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Acknowledgements:
Gifted photographers have contributed their
talents and brought life to these pages.
Orah Buck has captured the
passage of time in faces of her Baycrest portraits,
demonstrating the dignity and resilience of these older Survivors.
ISBN 0-9699165-3-1 © 2003 Baycrest Centre. Manual available
at Baycrest Centre, Toronto, Canada.
 
Dearest Orah:
I am so happy that Babatha is so alive!!!
Just yesterday they picked it up to have an exhibit at the
Sepharadic Community and after that I have two more venues
confirmed. At these venues, people from the Jewish schools
in Mexico are going to be able to visit it and I am sure it
is going to leave a mark in their hearts as it has had in
mine.
Last week we had a special meeting with all
the members of the Board and the Directive Council and everybody
was so excited about the pictures and the story. In total
in the ICMI more than 900 people had the opportunity to share
with Babatha, her live, her hope and her Jewish spirit. Among
those people you can find artists, singers (we had a special
concert for Rosh ha Shana!), diplomats, politicians, Christians
and University Students. For us it has been a wonderful experience.
As soon as Babatha finishes her adventure
in Mexico, I will write you a full report. In the meanwhile
receive all the extent of my gratitude for sharing with us
this life, this light.
Shabbat Shalom.
Lri. Shoshana Turkia .
Directora General.
Instituto Cultural México Israel A.C.
THE
PHOTOGRAPHIC SHOW THAT REVEALS THE PERSEVERANCE OF THE JEWISH
PEOPLE
Notimex, El Universal, Mexico
Sunday, September 3rd , 2006
4:27 PM.
The history of a Jewish woman whose life
in the old city of Petra, Jordan shows, after two thousand
years, an example of the perseverance and hope of the Israeli
people.
This is the spinal cord of the exhibition
of Babatha's Story, by Canadian photographer Orah Buck, which
opened today at the Cultural Institute Mexico-Israel.
A total of 22 images of standard format,
full color, showing corners, roads, fields and majestic constructions
out of stone, are part of the exhibition majestically displaying
a world where young Babatha lived under Roman domination.
Open until October 18th, the exhibition is
based on archaeological findings carried out at Ein Gedi's
Valley in 1961 by the prominent Israeli archaeologist Yigael
Yadin. This story is about the original ancient documents
written by a young Jewish woman and discovered in a crack
in the cave wall where she escaped to hide out from the Roman
advance and to protect herself and her son from Roman power.
Babatha's history, as Orah Buck told us in
the opening, is an example of the tradition of the strongest
Jewish women heroines who combine courage, fortitude, intelligence
and strength and whose lives could be understood as similar
to those of contemporary women. Babatha's comforts, pleasures,
hardships, fights and sorrows are shared and understood by
many Jewish women in today's life.
She was born in Maoza , a small town south
of Petra . Babatha was orphaned at a very young age. She then
inherited significant and abundant date fields that belonged
to her father. When she was still a teenager she married Yeshu'a;
from this union her only child Joshua was born.
When her husband died in spite of the burden
of looking after the family business she carried the weight
of being under the patriarchy that existed at that time: trying
to protect, at any cost to herself, the right she had, by
law, to hold and look after the fortune of her young son.
As years past Babatha fell in love with Judah, a much older
man than her with a wife and a daughter.
A year after she married Judah , Babatha
became a widow again. Then she had to fight in court against
her husband's first wife. Later she was running away to escape
the Romans. She hid in the Cave of the Letters at Ein Gedi
with many other Jewish people. Her court documents were found
there by Israeli archaeologist Yigal Yadin.
More than two thousand years ago, added Buck,
the city where Babatha lived “had begun as a temporary refugee
for nomadic Nabataeans. It became a thriving centre with numerous
profitable businesses. Caravans found it to be a perfect location
because it was an earthly union between Africa and Asia .
It was easy to defend and protect with its surrounding mountains
and caves. The Nabataeans built Petra into a fortress, a walled
capital city.
Attracted by the majesty of Petra and with
the model history of Babatha, the photographer discovers with
her camera the ruins of that city where her heroine loved,
prospered, suffered and lived the history that she left in
the found written scrolls and documents.
Jenni Serur, vice president of the Cultural
Institute Mexico-Israel, stressed that through a devoted and
hard process of research and an aesthetic sense, Orah Buck
“takes us to Babatha's soul, giving the voice back to a woman
who, in spite of her youth, her orphaned status, her having
been widowed twice and her own female condition in a man's
world, she dared prevail over the trials of her time in history”.
With her history, she added, Babatha “keeps
the spirit alive of survival, that has been with the Jewish
people from the origins and not only that but she and Orah
also remind us: in order to reach for peace it is necessary
to defend truth and justice every day of our lives”.
Orah Buck it's a well-known Canadian photographer
who also exhibits in her country, The United States of America
and Israel . She is very pleased to open Babatha's Story,
a colour photograph exhibition in Mexico City .
***NEW
EXHIBITION ***
Babatha's in Mexico City!
Canadian photographer Orah Buck’s Babatha’s
Story will open its 22 colour photographs exhibition Sunday,
September 3rd at 12:00 P.M. at the Instituto Cultural Mexico–Israel
A.C., Republica de el Salvador #41 in the Historic Centre
of Mexico City.
Babatha’s Story tell us the history
of a young Jewish woman who lived in Petra, Jordan around
132 C.E. at the time of Roman domination and the uprising
of Bar Kokhba. This exhibition is based on ancient scrolls
found at the Ein Gedi Valley in 1961 by Israel archaeologist
Yigael Yadin. The Israel Exploration Society together with
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and The Shrine of The Book
published the find in The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period
in The Cave of the Letters by Naphtali Lewis.
Orah Buck is a well-known Canadian photographer
who has presented exhibitions in Canada, United States of
America, Israel and now in Mexico. More than ten galleries
around the world show Orah’s interest in nature and
people. Beside this, we note several exhibitions based on
Judaism and Jewish migration from different points of view.
The Instituto Cultural Mexico-Israel A.C. is
honored to present this exhibition as part of its promotion
of friendship and the strengthen-ing of bonds between people.
The exhibition will be open until October 18th .
Admission is Free.
For further information please contact: instituto@mexico-israel.org
Phone: 57098812 or 57098853.
What They Say in Spanish
El Instituto Cultural México-
Israel A.C. y la Federación Sefarad í Latinoamericana
BABATHA´S STORY
Conoce la fascinante historia de Babatha, una
mujer judía moderna que vivió en la época
de Bar Kojva (132 E.C). Descubre esta historia real llena
de valentía, aventura y dramatismo a través
de la fotografía de ORAH BUCK.
La exposición permanecerá abierta
hasta el 18 de octubre. ENTRADA LIBRE.
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