Dear Colleagues and Friends,
When I typed “kippur” a month ago into the Posen Digital Library to prepare for the upcoming Days of Awe, one photograph appeared among a rich trove of texts and images: Robert Frank’s Yom Kippur, East River, New York City (included in The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 9: Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973).
Taken in the mid-1950s and published in his provocative 1957 volume, The Americans, the photograph portrays Orthodox Jewish men standing by the East River, dressed in dark suits and white shirts, and wearing fedoras. At the upper left of the photograph hovers a fragment of one of the bridges connecting Brooklyn to Manhattan, probably the Williamsburg Bridge. But what clearly caught Frank’s eye was a young man’s grey suit and matching hat, standing out in the sea of black, along with the profile of a boy gazing toward the water. The boy appears to be leaning forward slightly, letting us speculate that the men probably were gathered on the walkway to the bridge so that they were standing over the water.
It is a powerful image of piety that reveals Frank’s complicated relationship to Judaism.
Yom Kippur, East River, New York City (1955) by Robert Frank © Robert Frank from The Americans.
Born in Switzerland to a German Jewish father and Swiss Jewish mother, Frank grew up in perilous security as World War II and the Holocaust raged. When the war ended, he fled his parents’ bourgeois expectations, first to Paris and then to New York City. Frank briefly worked in the booming New York world of commercial photography before winning a Guggenheim fellowship that gave him resources to explore his adopted homeland, America, and its people, the Americans.
Yom Kippur, East River, New York City is the only photograph in The Americans that explicitly references Jews, although there are others that picture Jews (such as a bored young woman operating an elevator in a Miami Beach hotel). I think it is significant that Frank chose to include a specifically labeled image of Jews. He knew that he was Jewish, was aware of the dangers of being Jewish, and never denied that identity. However, it is equally significant, I think, that he pictures the backs of these men, reflecting his own posture toward Jewish religious practice.
Of course, the photograph does not picture Jews at Yom Kippur. Jews in prayer at Yom Kippur spend the day in the synagogue, as the artist Maurycy Gottlieb knew well. His famous 1878 painting (included in The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 6: Confronting Modernity, 1750–1880) captures a very different scene of piety. It, too, can be found on the Posen Digital Library. Like Frank, Gottlieb portrays his own posture toward Judaism, in this case by painting himself with a sensuous gaze toward the Torah scroll during synagogue services.
Jews Praying in the Synagogue on Yom Kippur (1878) by Maurycy Gottlieb Tel Aviv Museum of Art Collection. Gift of Sidney Lamon, New York, 1955.
Frank actually photographed Jews engaged in the performance of tashlich, casting their sins into the river, a practice associated with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Frank recognized the men’s piety and, unfamiliar with what he saw, he titled the photograph with the most holy day of the Jewish year.
Among the riches of the Posen Digital Library is the opportunity it offers to span decades and even centuries just by typing in a single search term. Not only can one see and appreciate the contrasts between a 20th-century photographer and 19th-century painter, but one can also read reflections on the Yom Kippur War of 1973, from Golda Meir’s declaration of war to ironic Israeli humorous commentary in Zoo Eretz Zoo that appeared two years after the war.
Registration on the PDL is fast and free.
Upcoming events with editors of the volumes will give you a chance to appreciate the selections from The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, especially its expansive interpretation of Jewish culture and civilization that connects Frank and Gottlieb with Meir.
October 5, 2021 @ 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm PDT; 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT
Jewish Writing during the Holocaust
A Zoom webinar co-hosted with the Holocaust Museum of Los Angeles
Speakers: Samuel D. Kassow, Charles Northam Professor of History at Trinity College and coeditor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 9: Catastrophe and Rebirth, 1939–1973, and Deborah Dash Moore
November 4, 2021 @ 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EDT
Are There New Ways of Reading the Bible in the 21st Century?
A Zoom webinar co-hosted with the Center for Jewish History
Speakers: Alison L. Joseph, Biblical Scholar and Senior Editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Civilization and Culture, and Deborah Dash Moore
November 16, 2021 @ 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm EDT
What’s New in the Bible?
A Zoom webinar co-hosted with the Jewish Theological Seminary
Speakers: Jeffrey H. Tigay, Emeritus A. M. Ellis Professor of Hebrew and Semitic Languages and Literatures in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations of the University of Pennsylvania and coeditor of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings to 332 BCE, and Alison L. Joseph, Biblical Scholar and Senior Editor of The Posen Library of Jewish Civilization and Culture, and Deborah Dash Moore
You can watch full-length videos of our previous events on the Posen Library YouTube channel. If you’re active on social media, you can keep up to date with everything The Posen Library is doing by following our posts on Twitter and Facebook. And if you know others who might enjoy these emails, please share this link https://bit.ly/Email_SU and invite them to sign up.
May 5782 be a good year for us all,
Deborah Dash Moore
Editor in Chief, The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization
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