Far from Zion: Jews, Diaspora, Memory

“Jason Francisco’s photographs in Far from Zion invite us to follow his exploration of the Jewish historical experience in contemporary times. In their immediacy and their poetry, they suggest that this experience—like one’s faith—cannot be explicitly defined. The journey itself is our reward.”—Tom Gitterman, Gitterman Gallery, New York
“This book is a meditation on some of the central questions that frame contemporary American Jewish life—questions of home and place, connection and difference, history and memory. It shows us what the contradictory desires within the Jewish imagination look like. As such, this highly successful work will speak to poets and scholars, photographers and artists, as well as a broader public.”—Laura Levitt, Director of Jewish Studies, Temple University

Far from Zion is a photographic exploration of the contradictory meanings of the Jewish diaspora at the end of the passing century.

Library Journal

Tombstone portraits in Ukrainian Jewish cemeteries; a bris bat (a naming ceremony for a newborn girl) in suburban Philadelphia; Orthodox Jews praying on the banks of the Seine in Paris on Rosh Hashanah, 1998; and an empty cell in the Auschwitz death camp-the Diaspora has indeed led Jews far from their homeland. In these and 68 other full-page black-and-white photographs, along with some "diasporic investigations" (e.g., meditations, observations, quotations), documentary photographer Francisco attempts to present "a fair vision of Jewish life in Diaspora-its scatteredness, compositeness, adaptiveness, lack." While his subjects are particular and sometimes personal, their message is broad and universal, and this is a powerful photographic testament, highly recommended for photography collections in public and university libraries.-Marcia Welsh, Dartmouth Coll. Libs., Hanover, NH Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Jason Francisco is a photographer whose work concerns critical approaches to documentary practices. His work includes projects on Jewish history, San Francisco’s Chinatown, urban communities in Philadelphia, India and globalization, and contemporary American public spaces. He teaches photography and visual studies at Rutgers University and Stanford University.