Levi Yitzchak FreidinRare Vintage Original Photo from the Court of The Lubavitcher Rebbe 770 Chabad

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These are very rare original vintage silver gelatin prints from the 1970s, Most probably from the touring exhibit. they are … Read more These are very rare original vintage silver gelatin prints from the 1970s, Most probably from the touring exhibit. they are all stamp signed by the photographer verso. Levi Yitzchak Freidin captured his experiences at the court of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of Chabad on still film, his work as a photographer for various Lubavitch institutions in Eretz Yisroel standing him in good stead. Though he had initially referred to 770 as “a madhouse,” Freidin so loved his experience there that he returned every Tishrei for nearly twenty years thereafter. Returning to Eretz Yisroel after his first Tishrei, Freidin held an exhibit called “770” at Beit Sokolov, a journalistic center in Tel Aviv. The exhibit was later moved to Yerushalayim and then to Bar Ilan University, providing viewers with images of the Rebbe and the heartbeat of Lubavitcher Chassidim. In later years, Freidin also recorded moving film of his Tishrei experiences, which he edited, narrated, and screened at yeshivos around the country. Freidin’s photos, taken on 35mm film, encapsulated the full Tishrei experience from the end of Elul until the beginning of Cheshvan. Though the photos taken in his earlier years include many colorful scenes from the streets of Crown Heights, his later photos are far more focused on the Rebbe and the Rebbe’s interactions with Chassidim. Having come to 770 clean shaven, Freidin eventually grew a beard and, along with it, a very close relationship with the Rebbe. Though he was a bold photographer who did not hesitate to jump into the Rebbe’s path and snap a photo, Freidin never used a flash so as not to disturb the Rebbe. He would sometimes take pictures of the Rebbe as the Rebbe left his house in the morning, at which time the Rebbe would offer him a ride to 770. Sometimes he accepted; at other times he declined. In 1971, Levi Yitzchak Freidin asked for permission to photograph Rabbi Schneerson as a matter of livelihood and to spread traditional Jewish observance in Israel. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, tens of thousands of images were taken of Schneerson’s public life in Brooklyn. Some Hasidim have memorized every known photograph as a matter of Hasidic devotion, while others recognize the style of the photographer or can discern from the subject of the photograph the factual details of the scene. Freidin held an enviable position in relation to Rabbi Schneerson and enjoyed certain access privileges One enters Freidin’s photographs from a pedestrian vantage point, bringing Rabbi Schneerson within arm’s reach. These photographs are distinguished by their acute precision, an unfaltering sense of judicious objectivity, and a conscious absence of pictorial rhetoric. Freidin’s photographs claim to present their subject without mediation. Whether or not Rabbi Schneerson knew he was playing to the camera, he rarely took off his coat and hat or donned his glasses. Rabbi Schneerson did not share his predecessor’s preference for the aristoratic pose inherited from European portrait painting or the attention to the formal qualities of portrait photography. Rabbi Schneerson preferred a more documentary legacy, going about his day as religious and political leader, rather than alluding to it through a highly symbolic composition. The cabinet de travail was replaced with more social settings; the typical photograph shows Schneerson in the communal sections of “770,” surrounded by his Hasidim, actively performing the rituals of civic and religious duties: praying, waving, greeting, listening, and speaking. Mal Warshaw joined Berez, Freidin, and Goldshmidt in the mid-1970s (Maya Balkirsky Katz) See less