Beyond Cancer: Portraits of Hope / The Indestructible Spirit / From the Corners of the Earth / Shalom Y'ALL / Personal Images / Transformations /

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I am pleased to announce the completion of my new manuscript, Beyond Cancer: Portraits of Hope. For this project, I interviewed and photographed a diverse group of 100 survivors of many different cancers, ages 2 through 99, for whom a diagnosis of cancer has turned into a positive force in their lives, a catalyst to change their lives for the better. This is a book of transformations. The stories, as well as the photographic portraits, are not just about cancer: for survivors, they are about hope and inspiration; for others they are about education; and for me they are about the struggle to find meaning in what I thought was a death sentence.

I would like to share with you two quotes from just two participants of Beyond Cancer: after likening a diagnosis to being hurled into the middle of a storm, one man said, "Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." Another said that for him survival is “not just about hope, it's about thriving.”

In the summer of 2005, I was privileged to be asked by Los Angeles’ 1939 Club and Chapman University to produce 100 images of Holocaust survivors in southern California. The project, entitled, Holocaust Survivors:, The Indestructible Spirit, became a labor of love. The Indestructible Spirit, as the name implies, was conceived to be different from any other photographic project of Holocaust survivors. The intent was go to beyond the Holocaust; to show survivors in the fullness of their lives; to show that they not only survived Hitler’s death machine, but that they also prospered and had lives filled with joy as well as sorrow, happiness as well as tragedy, success as well as failure.  They married, had children, grandchildren, established economic lives and gave back to their communities.  This is their ultimate victory. 

This web site also features two of my photography books, From The Corners Of The Earth: Contemporary Photographs of the Jewish World, and Shalom Y’all: Images Of Jewish Life In The American South, each with their own page, along with some personal images on a third page. Whether your needs be related to stock photography, research, art acquisition or you are just browsing, I hope you enjoy this web site.

My first book, From The Corners Of The Earth, with an introduction by Chaim Potok, contains images, with commentary, of the Jewish communities of the former Soviet Union, Cuba, New York, Los Angeles and Jerusalem.  For ten years, I traveled from the bustling shops and synagogues of New York’s Lower East Side to the dwindling yet strong Jewish community in Havana, Cuba; from Jerusalem to Moscow; from the aging activist Jews of Venice, California to the youthful members of New York’s Havurah movement.  I am pleased that a limited reissue of this volume has made it available, once again, to the public.

A volume of my photographs, Shalom Y’all: Images Of Jewish Life In The American South, with an introduction by Alfred Uhry, was published by Algonquin Books.  Shalom Y'all tells the unique story of the Southern Jewish experience through photographs and stories told by southern Jews about being Jewish in the South. It presents a multidimensional portrait of contemporary Jewish life in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina as it has evolved from the early 1700's. Southern and Jewish are two words not often associated with each other. This volume indelibly links them in presenting this first comprehensive look at a people who are southerners as defined by their location and lifestyle and Jews by virtue of their religion and their heritage.