On Thursday evening, the "Meeting Worlds" exhibition, featuring photographs by Haredi photographer Ezra Landau, opened in the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem. The opening event was attended by dozens of people who admire the photos of the most beloved photographer in the Haredi sector.
""Don't take pictures of me. I'm an intelligence officer, my pictures aren't allowed to appear. But you can take pictures from behind," the soldier in the picture told me, as he entered the event. Minutes later, he was standing next to the picture Ezra had taken at Protective Edge, on the Gaza border.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
Ezra, who for a change arrived without a camera, couldn't help himself. He ran to the scene from a distance, and tried to capture another frame of the soldier looking at the soldier's pictures using his cell phone. Then he looked at me and said with a smile: "There are things I don't understand how you could miss.".
Trying to check the size and quality of the picture, he measured it using the catalog. Suddenly it looked like a continuation of the picture, I was practicing something. When he saw that I had taken a picture, he said: "I want to buy this picture." I wished him luck.
The different umbrella captivated everyone, the gazes towards it did not cease. The visitors stood and tried to understand why there was one who dared to be different. Thus, from a distance, the picture emphasizes that no matter how different you are from the other - in the picture you will look and enjoy.
Photographer Ephraim Greenwald dropped by to see the materials of the photographer he grew up with up close. His excitement was evident even when he was about to take a picture with Ezra, who wished him that with perseverance and determination he too would achieve this.
""All the photos are not edited in Photoshop, and there was hardly any color correction done on them. The photos are as they are, that's how they were taken," Ezza explained to a man standing next to him who couldn't stop admiring the photos.
Ezra Landau's son, who also came to the exhibition, stood next to the picture that he found most magical, and didn't stop examining the details. "There are 12 children in the picture," he said after breaking away from it. I didn't go counting. I believed him.
Ezra gave one of the photos in the exhibition the name "Red Riding Hood." I photographed the exhibition's Red Riding Hood there.
The photographer's wife, who was hanging around making sure everything went smoothly, from the drinks to the nuts, stood next to the picture with the children's searching gaze at the camera - and asked Ezra: How did you manage to get into the circle? I didn't wait for an answer.
The exhibition is presented behind her - two children from Mea Shearim enjoying a cold sweet on a summer day - and she seeks to photograph from the other side, those who look at the pictures and admire them.
Amram Cohen, a strategist and public relations man, arrived at the exhibition, never ceasing to express his admiration. When he found the catalog, he didn't look up until he smiled and said: "Did you see that the catalog has the same picture twice?""
The speeches began. Rabbi Israel Glis came up to speak and tell a story in praise of Ezra and of Jerusalem, which was recorded on his camera. Ezra's family, in the center of the picture, their first exposure to the public, sat to the side and listened to every word that was said about their father.
Israel Glis spoke and told Jerusalem stories, saying: The wisdom is not to capture the picture, but to tell the whole story in one picture.
Then the family member came up and told about the family's excitement about the opening of the exhibition and the very special photos. We believed him from the first moment, he said, but now everyone knows.
The picture displayed on the wall was nicknamed 'Shadows.' Then when they came and stood in front of it, and cast their image on the picture, I couldn't help but photograph the continuity of the picture.
In the picture on the wall, there is a butterfly tattooed on the back of the neck of a convert. He takes a picture of the picture, looks at it over and over again, and then tells me: "What attracted me more than the picture was the caption 'No longer a butterfly.'".
As befits a Friday night, cholent was served to the guests and invitees. The pots were opened one after the other. Ezra Landau's mother, who enjoyed the cholent, took the pot's lid to protect her from the heat of the plate. When she saw that I was taking a picture, she said: "They'll probably write that every cholent has a lid.".
Ezra Landau's father finished speaking, and the photographer's son came to his father to ask for something. But when he caught sight of Etty taking a photo, Ezra pointed with his finger that this was not the time for requests, because "we are taking photos now.".
""I don't do photography the way he does," the father told me as we were about to have our picture taken with his son Ezra. "But I think I've taken almost as many photos as he has in my life." And where can I see the photos? I asked curiously. And he, with a Jerusalem smile, answered and smiled: "I'm a dentist. Come and see how many teeth I've photographed. I'm a great artist at it.".
Clarinetist Meir Weiner, writer Dov Eichler, and journalist Mandy Grossman arrived fashionably late. They didn't give up on a plate of cholent, and after finishing their meal, they turned to pose a series of questions to Ezra: How did he take the picture and when? .
This picture of the crying girl tugged at his heart. "If I told you that it was taken without planning or forethought, during the storm of the demonstration, would you believe it?" said Ezra's father. And he replied: "Yes, because he is truly an artist.".
""May your father have good luck... Wait, are you taking a picture? But don't take a picture of what I'm writing, it's personal..." So I just took a picture of him dedicating greetings to his father in the guest book.
""This is how we would go to Haider, and this is how we would come back," said Meir Segal, a resident of Har Nof, after standing for many minutes next to the picture. "This is a picture that brings back memories of days that were and are no longer.".
Why are you taking pictures? Buy them, I told him. So he took another picture and said: "I would buy them, but the people I send them to now choose pictures from what I sent - and we will buy a lot. It's impossible not to.".
""Take a picture of us at Ezra Landau's exhibition eating cholent on Friday night, and in the next exhibition write: Today's mitzvah." I told them I wouldn't wait for the next exhibition. We'll announce this week that they kept today's mitzvah...
The curator of the exhibition, Ofra Bank, stood and explained to people about the images and why she chose certain images over others. "The hard choice was deciding what didn't go in. It was unbearable," she said.
Danny, a communications consultant, arrived at the scene following the quick Facebook post that evening. With a steaming plate of cholent, he turned around and looked at the pictures. Then he told me: "We need to bring secular people here, not so they can see the Haredi coexistence or the beautiful side of the Haredim, but just so they can see that there is such a great artist - and he is Haredi.".
Ezra Landau's eldest son stood not far from the special photo in which a child with a pure look in his eyes is seen watching a guitarist playing. From the distance and angle where I was standing, it seemed that the child was watching the photographer's son. So one photo like that and it became truly special.
""Why did you only take a picture of my brother writing a blessing?" he asked. I told him that I didn't take a picture of the blessing, just how he wrote it. "With me, you can take a picture of what I wrote too. I'm not ashamed and I love my father.".
Off to the side, Ezra's father is playing with one of his grandchildren, swinging him around. I rushed to take a picture before it disappeared. And so it really suited the name of the exhibition: Two worlds of grandfather and grandson happily met.
I saw Ezra's mother taking pictures of the photos at the exhibition, one by one. I went up and said: "Really? Just ask, he'll bring everything home to you to hang on the wall." And she replied: "He'll definitely want to bring it to me, but by the time it arrives, I'll have forgotten what I wanted. So I take pictures.".
Mandy Zilberschlag stood next to the large photo taken at the Western Wall, to which Ezra gave the title 'Umbrella for Two.' After I took the photo, Mandy and I looked at the photo, and he said: "Now the title is Umbrella for Three.".
That's it. We're going home. "It was fun and nice." What did you enjoy the most? I asked him, as he dragged the suitcase with the amplifier towards the car. And he replied, like this in a flash: "That I'm going to bed late...""
