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A Place in History: Modernism, Tel Aviv and the Creation of Jewish Urban Space (review)

racial discourses that have so thoroughly tainted Jewish discussions of Jewish genealogy over the past two centuries. And for all of these serious implications, Lee’s photographs remain records of a joyous occasion—as evidenced by the giddy grins of the bride and groom. Other projects in The Jewish Identity Project concern Jewish spaces and contemporary trends in Jewish theology. The collaborative photographic series “770” by Andrea Robbins and Max Becher investigates the “worldwide franchising” (134) of the headquarters and synagogue of the Lubavitcher Rebbe at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. Becher is the son of the well-known husband-and-wife photographers and educators Bernd and Hilla Becher. The Bechers’ students, an influential group of German photographers generally known as the Düsseldorf School, include the prominent photographers Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, and Thomas Ruff. All share their teachers’ interest in photographing variations on a theme. True to this method, Robbins and Becher have photographed Chabad Houses in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Jerusalem, Haifa, and even São Paulo. The photographs, all shot from the same angle, depict buildings that have sprung up around the world in tandem with the spread of this particular form of Hasidism. Each Chabad House is an architectural copy of the original structure at 770 Eastern Parkway, such that in the photographs, each becomes the constant that remains as the diverse geographic backgrounds change. By placing people who don’t “look Jewish” within the frames of “Jewish identity” and by productively complicating those frames, The Jewish Identity Project makes a provocative case for photography’s dual abilities. It can indeed reduce people to mere copies of images, that is, stereotypes. But it can also represent identity in its complexities and reveal nuances invisible to the naked eye. One can only hope that this brilliant set of projects will catalyze even more work about Jewish traditions in non-traditional media