Photos: Pinchas Emanuel, Courtesy of Joshua Haruni

T

he title of Joshua Haruni’s new work, “DO NOT PHOTOGRAPH,” is misleading for a coffee-table book that has little text and where every page is splashed to the margins with large, eye-catching photographs.

But for Haruni, those few words — screaming out in capital letters on the cover — say it all. As a British photojournalist working in the Israeli chassidic community, that blunt injunction, given in a broad Israeli Yiddish, was his most common reaction: “Macht nisht kein bilder….” We may forgive him for coming away with the impression that, for the most part, he was trespassing on a world with little tolerance for snooping outsiders.

Joshua recalls how in one of his earlier forays into a chassidic shul, he came upon a Simchas Beis Hashoeivah, and two distinct aspects of chassidic life. “I got into a discussion with this pleasant guy who seemed genuinely encouraging. He was an American, so there wasn’t any language barrier. After pumping me for information he grew very excited over what I planned to do. At some point, I became aware of the clock, and, picking up my camera, I walked over to the dancing chassidim. Immediately, he cried: ‘No! What are you doing?!’ and I said, ‘What do you mean… we’ve been discussing this for, like, two hours?!’ ”

Joshua had just experienced the huge disconnect between people wanting to act hospitably (at the best of times) and actually allowing him to document their lives.

“At other times,” says Joshua, “I’d walk into places and some of the locals would grow unnecessarily hostile. They’d start using their hands or yelling at me without knowing my name or why I was there. One Erev Yom Kippur, as I watched the Rebbe hand out lekach, a man planted himself on the table in front of me to shout: ‘This isn’t a tourist site…!’ On another occasion someone threw juice at me and damaged my camera.” Other photographers may have slunk away, nursing their bruised egos and casting aspirations aside, but not Joshua.

More than any other court, it was Pinsk-Karlin that Joshua was drawn to over the eight years it took him to complete his project. Indeed, Haruni formed a relationship with the previous Pinsk-Karlin Rebbe, Rav Aharon HaKohein Rosenfeld, who died in 2001. Though he doesn’t claim to be a chassid today, Haruni says what he observed in the various courts made an impression.

“I suppose you’re communicating with the past somehow,” he ponders. “You’re reaching in and drawing people back 300 years. For instance, there’s an image in the book of a chassid dancing…. Three hundred years ago they were dancing that same dance.”

Healing from the Mystics

At the outset, Joshua — a Modern Orthodox Jew of British-Iranian origin — had never intended to work with chassidim at all.

His draw to photography started in his post-IDF days when he traveled abroad and shared his stills with friends and family. Upon his return to England, he enrolled at the London College of Printing, one of the United Kingdom’s leading photography schools. After graduation, Joshua embarked on a number of global projects as an independent freelancer, reporting on areas of interest for the British media. In one memorable venture, he joined the first team of Westerners returning to Northern Laos 20 years after the Vietnam War. A trail of other reportages followed, until Joshua returned to Israel in 1999 and set up home with his wife, Leora.

Joshua’s interest was then piqued by the growing trend of Israelis — secular and traditional — who were visiting kabbalists for healing, advice, and blessings. “It intrigued me. Why would people do this in a modern society? I was also aware that Kabbalah was not meant to be studied publicly, nor taken lightly, and here, suddenly, everyone was going for brachot and asking for kamayot. I wanted to figure it out.”  

Looking for clues, Joshua turned to a longtime friend of his family, Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Grossman from Migdal HaEmek. Rabbi Grossman introduced him to one of his brothers who was happy to guide him around Israel. “He was great…. I went with him on a tour of well-known Moroccan kabbalists and other mystics.” The resulting photography exhibit was entitled “The Healing Power of Kabbalah.”

Increasingly, however, Joshua also found himself traipsing along with Rabbi Grossman’s brother to a Rebbe’s tish, or a bris in the community. Suddenly, he was angling for a very different kind of shot. “I found the chassidic environment visually stimulating,” he said. “It just pulled me in.”

Flash Points

Given the intense resistance that he met when he tried to zoom in on a shot, the scope of Joshua’s portfolio is astonishing. Life-cycle events, Jewish fasts and festivals, rituals and portraits are all heartily documented.

Still, Joshua’s impressive collection may have never made it beyond a slim file of shots stolen on the sly, were it not for the unusual involvement of the Rebbe from Pinsk-Karlin.

