stefano giovannini’s journals

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Pre Passover/Pesach celebration in the Satmar section of Williamsburg. Religious jews burn leftover food that is forbidden during Passover. Mostly leavened bread and container.

Small fires scattered around the neighborhood. More people joined and threw boxes containing various items. I saw even brooms and toasters in the burning pyre.

Fire alarms went off and a truck of FDNY ladder 11 extinguished the flame. I had a good photo of that but the fireman realized that he was not wearing his helmet and might get in trouble if the picture ends up in a paper.

A man posed for me and told me I could take his picture standing in front of others.

Other hasids asked me if I had a card and a website.

The fire at some point was hot and the smoke was toxic. It dried my pants but my feet and socks remained soaked and made me smell like a chimney sweeper.

May 26, 2009
Marriott Hotel, Brooklyn, NY

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More than 3000 Satmar orthodox jews gathered at the Brooklyn Marriott to decry the real estate development in Toledo, Spain that threatens some very old jewish cemetery. Apparently the graves would be relocated and this is unacceptable to some orthodox Jews as graves should be left alone “for the eternity”.

Some view it as a way to erase Jewish historical presence in Europe.  I wonder if the developers are just motivated by greed rather than ideology. These are sensitive issues and I can’t find an answer although I always feel it is a shame to destroy or deface symbols of the past.

A rabbi tells me it would be less sacrilegious to build on top of a cemetery rather than moving the graves. That for Jews and Muslim the resting place has to be left alone in peace. I think about cemeteries in Italy that after a few years the remains get collected and removed from the tomb and put in a smaller box in a little crypt. I think about that small Jewish-Portuguese cemetery in Chinatown that is a little patch in between residential buildings. And the issues with the African burial ground in downtown Manhattan.

A rabbi starts wailing and mourning for those dead 500 years ago in Spain.

More than 1000 Satmars are outside trying to get in but there is no room. The NYPD and security have to intervene.

Some hotel guests look very uncomfortable.

I find it a very interesting experience, and I find strange being the only photographer apart from the official hasidic one covering the event.

People at the beginning do not want to be photographed but then after a while they ask me for my card and if I can put these photos on my website.

Here is more info about the Jewish cemetery in Toledo

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

April 08, 2009

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I wanted to shoot the Satmar Hasids burning stuff for the beginning of Passover. I had to photograph “The Blessing of the Sun”,  an early morning assignment and I did not know the whole thing would be over just after 11.

When I got there there were plenty of burned piles that Sanitation workers were cleaning up.  Went to the Matzoh bakeries on Broadway.  Inside the workers were hectic and would have allowed me to take photos after the holiday. The Satmars do not seem very keen of having their photo taken.

A worker outside was named James Joseph which does not sound very typically Jewish.

Up the street at 426 Broadway Rabbi Gross from Rockland county had a few boxes of Matzohs. He liked the photos I took of him and asked how he could buy them.

At the Chabad House on Bedford avenue they were getting ready for a dinner with 100 people. They were happy of the photos I took at their party a few weeks ago