Social Semiotics, 2013

Vol. 23, No. 1, 100
118, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2012.707038

In My Eyes, Each Photograph was a Masterpiece. Construction of

childrens photos in a family album on kibbutz in Israel
Edna Barromi Perlman*

Dept. of Visual Literacy, Kibbutz College of Education, Technology and Arts, Tel Aviv, Israel

This article explores the process of the creation of photographs on kibbutz

through a case study of one nuclear family living on kibbutz in Israel. It examines
the process of construction of photographs in the private family album of the
nuclear family in relation to the public forms of documentation on kibbutz. The
article explores to what extent the photographs enabled the family to express their
individuality in kibbutz society, which was self-governed by a socialist, egalitarian
ideology. It examines the influences of the childhood photographs of the mother,
who joined the kibbutz as an adult, on the construction of images of motherhood
in her private kibbutz photo album. It investigates the way in which the
construction of private photographs in one family album contested dominant
mythologies on kibbutz at that time.
Keywords: photography; family album; kibbutz; childhood; ideology; socialism;
motherhood

Introduction
This article presents the case of one family on kibbutz in the south of Israel, in the
Negev. It investigates whether this family succeeded in creating a photo album that
reflected a personal representation of their individual and emotional reality on
kibbutz and to what extent was the album marked by the public collective, socialist
visual representation. The study involved investigation of visual material created on
kibbutzim in Israel, interviewing families having lived on kibbutz between 1948 and
1967,1 belonging to the HaShomer Hatzayir youth movement2 and having raised
children at that time. Each family was analysed as an entire universe, yielding a
different argument. In the research, the case study of families offered several private
albums; the albums selected for analysis were those containing photographs of
babies, infants and toddlers.3 In each album, certain photographs were selected for
the analysis. In this case, the album selected for analysis is that of Anna and
Shmuels4 son, N., born in 1966.
The analysis itself explores the way in which the family photographs and the
overt family narrative that accompanied the photographs contested dominant
mythologies common on kibbutz at the time. The core of the narratives belonged
to the mother, Anna, who was the one who compiled the album and was emotionally
involved in the interview. This is the first study of photographic albums on kibbutz,
created in this context. Kibbutz society and communal child rearing has been
researched extensively, but the focus on the visual material of individual members on

*Email: [email protected]
# 2013 Taylor & Francis
 Social Semiotics 101

kibbutz, and in particular the documentation of children in private photo albums of

kibbutz members, has not been researched elsewhere. The article expands on the
discussions of practices of documentation common on kibbutzim, on the notion of
credibility of family photographs, the female and male gaze, the return of the gaze in
an andocentric society, the question of whether family snaps existed on kibbutz and
the collective vision in kibbutz society.

Analysis methods
The analysis of photographs in albums in itself is complex and poses particular
challenges, because photographs in albums are not created in a systematic structure.
The research methods employed incorporated a semiotic approach to the analysis of
the photographs, searching for signs in the photographs and their meanings to the
interviewees. This research introduces visual analysis of elements, such as body
posture, posing, proximity and assessing the quality of the photographs alongside the
semiotic analysis. Photo elicitation was used during the interviews, in order to
generate narratives.
Photo albums lack the clear intentionality of the photographer; they do not rely
on text to convey a message and the reading lacks consistency; the same signs are
read differently by the same kibbutz members over different periods of time, in which
kibbutz society went through structural transformations in its lifestyle and ideology.
Contemporary kibbutz society has found itself in a state of change; the ideological
and institutional order has lost its grip, creating a platform for kibbutz members to
release hidden meanings that previously did not correlate with kibbutz ideology and
social trends. Interpretations and meanings given to old photographs shifted, new
meanings were produced to photographs containing old signs. Annas covert stories,
exposed by means of the narrative and the semiotic analysis of the images, lent
meaning and significance to the photographs in her album. This creates a
methodological interface in certain parts of the article regarding the attribution of
voice, between the voice of the interviewee and the voice of the writer.

