stefano giovannini’s journals

Coney Island Avenue and Avenue K, Brooklyn NY

click play or use manual controls to view the slideshow. button to the right for full screen [you can't watch the above flash slideshow on the iphone]

Josef Ostrowicz was in the Warsaw ghetto for 2 years. after the war he was one of the founders of Israel. He has been married with Galina, originally from Russia, for 18 years. They speak Hebrew, Yiddish, German, Polish, Russian but almost no English. 5 years ago they moved to the USA, Benson Hurst Brooklyn. She said the services and support for the Holocaust survivors is much better in the USA than in Israel.

The 2 ladies became friends at the concentration camp, the person from the organization told me. She told me they would not let me take their picture, she could not take a photo of them herself. But when I asked they said yes and they even gave me their first / last name.

We ate some chicken and vegetables. I asked Joseph, the holocaust survivor if he only ate kosher and he said no with a smile. But I wonder if we got lost in translation.

I told his wife I love Borodinsky bread. She asked me why I like that. she said Kiev bread is a lot better and that I should learn Russian or Hebrew so we could have a conversation.

May 26, 2009
Marriott Hotel, Brooklyn, NY

click play or use manual controls to view the slideshow. button to the right for full screen [you can't watch the above flash slideshow on the iphone]

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

click play or use manual controls to view the slideshow. button to the right for full screen

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