A wondrous city

“Walking through the streets on Jerusalem in the eighties was like wandering through a city still visibly oriental but with an emerging modernity. Mules, camels and sumptuous, traditional clothing reminiscent of The 1001 Nights – telephone booths, Mercedes taxis and laser pointers suggestive of coming change.

Nowadays the mood in the city seems despondent to me – the influence of ultra-orthodox Jews on city politics and their presence on the streets has increased significantly. The whole city appears to be in a hurry; it’s only groups of tourists who leisurely wend their way through the narrow alleyways.

Of course, one tries to use the Robert Capa premise ‘If your pictures aren’t good enough, you weren’t close enough’ as a guideline; but in the ultra-orthodox city district of Mea Shearim, that premise was met with a lack of understanding. The real adventure, however, takes place when small scenarios that reveal a lot about daily life in this city, are performed on its streets.

For me, street photography represents a broad range of possibilities to document daily life in the city. To meet these demands amidst Jerusalem’s hectic hustle and bustle, requires constant awareness, because scenes of interaction between people or special moments are played out quicker than in other cities.”

Tom Krausz’s photographs of Jerusalem appeared in the 2015 photo book Jerusalem – Menschen und Geschichten einer wundersamen Stadt (Jerusalem – people and stories in a wondrous city), published by Corso Verlag.