A Jewish Policeman

Jacob Benor-Kalter

1929–1939

The photomontages that Benor-Kalter began to make in the 1930s were a departure from his earlier straightforward style and allowed him to use photography to create visual metaphors. Here, a contemporary policeman in the foreground dwarfs the figures in the background, which include a horse and carriage and a man on a donkey. The juxtaposition of the images illustrates the Zionist belief that the new Israel they were creating was being built on the foundations of the old.
Photograph of policeman towering over a street with horse-drawn wagon, several people, and person on donkey.

Credits

Courtesy Silver Print Collection, Ein Hod © Estate of Jacob Benor-Kalter

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 8.

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Creator Bio

Jacob Benor-Kalter

1897–1969

Jacob Benor-Kalter was a man of many talents: photographer, graphic artist, architect, publisher, and cinema-house entrepreneur. Born in Poland, he trained as an engineer there and made aliyah in 1921. In 1926, the Pro-Jerusalem Society, a project of Sir Ronald Storrs, published an album of his Jerusalem photogravures that was widely distributed in London. In the early 1930s, he published an album of Tel Aviv photographs that included, unusually for the time, a number of photomontages, such as this one of a policeman towering over the traffic of a Tel Aviv street.

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