The credibility of family albums

Family photographs constitute a special genre within the world of photography,
characterised by a separate set of values than other genres of photography, which are
contested as being manipulated or contrived, by the photographers themselves and
the media. The decoding of information in family photographs was based on the
conviction that photographs depict reality and are therefore trustworthy. When
photography was a new technology, over 170 years ago, it was associated with the
positivist worldview, formulated by August Comte in the mid-nineteenth century,
such that photography was considered a form of science. Positivism gave priority to
anything that was measurable and amenable to scientific proof. It held that only that
which could be seen by the eye truly existed, concrete knowledge was reduced to that
which could be seen, measured, quantified and controlled. Photography was
considered an ideal means of reproduction and penetrating nature without any
distortions (Kracauer 1980, 248). The attribute of realism lies in the belief that the
visible is the real and the real becomes the viewers knowledge of the people.
102 E. Barromi Perlman

The philosophy of positivism has clung to family portraiture and segregated it

from other branches of photography, ever since the use of daguerreotypes, turning
the family portrait into an entity in its own right (Barromi Perlman 2007, 4
6). A
connection was forged between the images in family albums and the established
scientific outlook which accorded these photographs credibility and the attribute of
realism. Roland Barthes explains that the relationship of signified to the signifiers is
one way of recording, which reinforces the myth of photographic naturalness: the
scene is there, captured mechanically and reinforces the stupefying evidence of this
is how it was (1980, 278). Gillian Rose refers to the Indexicality of the image
(2010, 38) and that the photographs is a true record of what was there when the
shutter snapped.
Family photographs may undergo a process of selection, after which they are
placed within a photo album and are chosen as objects entrusted with the
preservation of the familys heritage. This was particularly common amongst Jewish
families, post Second World War (Barromi Perlman 2007, 19
21). The process of
compiling an album, selecting certain images over others, arranging them in a
particular order and connecting them to an oral narrative serve the purpose of
perpetuating those family memories which the family chooses to favour over others.
Yet, these narratives can also be accompanied by covert narratives, underlying
denotations and subtexts in regard to the overt visual and oral narrative.
Family photographs are taken to function as readerly (Barthes 1974) texts in
the sense that the viewers
for example extended family members or those outside
the family
are restricted to reading them and are not expected to undertake in a
discourse or dialogue with the images. Viewers of family photographs do not
question whether the family photo is a social construction, an object of complex,
emotional and cultural meaning, and [an] artifact used to conjure memory, nostalgia
and contemplation (Sturken 1999, 178). Nor are they expected to create their own
personal critical interpretations of the photographs, but rather to accept the visual
text and related narratives. Narratives which are repeated during the process of
viewing define the family identity and become part of the ritual itself. By
participating in the family ritual, the viewer is demonstrating a form of acceptance
towards the representations in the album. Hirsch explained that:

[T]he structure of looking is reciprocal; photographer and viewer collaborate on the

reproduction of ideology. Between the viewer and the recorded object, the viewer
encounters, and/or projects, a screen made up of dominant mythologies and
preconceptions that shape the representation. (1997, 7)

Thus, it is assumed that there is a stability of meaning and purpose in the family
photograph in general. Yet, the family considered in the present article lived in a state
of tension regarding the demands of kibbutz society and their personal existence as a
nuclear family on kibbutz in an ambience dominated by mythologies of collectivity.
The mother defied the conventions and acted in her own private sphere of family
photographs and contested the reality of communal child rearing which they
represented. She was not willing to accept the normative visual representations
created by the kibbutz as representations of her life and experiences, or as images
that would ultimately supply her with visual memories of herself as a mother and of
her sons childhood. She was unable to outwardly defy the norms of communal child
 Social Semiotics 103

rearing on kibbutz, her option was to leave kibbutz or to accept them. She
acknowledged the fact that staying on kibbutz meant compromising her maternal
desires, in her own words: Those who couldnt abide by the rules are not here today.
Her deep maternal instincts lead her to pave the path of action by means of
controlling and influencing her personal visual documentation.

Kibbutz society
The kibbutzim created a unique form of society, based on Marxist ideology with a
communist lifestyle and was founded on the ideological unity of its members sharing
common beliefs. Kibbutz society defined itself as a recruited society: the members
were recruited for the common cause and were required to forsake their personal
pleasures, their parental desires and personal development in order to prioritise the
needs of the collective. This was the prevailing spirit in most kibbutzim during their
early years, before the foundation of the State of Israel, in 1948 (the album in
question was created over 30 years late, in another era). Kibbutz society in its
formative years, in the 1930s, relied on the members total commitment and sacrifice
for the sake of Zionism, building a homeland for the Jews and settling the land. The
physical hardships, existential dangers and constant strains of settling the land
justified the demand made of the pioneers to repress their need for familial bonding,
intimacy and proximity with their children in favour of the communal good (Gavron
2000, 162
4). Communal child rearing was introduced as a solution for the trying
circumstances in which kibbutz inhabitants existed and eventually became institu-
tionalised. Parental demonstrations of love were discouraged and were considered a
threat to the process of collective socialisation.5
The effect of adopting the socialist, egalitarian ideology by kibbutz members was
such that, according to Abrams and McCulloch (1976), the biological families living
on the kibbutz underwent a de-construction of their traditional role of being
ultimately responsible for their own welfare in terms of economy and education and
health. Families underwent a process of re-construction in accordance with the
principles of kibbutz ideology. The traditional roles were transferred into the hands
of the collective so that the kibbutz community was given responsibility over child
rearing, as well as the economic, cultural and educational welfare of the children.
Melford Spiro wrote that:

