Zionism: The Creation of a Jewish State in Pictures

By Norbert Schiller
Photographs by S. Narinsky, Norbert Schiller Collection

Shlomo Narinsky (1885 – 1960), whose photographic work on Palestine came to prominence in the 1920s, was born to a Jewish family in a small town in southern Russia in present day Ukraine. In the early 1900s, he emigrated to Palestine where he created images that helped advance the Zionist cause to which he was ardently committed.

Narinsky studied art at a young age in Moscow then traveled to Paris in 1904 followed by Berlin to study photography. After graduating, Narinsky returned to Russia where he joined the Socialist Zionists movement. In 1906, during what became known as the second Aliyah or emigration wave to Palestine (1903 to 1914), Narinsky left for the Holy Land. He settled in Jerusalem where he befriended the likes of David Ben-Gurion, the Jewish state’s founder and first prime minister, Yitzhak Ben-Zvy, Israel’s second president, and many other prominent Zionist figures.

Shortly after he arrived in Jerusalem, Narinsky opened a photographic studio with his Russian-born wife, Sonia, and then set out to photograph the land, its holy sites, and people. Influenced by 19th century European photography, Narinsky covered a lot of ground with the camera, but, as creative and talented as he was, there was deliberate subliminal messaging behind his imagery. This article examines the manipulation of subjects and landscapes in the Narinsky photographs to serve the Zionist agenda.

Narinsky worked out of his Jerusalem studio until 1916 when the Turks deported him and his wife to Egypt. During WWI, as the British began closing in on Palestine, Ottoman authorities panicked and rounded up all foreigners they deemed suspicious. Some were exiled to the interior, away from the urban centers near the coast, while those who posed a more serious threat due to their extreme Zionist views like the Narinskys were forced out of Palestine altogether. In Egypt, the couple opened a studio but only Sonia continued to work as a photographer while Shlomo was more focused on his other love, painting.

When the war ended, the Narinskys made a brief return to Palestine. It was during this period that they presumably sold their entire photographic collection of Palestine, including the copyright, to the Jamal Brothers, a popular tour agency that also operated a publishing house. The Narinskys then moved to France where they opened another photo studio. During WWII, Shlomo was arrested by the Germans in Paris and was almost sent to the death camps if his wife hadn’t come to the rescue. Sonia, who had evaded capture, contacted her high-profile friends in Palestine, namely Ben Zvy and Ben Gurion, who convinced the British to trade Shlomo for a German spy held by the Allies. After 24 years in exile, the Narinskys returned to Palestine and moved to Haifa where Shlomo taught photography.

All of Narinsky’s images that were published by the Jamal Bros were printed after 1921 as photogravures which was a popular style in the 1910s and 1920s. The photogravure’s lines are less defined than a traditional black and white gelatine print, making the images softer and more like paintings. Many photogravures were either tinted sepia or blue to give them an almost dreamlike quality.

To this day, there are hundreds of photogravure postcards and prints of Palestine credited to S. Narsinky in circulation on the secondhand market. The postcards can easily be purchased on online platforms like eBay and Delcampe and can occasionally be found as photo album compilations at high-end auction houses such as Bonhams and Sotheby’s. What I find most interesting from a collector’s point of view, is that it is rare to find prints credited to S. Narinsky that were not printed by the Jamal Brothers. I’m curious to know what became of all the other photographs that were printed and sold prior to the sale of the archive.

As previously mentioned, Narinsky’s photographs were not an objective documentation of the Holy Land. They contained a deliberate message that glorified Zionism at the expense of the indigenous people and their culture. This motive becomes clearer when the images are viewed as a collection as opposed to individually. The photo album that I acquired was mass-produced and includes over 100 postcard size photogravures featuring beautiful landscapes, holy sites, and portraits including those of historical leaders of the Zionist movement such as Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism (the only photo not taken by Narinsky). Also featured are portraits of siblings Sarah and Aaron Aaronsohn, who were members of NILI, a Jewish spy ring that assisted the British during WWI. Sarah was arrested and tortured, but managed to procure a gun in jail and used it to commit suicide. Her brother Aaron, a prominent agronomist, fled to Cairo where he assisted the British with the war effort, namely in defeating the Turks in Palestine. After the war, he attended the Paris Peace Conference as part of the Zionist delegation and helped demarcate boundaries for a possible future Jewish State.

