Representing Palestinians to the Diaspora: Leonard Freed`s Photographs for Israel Magazine, 1967-68

This paper examines how the photographs of the Brooklyn-born photojournalist Leonard Freed (1929–2006) represented Palestinians and other minorities in Israel and the complex relationship his images have to the editorial objectives of Israel Magazine where they were reproduced. Freed was a staff photographer for the magazine, which was founded and marketed to Jews in the Diaspora in the wake of the Six-Day War. In 1967-68, Freed lived in Israel for 15 months traveling the country and photographing its diverse populations, from workers at a truck factory in Ashdod to Arab residents of Acre, as well as in refugee camps near Hebron and in Gaza, often on assignment. Known as a socially-conscious photographer and for documenting the American Civil Rights Movement, Freed’s photographs appeared in issues of the magazine featuring articles by Chaim Herzog, Moshe Dayan, Adin Steinsaltz and others. Israel Magazine was a joint Israeli-American venture, whose US publisher was a Philadelphia-based advertising and marketing firm. Maurice Carr, a nephew of Isaac Bashevis Singer, was its editor. In addition to covering economic, political and military matters, the magazine featured short stories, poetry, theatre, visual art and book reviews, and cartoons by Dosh. The magazine claimed to eschew propaganda and to convey “as vivid, as truthful an image of Israel as possible.” By comparing the different contexts in which Freed’s images appeared, this paper will examine how they could be used both to amplify the magazine’s message and voice the photographer’s own larger, more personal and humanistic project.









Powered by Eventact EMS