Title: Far from Zion : Jews, diaspora, memory /
Authors: Francisco, Jason.
Publisher: Stanford University Press,
Year: 2006
Subjects: Documentary photography; Jewish families Pictorial works.; Jews Portraits.; Jewish cemeteries Pictorial works.; Jewish diaspora.; Jewish art and symbolism.; Jews Social life and customs.
Abstract: "Part document and part visual poem, Far from Zion: Jews, Diaspora, Memory is the response of a young American Jew to the historical experience of Ashkenazic Jewry in the last century. In the spirit of a contemplative but unsentimental reckoning, the photographs consider the fragmentation and historical contingency of Jewish experience, the discontinuity and fragility of Jewish identity, and the uncertain meaning of diaspora as a Jewish inheritance. The result is a sequence of pictures that moves between marked and unmarked historical locations in Europe and the United States, portraits of contemporary Jews, and the events of Jewish life. An original essay, "Diasporic Investigations," elaborates the photographs' concerns."