After World War II ended, a new type of street photography emerged. Young Jewish photographers, most of whom served in the armed forces, returned to see their city through different eyes. Their cameras captured the city’s expressive cultures as well as its quotidian practices with a heightened sense of vulnerability and solidarity. This illustrated talk contrasts the Italian Feast of San Gennaro on Mulberry Street with the experience of Jewish refugees waiting outside the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society on Lafayette Street, both located in neighborhoods that were distinct at that time from Greenwich Village. 

Deborah Dash Moore is Frederick G. L. Huetwell Professor of History and Professor of Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. An historian of American Jews, she specializes in twentieth century urban history. Her recent book, Walkers in the City: Jewish Street Photographers of Mid-Century New York (2023) extends her interest in urban Jewish history to photography. Currently she serves as editor in chief of The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, a ten-volume anthology of original sources translated into English from the biblical period to 2005, selected by leading scholars.