But on Sept. 11, that thought was distant from his mind as he and his friends piled into a company van after the second plane hit the World Trade Center to find a better vantage point to photograph the historic terrorist attack.

It proved to be a critical mistake.

Gerda Straus Mathan

Published on September 16, 2004

Gerda Straus Mathan, a well-respected, Berkeley-based photographer of Jewish and other subjects who studied with Ansel Adams and lived for a time in Southern California, died Aug. 10 following a long illness. She was 83.

Helnwein ‘Epiphany’ Afflicts Comfortable

By Mitchell Waxman
Published on July 22, 2004

In contemporary artist Gottfried Helnwein's painting, "Epiphany I," an Aryan Madonna-like figure sits holding a naked, uncircumcised new born boy, while some SS officers stand around her, critically sizing up mother and child. The painting is a reproduction of a Nazi propaganda photograph in which Hitler was the central figure; here in the painting, the mother is.

"Epiphany I: Adoration of the Magi," one of five works by Helnwein currently on exhibit at the Schmeidler-Goetz gallery in West Hollywood, is not the first work of art to explore an uncomfortable subject like the Holocaust.

7 Days In Arts

Published on November 20, 2003

7 Days In The Arts

Mom, Can We Keep Him?

By Rachel Brand
Published on November 7, 2002

If your kids are out of the house and you're experiencing empty-nest syndrome, how about considering adoption?

Mother of Invention

By Jane Ulman
Published on May 10, 2001

The photographs from my son Gabe's bar mitzvah sit on my dining room table, waiting to be ordered.

His bar mitzvah took place more than a year ago.

The handpainted needlepoint canvas that I am stitching for my husband's 50th birthday remains unfinished. Never mind that he's now 51.

I am fundamentally a responsible and organized human being.

I am also the mother of four sons -- ages 10, 12, 14 and 17.

"How do you manage?" my cousin Lexy asks. She is overwhelmed with one daughter.

"Some days not very well," I answer.

Particularly days in which I try to write about being a mother. This column, for example, represents my umpteenth attempt.

Tragedy or Exploitation?

By Helen Schary Motro
Published on March 1, 2001

The photograph of the Palestinian father cradling his terrified son moments before the boy was killed in Gaza this fall was viewed live on television and reproduced on the front pages of newspapers around the globe. Like the photograph of the boy with hands raised standing in the Warsaw Ghetto, nobody who saw desperate Jamal Al-Durrah vainly trying to shield 12-year-old Mohammed can ever forget the terror in their eyes.

Tough Jews

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on November 9, 2000

As twilight descended upon the forest of Ponar, Rich Cohen gazed upon the green canyons where the Vilna Jews died in the Shoah. He took photographs of the treetops, thinking of a survivor who had stared at the same trees while feigning death in one of the mass graves. "I knew that the roots of everything growing were in ashes," says Cohen, the 32-year-old author of the Jewish-gangster tome, "Tough Jews."

Etz Jacob: The Shul that Could

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on December 4, 1997

Attention,anyone who was ever married or bar mitzvahed at Etz Jacob Congregation at 7659 Beverly Blvd.: The shul wants testimonials, photographs and memorabilia for an exhibit honoring its 80thanniversary. The temple is the oldest in Beverly-Fairfax, and, according to Rabbi Rubin Huttler, it's in large part responsible for creating the Jewish enclave around Fairfax Avenue.