Untitled

Lawrence Shustak, born into a white Jewish family, made a portfolio of images highlighting the Black Jewish pop-ulation in Harlem. In this photograph, a rabbi at the synagogue of the Royal Order of Ethiopian Hebrews lowers the Torah onto a platform for recitation. The rabbi, his face obscured, functions as a representative of two marginalized communities. Taken during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and fifteen years after the Holocaust, this photograph counters stereotyping and its pernicious effects while suggesting the solace religion can bring, especially to the oppressed.