David Ben-Gurion Standing on His Head (Sharon Hotel Beach, Herzliya)

Paul Goldman

1957

Image

Photograph of two shirtless men on the beach, one doing a headstand with legs bent facing to the right of the viewer and the other man facing the viewer on the right side of the photograph. — Paul Goldman was notable for keeping his distance from his subjects, perhaps as a show of respect. He photographed many of Israel’s early leaders. Here, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, is doing a handstand on Herzliya beach after a lesson by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, inventor of the Feldenkrais Method, a form of physical exercise designed to increase well-being and self-awareness through movement.

Credits

Paul Goldman, MUSA, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv Collection.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 9.

Wise Virgins

Man is not naturally a gregarious animal, though he has become so under the compulsion of circumstances and civilisation. You can see this in the history of his dwellings. In the beginning…

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Page of printed Hebrew text surrounded by columns, foliage, and lintel.

Sefer Raziel (The Book of Raziel)

Sefer Raziel (also known as The Book of Raziel the Angel) is a book of practical kabbalah that may have been composed in the thirteenth century, though scholars believe parts of it date from earlier…

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Photograph showing torso and arm, with bandage and tefillin attached.

Akedah is one of a series of photographs made by Winn while he was undergoing treatment for AIDS. In each photograph, a Band-Aid covers the place on his body from which blood was taken or an injection…

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Creator Bio

Paul Goldman

1900–1986

Unrecognized until after his death, Paul Goldman produced an extensive body of work, totaling more than forty thousand images; it is now celebrated as one of the greatest photographic archives of a critical period in Israeli history. Born in Budapest, Goldman immigrated to Palestine in 1940, joining the British Army and then earning a living as a freelance photojournalist for local newspapers and international news services. Because press photographers were not credited for their work at this time, Goldman’s oeuvre remained unacknowledged until 2000, when David Rubinger, Time magazine’s Israel photographer, uncovered his remarkable collection of negatives. A selection of Goldman’s photos was the subject of a 2005 exhibition at the Hebrew Union College’s Jewish Institute of Religion Museum in New York.