DIASPORA: Homeland in Exile

If a group of eastern European Jews re-create their shtetl when they settle in Israel, then which place is home and which is exile? And while a secular Soviet general calls himself a Jew, and so does a man whose ancestors came to India almost 2,000 years ago, what, if anything, do they have in common? These are the kinds of questions provoked by Brenner's stunning collection of photographs, taken over the course of 25 years, chronicling Jewish lives, often in declining communities, in every corner of the world, from Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan to Ethiopia and Las Vegas. For anyone, Jewish or otherwise, who generally thinks of Jews in terms of Israel and the United States, the book will be a revelation.

The images are full of surprises and ironies: contemporary Marranos in Portugal continue to celebrate Passover secretly, as they did during the Inquisition; a young Yemeni immigrant to Israel wears traditional sidelocks like his counterparts from eastern Europe; the men who sell Christian souvenirs in the piazza at St. Peter's in Rome are all Jewish. Brenner's images of women are particularly striking: six American breast cancer survivors are photographed shirtless; mothers of the desaparecidos in Argentina (of whom a disproportionate number were Jews) exhibit anguish and dignity; and a beautifully constructed photo presents a circular grouping of Holocaust survivors paired with their lesbian daughters.

Brenner, who is French and has an advanced degree in anthropology, is well equipped to ponder (as he does in brief texts accompanying the photos in Vol. 2) the enigma of identity, its shifting nature in tension with a thread of continuity through time and space. Also accompanying his text are commentaries and personal reflections from writers and thinkers as diverse as André Aciman, Jacques Derrida and Julius Lester. Responding to a group portrait of men in a teahouse in Azerbaijan, Aciman sums up a paradox of the diaspora: "Why do they blend in so easily? Isn't it improbable how Jewish all Jews look." Of a group of Jewish barbers with their Muslim customers in Tajikistan, Brenner writes, "I wanted to show how these dhimmi Jews in Muslim lands successively embraced the Russian conquest and the Bolshevik revolution—which they believed would bring them emancipation but which instead confined them to professions such as shoe-mender and barber."

The $100 price may seem steep, but this extraordinary volume is well worth it for the richness and variety of images, which will delight and sometimes perplex readers. (Oct.)