Another portrait is that of banker and fervent Zionist supporter Baron Edmond de Rothchild who was determined to create a Jewish homeland. He used his fortune to support Zionism and the colonization of Palestine. Other well-known proponents of a Jewish homeland in Palestine included in the album are Sir Herbert Samual, the first British High Commissioner to Palestine, and Eliezer Ben Yahuda, a prominent journalist, editor and lexicographer of the first Hebrew dictionary.

In addition to featuring these Zionist personalities, the photographer’s bias is reflected in his depiction of the locals and their environment in Palestine. Although some of the images show what looks like authentic bedouins in the countryside, others clearly depict European models posing as locals. For example, the photos titled “shepherdess,” “Bedouin girl” and a “Palestinian beauty” all feature subjects who are clearly not Palestinian Arabs but most probably Jewish settlers dressed as locals. By mixing authenticity with fiction, Narinsky is subtly presenting a gentrified version of Palestine and its people to fit the Zionist ideal. Another photo taken in the Kidron valley, that runs from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, shows men and women wearing robes that seem to be inspired from biblical imagery as well as Bedouins in traditional dress. Another image taken on the road to Jericho shows a similar scene of a westerner dressed in Bedouin clothing shooting a rifle. However, the subjects in these two scene are obviously Jewish settlers whose European appearance is meant to reassure viewers that residents of Palestine look like them.

Another two photogravures that were intentionally composed to romanticize Arabs show shepherds with their flocks in a tranquil setting somewhere in the countryside. What makes these two photogravures absurd is that the shepherds in both images are playing the flute, an act more fitting of a biblical scene than reality. This brought back memories of a photo assignment I had decades ago for a US educational institution. I was to illustrate the life of a child living in Cairo in contrast with that of a peer living in a rural area. Among the images requested was of that of the child in the countryside sitting on the banks of the Nile playing a flute. When I shared the request with the boy’s family, they were began laughing uncontrollably. In the end, I sat the boy next to an irrigation canal and asked him to put a stick in his mouth pretending to play the flute. Narinsky was just like that educational institution; he created images appealing to the Zionist mission that were not necessarily reality.

One of the most interesting and mysterious facts about this album are its cover and title. The cover features a winged creature with a human face on top of a circle. The acronym MODEA, at the top of the circle, remains an enigma in spite of relentless efforts to research its meaning. According to Judaism’s mystical Kabalarian philosophy, Modea means “good-natured personality.” The closest answer I found in Hebrew is Modeh Ani or “I give thanks” which observant Jews recite every morning upon waking. However, neither of these two answers are convincing, so the search continues.

The cover has other subliminal clues. The same circle, which includes a map of Palestine in its center, shows a Star of David surrounded by the words “JERUSALEM PALESTINE/ GUIDANCE ADVICE.” On either side of the circle are engravings of a tourist wearing a pith helmet and a European farmer working the land with the words “OBSERVATION” and “CONSTRUCTION” underneath the former and latter. The comment at the very bottom reads, “TO HELP THE REBUILDING AND THE PRESERVATION OF THAT WHICH EXISTS IN PALESTINE.” Simply put, the message on the cover combined with Narinsky’s photogravures were designed to portray a Palestine that the Zionists had hoped to create, rather than the Palestine that already existed.

Photographs are a powerful tool to create imagined realities. Narinsky, inspired by 19th century European photography which drew from Biblical themes to stereotype the Holy Land and its people, documented Palestine through a lens that reflected his political views. As Jewish emigration to the Holy Land started gaining steam in the first part of the 20th century, it was part of the Zionist mission to promote the successes of figures striving for the creation of a Jewish homeland and portray the future state as an attractive place where the locals posed no threat and blended into the pastoral background. More than a century after Narinsky took these photographs the practice of manipulating images of Palestine for political purposes is still a contentious issue. That is why viewers should be critical when scrutinizing photographs and not take them at face value. Still, it is undeniable that Narinsky’s work holds historical value when it is viewed with hindsight through the context that influenced the photographer’s work.