{"id":36153,"date":"2021-01-29T03:54:32","date_gmt":"2021-01-29T11:54:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=36153"},"modified":"2021-01-27T13:44:47","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T21:44:47","slug":"gidals-photos-speak-volumes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2021\/01\/29\/gidals-photos-speak-volumes\/","title":{"rendered":"Gidal\u2019s photos speak volumes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal<\/em> lets the photos do most of the talking. And they speak strongly and with passion of a lively, bustling and diverse community, the vast majority of whom were killed in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf the 3.3 million Jewish residents of Poland before World War II, only 380,000 were still alive by 1945,\u201d notes the book\u2019s curator, local scholar, writer and philanthropist Yosef Wosk, in the preface. Wosk will help launch the release of Memories of Jewish Poland<\/em> on Feb. 11, in a \u201cprologue\u201d event of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, which opens Feb. 20. He also helped organize Invisible Curtain, the current exhibit of Gidal\u2019s work that is being co-presented by the festival with the Zack Gallery.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Yosef Wosk will launch the book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal on Feb. 11 at a virtual Jewish Book Festival event. (photo by Joshua Berson)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wosk was friends with Gidal, who he met in Jerusalem, where Gidal lived. Born in Munich in 1909, Gidal had made aliyah in 1936, but then lived in various places before returning to Jerusalem in 1970; he passed away in 1996. It was not only Gidal\u2019s dying wish that the 1932 Polish photos be published in book form, but that they be allowed to \u201cspeak for themselves.\u201d And that request has been honoured. In addition to Wosk\u2019s brief preface, the book opens with some notes written by Gidal for a 1984 exhibit and includes an introduction to Gidal\u2019s work by photography historian, researcher, author and curator Nissan N. Perez, founder of the Israel Museum\u2019s photography department. At the end, there is a list of the plates included in the book and a brief biography of Gidal. A map of Poland, indicating the locations in which the photos were taken, bookends the commentary and photographs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis book illustrates the largest number of photographs from Gidal\u2019s Polish photo essay ever assembled. It is not, however, a catalogue raisonn\u00e9: more than 20 images are not included,\u201d writes Wosk. The reproductions included in the volume are taken from prints in Wosk\u2019s collection and that of the Israel Museum. Wosk thanks Diane Evans, \u201cmaster teacher, photographer, bookseller and friend in photography,\u201d for serving \u201cas a patient, experienced and disciplined midwife in giving birth to this book.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gidal \u2013 born Ignaz Nachum Gidalawitsch \u2013 was motivated to travel to Poland \u201cby his desire to know more about his family\u2019s background,\u201d writes Perez. The photographs Gidal took were \u201cactually a rather small chapter of his oeuvre at the beginning of his outstanding career, an exercise in perfecting his vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gains the interest of the viewer not by staging elaborate scenes, but by capturing expressions and gestures that can only be described as both intimate and straightforward,\u201d explains Perez. \u201cAs he said in one of the many meetings conducted toward the exhibition in 1995, \u2018My photographs, I like to think, are variations on the everlasting tragicomedy of human life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a><\/p>\n

The images in Memories of Jewish Poland<\/em> are prime examples of Gidal\u2019s ability to capture images of life as it is happening, in all its unromantic but beautiful distinction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the heterogenous assembly of the Polish galut<\/em> (diaspora), I myself became immersed in the flow of Jewish life from the past to the future,\u201d wrote Gidal for the 1984 exhibit. \u201cWhen we left Poland after three weeks, I had passed through an invisible curtain, which had separated East and West. Now the curtain had opened, and I was made to feel the unifying presence of Jewry.\u201d<\/p>\n

A selection of Gidal\u2019s 1932 Polish photos is currently on display at the Zack Gallery (for the full story, click here<\/a>). The <\/em>Memories of Jewish Poland\u00a0book will be launched at a virtual Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival prologue event Feb. 11, 7 p.m. For tickets to the prologue and other Jewish Book Festival events, visit jccgv.com\/jewish-book-festival<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The book Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal lets the photos do most of the talking. And they speak strongly and with passion of a lively, bustling and diverse community, the vast majority of whom were killed in the Holocaust. \u201cOf the 3.3 million Jewish residents of Poland before World […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[4041,4242,53,940,2747,4582,20227,1434],"class_list":["post-36153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","tag-cherie-smith-jcc-jewish-book-festival","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-israel-museum","tag-photography","tag-poland","tag-tim-gidal","tag-yosef-wosk"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36153\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}