Rabbi Matthew preaching into a microphone

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Date Created:

September 12, 1965

Format:

Still image

Genre:

black-and-white photographs

Extent / Dimensions:

08.73 x 10.83 inches

Note:

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Description / Abstract:

Recto: New York is not one city, but many; not one culture, but a multitude ... It is the excitement of many worlds within a living city that obeys no convention, recognizes no stereotypes and accepts indifferently every sort of human behavior and tradition, opens only one New York, a photographic tour of the unknown worlds of the city taken by Jan Yoors with text by Charles Samuels, to be published by Simon and Schuster, August 26th, $7.95. Above, Rabbi Matthew, leader of the Black Jews of Harlem who call themselves The Commandment Keepers ... and claim that they are descendents of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.; Verso: New York City, 105. Only one New York. Photographed by Jan Yoors, written by Charles Samuels. New York: Simon and Schuster. 136 pp. $7.95. Sep. 12, 1965. Here are the faces that are seldom seen, reads the last time of the preface. True. Have you ever seen the bewhiskered face of John Sargeant Cram Jr., scion of one of New York's noblest families (Peter Cooper was his great-great-grandfather)? Cram looks like a bum and makes his life's work tending to the bums of the city. Have you ever seen Rabbi Matthew? His skin is as black as ebony as he recites the Hebrew liturgy from the pulpit of his Harlem synagogue. Have you ever seen the pretty majorette of the Chinese Public School band? Her uniform and the band music are her school's only concession to Caucasian ways. Have you ever met the Gypsy family seated at a wedding in the Polski Dom Narodowy, St. Mark's Place? The bride wears a necklace of gold coins, signifying her new family's wealth, diminished a bit by the price her father-in-law paid for her. If all these people seem like folks you'd like to see, don't be fooled. Mostly, they just aren't. Why? They should be. But photographer Yoors hasn't pictured them with any life or feeling. I don't think he cares about them - there's no love in his pictures. And so, though maybe you haven't met any of them before, you decide it wasn't much of a loss. Reviewed by Don Sider, of the Times staff