Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share David Shneer, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust” (Rutgers UP, 2010)
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
David Shneer, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust” (Rutgers UP, 2010)
We should be skeptical of what is sometimes called “Jew counting” and all it implies. Yet it cannot be denied that Jews played a pivotal and (dare we say) disproportionate role in moving the West from a pre-modern to a modern condition. Take the media. Most people know that Jews, though hardly alone, built much of the film industry. Fewer people will know, however, that Jews–again, though hardly alone–were central to the birth of photojournalism. Robert Capa, arguably the most famous photojournalist of the last century, was, for example, born Endre Friedmann.
In his fine book Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust (Rutgers University Press, 2010), historian David Shneer explores the ways in which Jews were instrumental in the creation of Soviet photojournalism and the ways in which their Jewishness–acknowledged or unacknowledged, accepted or completely rejected–affected the way they did their jobs and how they experienced what they saw and shot. The book is about identity as much as it is about photography (though it is about that as well). These pioneers of photojournalism were Jews whether they liked it or not. It said so on their passports. Yet they struggled with what that meant and how it should (or shouldn’t) influence their art. David does an excellent job in explaining how they negotiated Jewishness through revolution, socialism, Stalinism, world war, and the destruction of Eastern European Jewry itself.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
View all episodes
By Marshall Poe
4.3
3232 ratings
We should be skeptical of what is sometimes called “Jew counting” and all it implies. Yet it cannot be denied that Jews played a pivotal and (dare we say) disproportionate role in moving the West from a pre-modern to a modern condition. Take the media. Most people know that Jews, though hardly alone, built much of the film industry. Fewer people will know, however, that Jews–again, though hardly alone–were central to the birth of photojournalism. Robert Capa, arguably the most famous photojournalist of the last century, was, for example, born Endre Friedmann.
In his fine book Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust (Rutgers University Press, 2010), historian David Shneer explores the ways in which Jews were instrumental in the creation of Soviet photojournalism and the ways in which their Jewishness–acknowledged or unacknowledged, accepted or completely rejected–affected the way they did their jobs and how they experienced what they saw and shot. The book is about identity as much as it is about photography (though it is about that as well). These pioneers of photojournalism were Jews whether they liked it or not. It said so on their passports. Yet they struggled with what that meant and how it should (or shouldn’t) influence their art. David does an excellent job in explaining how they negotiated Jewishness through revolution, socialism, Stalinism, world war, and the destruction of Eastern European Jewry itself.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/genocide-studies
More shows like New Books in Genocide Studies
View all
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
3,993 Listeners
More or Less
884 Listeners
New Books in Philosophy
112 Listeners
History Extra podcast
3,190 Listeners
New Books in History
210 Listeners
New Books in Military History
161 Listeners
New Books in Economics
27 Listeners
New Books in Religion
30 Listeners
New Books in Psychoanalysis
185 Listeners
New Books in African American Studies
164 Listeners
New Books in Environmental Studies
23 Listeners
New Books in Native American Studies
103 Listeners
New Books in Intellectual History
61 Listeners
The Dig
1,570 Listeners
Secrets and Spies Podcast: Espionage | Global Issues | Current Affairs
269 Listeners
The Atlantic Interview
2,127 Listeners
WW2 Pod: We Have Ways of Making You Talk
1,377 Listeners
Time To Say Goodbye
412 Listeners
In Moscow's Shadows
361 Listeners
For Heaven's Sake
445 Listeners
The Rest Is History
14,594 Listeners
Gone Medieval
1,828 Listeners
On the Nose
234 Listeners
School of War
447 Listeners
Past Present Future
321 Listeners