Arabs and Jews

Photographs by Helmar Lerski

Portrait photographer Helmar Lerski traveled to Palestine for the first time in 1931. Before his departure he had persuaded French publisher Charles Peignot to support his book project «Visages Juifs.» With a series of photographs, Lerski wanted to capture what is «typically Jewish» in faces. Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winner in 1921, wrote to him: «...We want to vividly capture what we mean and feel when we say ‹WE›... May the artist succeed in his difficult undertaking.»
In Palestine, Lerski photographed only outdoors, taking advantage of the sunlight. He portrayed Jewish men and women from a great number of countries, especially the «Mizrahim», Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. The Zionist vision of a modern, dynamic Jewish immigrant generation did not interest him much, he was fascinated by Oriental Judaism. In the new photo series, he devoted far more space to them than to the newly immigrated Jews from Europe, because he was searching for their «origin».
After the Nazis seized power in Germany, Lerski remained in Palestine. Having taken pictures of over 500 people he realized that the Arabs he photo­graphed could also be mistaken for Jews, and that these photographs fit into his series of Jewish men and women photographed in Palestine. The photo­grapher realized that his attempt to depict the «archetypal Jew» was doomed to failure. He now called the entire series «Arabs and Jews. » For Lerski, it became a work of international unification, his hope for peaceful coexistence in Palestine.