A Jewish Policeman

Jacob Benor-Kalter

1929–1939

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Photograph of policeman towering over a street with horse-drawn wagon, several people, and person on donkey. — 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.

Credits

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

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

In Central Park

Who is to blame that I don’t see your tree, Garden in snow, my garden in snow. Who is to blame that I don’t see your tree— When a woman goes out for a stroll in your snow, Her bosom rising and…

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Painting of a man in uniform pulling on ropes to lift a propeller, surrounded by other propellers, as another man performs the same action in the background.

Dismantling Bent Props

Moses Reinblatt served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, first as a mechanic and then as an aircraftman. In August 1944, he was appointed an official war artist and was posted in…

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Page of Aramaic text surrounded by many images and decorations, including zodiac symbols, scenes of figures and animals, cherubs, Hebrew words around margins, and vines and flowers.

Ketubah with a Depiction of Jerusalem

This ketubah (marriage contract) from Padua, Italy, marks the marriage of Samuel ben Gerson ha-Kohen me-ha-ḥazanim (“of the cantors,” or Cantarini) and Colomba bat David Aziz. The groom was a…

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Creator Bio

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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