Kipp Friedman’s title may be marketing and public relations director for the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center, but most people using the center know him as “the person who takes the pictures.”
Indeed, not only has he for the past 11 years been “the primary photographer of all programs and activities,” but he is also an avid photographer, both as a hobby and as a supplemental source of income, he said.
This side of Friedman will be on display during the opening of the “A Day of Discovery” events on Saturday, Feb. 8, 7 p.m. His exhibit “Faces of Jewish Milwaukee” will be presented as part of a program “Embracing Sinai Through Diversity: The Arts.”
This exhibit contains pictures of some 200 Milwaukee-area Jews taken during about the last three months. “My goal was to capture a variety and the diversity of the Jewish community, and I think I’ve accomplished that,” Friedman said. “I got some wonderful faces and I think I’ve covered a cross section of the community.”
Friedman said he got the idea from local Jewish educator and activist Marty Katz, who was inspired by the display of photographed Jewish faces from around the world shown at the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv. Although Friedman took all his pictures with subjects’ permission, the exhibit will be anonymous, like that at the Tel Aviv museum.
“What it illustrates is what a diverse community of Jews there are in the world,” said Friedman. “Katz’s idea was to take that model and … show the diverse faces of the Jewish community of Milwaukee.”
And that fits with the “Embracing Sinai Through Diversity” theme of “A Day of Discovery,” Friedman said. “Nothing shows the diversity of the community better than pictures. There is no one Jewish face, and you see that in the photo exhibit.”
Loading ...