“One day, in the late ’90s, the gabbai contacted me to say that the Rebbe will be lighting Chanukah candles in his apartment in Bnei Brak. By then I’d met the gabbai on several occasions. He was one of a handful who tried to help me.”

As it happened, someone else had just objected to Joshua taking photographs at a different location, so he was reluctant to show up. But he went, nevertheless, appearing that evening in the Rebbe’s lounge with his knitted kippah, khaki pants, and his ubiquitous small black camera. “Twenty or thirty hard-core chassidim were there, crowding around the Rebbe,” Joshua recalls. “I immediately got these death looks, and as I pointed my lens at the Rebbe’s face, I was feeling the heat.” After a few quick snaps, something snapped inside him, too. Muttering, “You know what? I’ve had enough,” he swiveled, camera in hand, and beat it to the sidewalk outside. But the gabbai ran after him. “The Rebbe needs a ride to a bar mitzvah. Would you be able to take him?”

He agreed, but when his back-seat door opened, a bunch of chassidim tried to jump in along with the Rebbe. “I had to limit the passengers to as many as the back seat could carry. As I drove, the Rebbe began talking and asked me to explain why I was taking these pictures.”

Joshua gave a general description of his work and then proceeded to share two anecdotes with the Rebbe. Around that time, a series of his chassidic and kabbalistic photos were being put on display in a traveling exhibition throughout the United States. While this was happening, Joshua’s wife received an exuberant call from a childhood acquaintance who had been a neighbor in Belgium. This man now lived in Washington and, having been to the exhibition, had called to share his feelings. “He said that seeing these photos made him realize that he had lost out on something special by being raised completely secular. There was a wistful tone to his voice.

“My wife is an artist who makes mosaics,” explains Joshua. “She studied in Paris under a certain teacher, whom we later met with on a trip to London. The teacher was planning his wedding at the time. We brought some of my photos with us, and he was so taken by them that he purchased a few. A while later, this teacher contacted us again and said that after seeing these depictions of authentic Jewish life, he and his fianc?e had decided to get married in a religious wedding ceremony.”

The Rebbe was visibly touched by these stories and said he had never thought that photos could have such a powerful impact. Meanwhile, they had pulled up outside the bar mitzvah. After waiting outside the hall for the Rebbe, and driving him back home, Joshua was given a warm brachah. It was to be the first of many.

“He was very charming, yet modest and unassuming,” says Joshua of the Rebbe. “Humble.”

When Rebbe Aharon was only 30 years old, his wife passed away, leaving him with five small children. (He later remarried.) It was during that time that his remarkable strength of character was revealed. “He assumed his responsibilities very seriously. They say that on Friday afternoon he would clean and wash the floors and still arrive in shul half an hour earlier than everyone else,” Haruni says. When asked why he didn’t assign the chores to his kids he’d answer, ‘Isn’t it enough that they’ve lost their mother? Do they also have to bear the burden?’ ”

Joshua’s voice and his measured words tellingly express his admiration and profound respect for the chassidic leader. Even though the chassidic way of life was not something Joshua wished to adopt, his relationship with the Rebbe was something he would deeply cherish.

“There’s a photo in the book of the new Rebbe lighting the bonfire on Lag B’omer,” recalls Joshua. “That was the first time I went back after the Rebbe’s passing in 2001, and it suddenly hit me: ‘He’s no longer here.’ ” Joshua shakes his head. “It was difficult.”

The Rebbe Opened the Door

“A couple of days after our first encounter,” Haruni relates, “I got a message from the Rebbe’s shamash that I should come and shoot a tish in the shul. I climbed the parenches [bleachers surrounding the tish table] with my bulky camera bag swinging on my hip and got in people’s way. Objections were hurled at me from above and below. To say the chassidim weren’t happy with my being there would be putting mildly. I tried to ignore. Suddenly, from my towering perch six benches up, I see the Rebbe stop in mid-sentence and he glances up in my direction. Holding his head sideways, he gazes right at me and gives a slow, deliberate hand wave. He then resumed his conversation down at his table.” Instantly, a palpable frisson of acceptance enveloped Joshua from all over. “Quicker than a shutter click, one chassid asked whether I’d like some help with the camera bag, and another moved aside to make way for me.” The Rebbe’s hand had spoken.