The kibbutz has succeeded in eliminating most of the characteristics and functions of
the traditional family. The parents have little responsibility for the physical care or for
the socialization of their children; the relationship between mates does not include
economic cooperation; and parents and children do not share common residence. (1967,
123)

Parents were divested of the traditional western patriarchal roles; children were
separated from their parents at birth and raised in communal child rearing, in
childrens homes, by caretakers. The caretakers were called metaplot in Hebrew,
plural, and metapelet, single, feminine (the work was considered a womans duty in
kibbutz). A childs reference group was not his or her biological parents, but his peer
group; the children were divided according to their peer groups and were raised and
educated with their peers in childrens homes; the peer group was meant to serve as
104 E. Barromi Perlman

an extended family. Spiro wrote that in spite of the fact that the family did not exist
in the structural-functional sense, it existed in the psychological sense, in the strong
attachments between parents and children (1967, 123
4).

The return of the gaze

Kibbutz society aspired to be an egalitarian society; but in point of fact, it was an
androcentric society, which took a male view of the world, and in which power and
control were in the hands of men (Leichman and Paz 1994, 191
2). Although kibbutz
society had pretensions of being an egalitarian society and upheld principles of
gender equality, it operated by means of male-centred concepts and worldviews.
Women were designated for female roles in the kibbutz; education, laundry and
health. Today women testify about the frustration they experienced within the social
system that spoke in two voices, which in actuality contradicted the ideological
principles that it claimed to espouse: by discriminating against women in terms of the
occupational roles they were allowed to fulfil within the kibbutz, and in terms of the
status they were permitted to achieve on the kibbutz. Jo Spence wrote that For
women, the question of looking and taking pictures is determined by the dominant
culture. Those who create, circulate and own the image production process, thereby
define and control their meanings (1988, 174). Within this reality, Anna attempted
to turn her female gaze back at the male world, if not through the actual
manipulation of the photographic craft, but by controlling the image production
and the photographic reality reflected in them. The photo album was her means of
dealing with the societal pressures and maintaining her individual outlook on
parenting. She struggled to create images that would provide her the pleasure of
looking, to create an album that would sustain its hold and remain impenetrable and
immune to the social pressures regarding child rearing. She did so by omitting a large
part of the visual signs of the collective from her private albums: the childrens home,
the metapelet, the room the baby slept in, the food he was served, the bath he bathed
in over there in Annas words.

The practice of photographing children on kibbutz

Rose explains that family photos are particular sorts of images imbedded in specific
practices, and it is the specificity of those practices that define a photograph (2010,
14). From a methodological point of view, this approach implies that the focus of the
analysis should not only centre on the construction of meaning through semiotic
analysis of the photograph, but on the social practices in which the taking, making
and circulation of the photograph are embedded (2010, 14). The question about
photographs is not only what their content is, but also what is done with them. Slater
(1995, 137) writes about photographys relation to the dominant practices of the
image in domestic life. Richard Chalfen asks what do ordinary people do with
their personal pictures (2008, 119). Harrison (2002, 90) writes that research involves
understanding the contexts and practices of photographs. Photographic prints are
material objects; the way in which they are produced, stored, viewed, displayed,
archived and circulated are all practices which are embedded in the object. The
practice may involve an emotionality related to viewing the photographs, or the
articulation of certain feelings. Rose explains that a family photo can become one not
 Social Semiotics 105

just because it looks like one but because it is treated like one, narratives, memories
and feelings are connected to it and the photo itself is a participant in a family
practice.
Public documentation of children on kibbutz was devoid of private practices in
domestic life and lacked private memorials to it. The public practice distanced the
biological parents from the event itself
the parents often did not participate in the
creation of the image and had no memorials related to the creation. It was mostly
performed at the initiative of the kibbutz itself, by its members, during childrens
social and educational activities (of which kibbutz society was proud). Often the
photographer would be designated for the role simply by owning a camera, during
the 1960s cameras were rare possessions on kibbutz. The photographers on the
kibbutz generally pursued their activities voluntarily and would enter the childrens
home in the midst of their daily activities. When children from one nuclear family
were scattered over different childrens homes, no effort was made to place siblings
within one photographic frame, so that each child was photographed with his or her
peer group.
Figure 1 is a typical form of kibbutz photographic portraiture, taken during
educational activity. The child is dressed in kibbutz casual attire, her hair is
disheveled. The child does not gaze back at the photographer, so that it appears as if
the photographer himself was not interested in capturing her individual gaze, but

