Episode 07: ‘OUR HOMES’ IN ANOTHER PLACE Photographing Disappearing Jewish Communities CHRYSTIE SHERMAN
We talk with Chrystie Sherman,a photographer who documents the loss and disappearance of Jewish communities. Her work, sited in the Ukraine, Central Asia, India, Afghanistan, North Africa, Cuba and Syria, has been the subject of two fascinating projects. The first is 'Home in Another Place’, a collection of black and white portraits of Jewish people remaining in these communities. The second, with the Diarna Project, (meaning ‘Our Homes’ in Judao-Arabic) are archival photographs of Jewish places; antiquities that are destroyed,but where fragments of relics remain.
Coinciding with the beginning of the Jewish Passover holiday, her art captures themes of exodus, migration, nomadic wandering, and the longing for a homeland .... universal questions, very much alive today.
Chrystie Sherman was educated at New York University Graduate School of Film and Television. She began her career in photography, working in the photo studio at Jim Henson Associates, and then as a set photographer for PBS, Children’s Television Workshop/Sesame Street, and WGBH/Boston. Chrystie then turned her focus to photojournalism, where she worked for the Associated Press and the New York Post. Her Diaspora project, ‘Home in Another Place’, documents small and disappearing Jewish communities in black and white portraiture. To date, she has covered the Ukraine, Central Asia, India, Afghanistan, North Africa and Cuba. It is an ongoing work, soon to be published by the Steidl Press. More recently, she is working on the Diarna Project, contributing photography on places of Jewish antiquities in North Africa. Chrystie Sherman’s work has been exhibited both nationally and abroad; in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C, Rome, and Israel.
http://www.chrystiesherman.com
TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT
“I have such warm feelings about this community. It's called the B'nai Ephram, in India. It is a fascinating story of a group of about 50 families, who in the mid 20th century, the head of the community decided to reinvent their low class, untouchable status, and to become Jews. This was a very bold move. They were on the lowest rung of the ladder, and they probably saw other Jewish communities in India doing much better than they were. So, they wanted to be part of this Jewish community. They gave themselves the name of the B'nai Ephram, which is one of the names of the 12 tribes, and they have truly changed their identity over the years and they're now living like all Jewish communities that I've experienced and photographed, sort of insular religious lifestyle. They are a community, and a community with purpose, and it's very beautiful. They were incredibly moved that I came to photograph them. I stayed in their community for five days, and I got to know them very, very well. For me, this was an incredible experience.” FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT READ HERE
