“I believe that what Jews have in common is their differences. I spent 25 years going around the world from India to Sarajevo, from Rome to New York, from Beijing to Buenos Aires, and to Morocco and Ethiopia trying to understand what makes a people. I really see these portraits as a puzzle and each fragment is necessary and indispensable. Each place enabled me to express a part of myself and a part of what the Jewish people are.”
Frédéric Brenner is a French photographer who has spent the last 25 years traveling around the world chronicling Jewish life, often in surprising places. He earned many prestigious awards for his work, including the Prix Niépce and the Prix du Salon de la Photo when he was just 22, as well as the 1992 Prix de Rome. In 2003 he published the groundbreaking book Diaspora: Homelands in Exile, which contained 264 photographs of Jews from 40 countries on 5 different continents – the most extensive visual record of Jews ever created.
Born in Paris in 1959 to Holocaust survivor parents, Brenner was brought up in a family trying to distance itself from its Jewish heritage and painful past. However, the Six Day War served as a turning point for his family; he was sent to a Jewish school, and eventually joined a youth trip to Israel when he was 18. His travels in Jerusalem at that time inspired his search for the meaning and varieties Jewish identity, a search that later became his life’s work.
Before his most recent work, Brenner published five books on similar subjects: Jerusalem: instants d’étérnite (1984), Israel (1988), Marranes (1992), Jews/America/Representation (1996), and Exile at Home (1998). He also directed the 1997 film The Last Marranos, about the descendents of Jews forced to convert to Christianity, and their Jewish revival. His art has been displayed in galleries throughout the world, from New York to Tel Aviv to Buenos Aires. He currently lives in Paris with his wife, the poet and painter Myriam Tangi, and their two daughters.
Simon Schama2015Author and Historian
Michael Pollan2013Author and Food Activist
Letty Cottin Pogrebin2011Author
Thomas Friedman2009Author & Journalist
Dr. Ruth Westheimer2008Sociologist and psychosexual therapist
Scott S. Cowen, Ph.D.2006President of Tulane University
Frédéric Brenner2004Photographer
Barry Scheck, Esq.2003Defense Attorney and Professor
Dr. Judah Folkman2002Medical researcher
Ruth Gruber2001Journalist and humanitarian
David Halberstam2000Journalist and Non-fiction Writer
Peter Yarrow1999Musician and Activist
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield1998Ice Cream Entrepreneurs, Philanthropists and Activists
Felix G. Rohatyn1996Former U.S. Ambassador and Investment Banker
Senator Charles E. Schumer1995Democratic Politician
Marion Wiesel1993Translator and Humanitarian Activist
Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe1992Physician and Medical Activist
Adam Michnik1991Journalist and Anti-Communist Dissident
Jonathan Kozol1990Author and Education Activist
Isaac Stern1989Violinist and Philanthropist
Eugene M. Lang1988Businessman and Philanthropist
Mathilde Krim, Ph.D.1987Scientist and Medical Researcher
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