Figure 1. Portrait of child, Kibbutz Bet Alfa.6

106 E. Barromi Perlman

rather to document the children in this peer group. Although the photograph appears
to be an individual portrait, it lacks individuality in the sense that the photograph
has no private aspect to it. The parents and the owner of the photograph have no
particular recollection of the photograph being taken, or to a narrative relating to the
event itself, thus the photograph lacks a personal narrative or memory. The memory
belongs to the photographer, and thus to the collective, and not to the child or the
family. This practice transforms the portrait into a portrait of a child belonging and
functioning in a collective system and being a product of it. These photographs
would be stored in the kibbutz archive under the category of education and under
the subcategory of the childs specific peer group. Anna was intuitively trying to
create an visual alternative to the common practice of documentation, which was
according to Shapiro (1988, 130) reproducing dominant forms of discourse, which
help circulate the existing system of power and authority.

Annas childhood album

Anna was born in 1944 in the city of Bnei Brak and joined kibbutz in 1962. Shmuel
was born in Australia in 1936, joined the kibbutz in 1956. Anna and Shmuel are
kibbutz founders and Shmuel held key positions in the leadership of the movement.
Their kibbutz is located in the southern part of the country, in the Western Negev.
Their kibbutz is ideologically cohesive, privatisation is arriving on this kibbutz
gradually and childrens home functioned as late as 1991 on this kibbutz.
Anna and Shmuels case is unique in that they joined the kibbutz voluntarily as
adults, met and married on the kibbutz. Their perspective as people who were raised
and educated in an urban environment shaped their worldview and informed them as
adults in relation to western conventions of child rearing and patriarchal family
conventions.
Anna was born to a family of Polish immigrants who had left Poland before the
Holocaust (Figure 2). The entire family from both sides had perished in the
Holocaust. The photographs from Annas childhood album exemplify urban habits
of photographing families in Israel during the 1940s and 1950s in a patriarchal,
traditional western style. The father in this photo appears as the dominant figure; his
height is conspicuous. The photographs were taken by a photographer who was
invited to make occasional family portraits, or by her cousin. The words the entire
family in Hebrew (kol hamishpaha) are inscribed on the bottom. These words
denote the significance of the photograph to the family; it is a presentation of the
whole nuclear family. The verbal text and the non-verbal messages combine into a
visual unity. The reading of the visual text is that of a family being decoded as a
cohesive unit, which is supported and complemented by the written text. The visual
codes of the family are unity and physical proximity. The fathers embrace
contributes to the sense of family unity.
The girls were dressed up for the portraits: the dignity accorded to the very action
of making the photograph, to the moment itself, can be seen in the familys decision
to create a mise-en-sce`ne of festive dress (Figure 3a
c).
In Figure 4, we see Anna as a child holding the hand of a proximate adult figure,
and although the adult does not appear in the photo frame, the viewer assumes the
child is not alone
that an adult exists in the babys life. The lack of a central visual
adult presence does not indicate a sign of absence of parenting or lack of love; the
 Social Semiotics 107

Figure 2. Photograph of Anna with her family.7

baby is holding out her hand to a figure that is technically absent but emotionally
present to the eye of the viewer
suggesting a form of parenting which does not need
to rely on visual affirmation of the photographs.
The parents are not always present in the photographs, nor are there visual forms
of parental passion or caring; these are present in the album in the form of symbols
of unity. The viewer decodes the signs of a family unity, of ceremonious attire, as
signs of love and emotion, and of parental love. The love presumably exists in the
relationship, along with the care and the attention.
The images from Annas childhood photo album reflect the cultural in which she
was raised. Some of the visual symbols among which Anna grew up and absorbed as
a child are repeated in the albums she created for her son such as proximity and
motherhood affection.
108 E. Barromi Perlman

Figure 3. Anna as a child and Anna with her sister.

Figure 4. Anna as a toddler.