It is this unwavering loyalty and dedication to the Rebbe that Joshua strove to convey with this photograph. “I saw a chassid opening his wallet, revealing a snapshot of the Rebbe on the inside. Not a wife. Not a child. The Rebbe. That tells a powerful story.”

Nowadays, after so many years, Joshua has an insider’s view of the Pinsk-Karlin chassidus and its families. Even now, after the former Rebbe’s passing, he still maintains contact with chassidim of the current rebbe, Rav Aryeh Rosenfeld, Rebbe Aharon’s son.

“I’ve made quite a few friendships,” admits Joshua with a smile. “Just this week I was invited to two separate weddings from within the community. But this would never have happened without the Rebbe opening the door for me.”

Double Take

“The interesting thing about this book,” remarks Joshua, “is that ten different people will come away with ten different images that stay with them.”

Later on, after the interview, I revisit the book and I see what he means. The photographs are varied and rich and I struggle to pick out a favorite (though “Purim Tish” would be a strong candidate). According to Joshua, it is an image that stands out for many, if only for the fact that there’s so much going on — you could study it for hours.

It also reminds him of one of the lighter moments that he enjoyed in the company of the Pinsk-Karlin chassidus.

“One Purim tish I turned up in their customary spodik and a bekeshe, the whole shebang! No one there had ever seen me like that. It took them a few seconds but then they all did a double take. Word traveled around the parenches and everyone began talking and staring…. I walked up to the Rebbe (the new one) and he almost fell off his chair. Once he recovered, he gave me a l’chayim and my entrance became the talk of the court.”

Tied through Tradition

“I’d like to think,” says Joshua, “that someone browsing through this book appreciates it for what it is. A story that is not fictional, not legend. It is a story with very deep roots, and yet it is vibrant and still very much alive.”

Every photograph has its own story to tell, with layers upon layers of interpretation and meaning, and he is aware that this will be mostly subjective.

Like this image of a father facing his son as they both hold the hens destined for kapparos. Joshua aimed to portray a feeling that spans generations. There’s the father who only shows up partially in the frame and is seen from the back. He stands staunchly, holding the chicken close to his side without much fanfare, ready to do what needs to be done. It’s a ritual he’s performed many a year. And there’s this young boy. His son. He peers curiously down at the chicken, which he holds at arm’s length, a little nervous, perhaps, as he struggles to maintain control over his precious cargo. It is the strength of tradition that binds the two. Young and old. It is a bridge through time.

Bridge through Space

Here, too, in the distance spanning the two men’s fingertips, Joshua felt a story was lurking in the vacuum. “This kvittel just jumped out at me. The way it hangs beseechingly between the Rebbe’s gabbai and the chassid. In that connection of the hands, there’s this symbolism of he who needs help, and he who’s there to offer it.”

When asked what he was looking for in his journalistic wanderings through the cobblestoned alleyways of Meah Shearim, Joshua pauses to give it some thought. “I can’t say that I was looking for anything in particular, but I was very conscious of the fact that whatever I was doing had to be genuine. Many photographers take photos of chassidim that make them look ridiculous, but I was trying to convey through the visual medium how the layers of their lives mesh together. I can’t always control how people react to my work, but all I wanted to do was create an honest report.”

After eight long years of dogged pursuit, he now understands why some chassidim are reluctant to be photographed. For one, certain chassidim believe that taking photos of people is prohibited. But the others — understandably — are not interested in turning into open books for every passing tourist to browse through. “Certain artists,” he says, “have betrayed their trust in the past, taking cynical images of chassidim and turning them into caricatures of themselves. It’s no wonder that they have learned to be very wary.”

Fishing for Context

In explaining this shot, Joshua gives us a glimpse of the fascination he has for photography in general, and this project in particular. “When people are singing and dancing at a tish, and a gabbai sticks his hand into a tray of fish and fills his hand with it… some people would go ‘eew’ and comment on how unhygienic that is. But, looking through the lens, I see that they are missing the point. It’s about an attachment to a belief system, one in which things have deeper meaning. Certain things are desirable and aspirational, and in that context, it makes complete sense.” The act of eating, for example, has great spiritual significance. “The table is likened to a Mizbeiach, and the act of eating is an atonement of sorts. But first you must take a good look at that hand full of fish, to even know to ask the right questions….”

As I leaf again through the thick shiny pages of the book, there’s a sense of reaching through the cobwebs to draw upon the strength and vitality of a bygone era. There’s a sense that though these are but inanimate stills, they will live on well into the future

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 719)