 Social Semiotics 109

Photography on kibbutz and the male gaze

The habits of portraiture that Anna was familiar with from her childhood did not
coincide with the practice of public and private documentation common on kibbutz.
The concept of a close-knit nuclear family was perceived as a potential threat to
kibbutz society, and was not encouraged. The presentation of a well-groomed family
was perceived as a bourgeois preference and was not an accepted value in the context
of kibbutz society. The nuclear family undermined the kibbutz, and the existence of a
nuclear family was thought to come at the expense of the entire kibbutz. Bar On
wrote that The original kibbutz was intended to be, actually, a kibbutz without
children. Only under such conditions was it possible to maintain a fac ade of
equality (2004, 100) [Hebrew]. Family life was deconstructed; kibbutz members ate
their meals with the other kibbutz members in the dining hall. Any tendency to stay
away in the family rooms and to build up a segregated family life was strongly
condemned (Kransz 1983, 259).
Photography on kibbutz was largely a male occupation in an andocentric society
(In the 1960s there were close to 150 registered photographers working for the
kibbutz movement, records show that the vast majority were men8). The photo-
grapher on kibbutz occupied a position of power not only by virtue of his position
behind the camera, but also in respect to those who stood in front of the camera and
could turn an object into a subject that was observed and examined by the viewers.
In this sense, the camera, held by a male photographer, can reflect the dominant
gaze. Sontag writes: Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention. The
act of photographing is more than passive observing. Like sexual voyeurism, it is a
way of at least tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging what is going on to keep on
happening (1977, 11
12). Anna was required to adapt and make concessions, to
adjust to the norms being dependent on the availability of the photographer. They
did not own a camera until the early 1970s nor could they order the services of a
commercial photographer.
Anna did not accept the role of non-intervention and acquiescence; she
encouraged the photographer to visit their home frequently, to take photos of her
son at significant milestones of the childs development, such as his first baby steps.
Her desire to reverse the gaze was an attempt to shift from being a female subject for a
male photographer in an andocentric society into an active object in the photographs.
This also applied to altering the representations of her son from that of a child raised
and educated by the collective to her personal, biological, individual son.

Annas narrative
During the Annas interview it became clear that she objected to raising children in the
childrens home on the kibbutz and had a difficult time reconciling herself to the
demands of kibbutz life. She said that it was especially difficult for her to take leave of
the children at night and turn them over at bedtime to the metaplot at the childrens
home. She also said that it was even more disturbing to her that while she was working
as a metapelet, putting other to bed children, a different kibbutz metapelet was putting
her own children to bed. She admits that she feels guilty for having left the children in
the childrens home at nights. Viewing the album together was emotionally fraught for
Anna, who brought up unresolved issues and painful memories of the era in which the
110 E. Barromi Perlman

album was created and of her experiences from the time and differences of opinion.
Her personal pain was associated not only with the compromises demanded of her by
kibbutz society but also by the lack of support at home she had suffered from in this
sense. Anna explained that she had often asked herself whether she wished to leave the
kibbutz and break up the family, but that she had decided to make peace with her
current reality for the sake of the familys unity. In Annas words:

I remember that we had to take our children back to the childrens home at a quarter to
eight every night even if your child slept the whole afternoon and you had no time to
spend with him. Shmuel was very strict about this. If we wouldnt cooperate, then the
kibbutz movement might collapse. They had to maintain very strict rules. There were
very few who didnt abide by the rules and brought their children over at eight. And they
were reprimanded . . . There was a metapelet in the childrens home who was so strict
that Yasser Arafat seemed lenient next to her. She was terribly strict. Some parents liked
that, and some suffered and just waited for her to leave.

Anna and Shmuel travelled in the service of the HaShomer Hatzayir youth
movement to the US, and lived there for three years (1977
1980). Returning after
this time abroad was extremely difficult, both for her and for the children in relation
to her role as a mother and especially affected her youngest daughter. When they
returned from America, her daughter

. . . would run away from the childrens home at night crying that she wanted to be with
us. I found it very difficult to force her to return there to sleep. Whenever I would tell her
to go back to the childrens home, she would say: I want to be with you, with you.

Annas photo album

N.s album is in good condition, it contains 24 inner pages, an entry page and a light
blue binding, in which a small photograph of N. is inserted. Black pages are
protected with tracing paper. On the cover Anna wrote N. 2, indicating that there
existed N. 1 album. The text inserted in the album pages by Anna is written with a
white pencil in small letters, indicating the age of the child, for instance 51/2
months. The photographs are small in dimension, (9 11 cm), hand printed, 2
3
photographs in average on each page, over 60 photographs, of which some are almost
identical. Some are pasted at a 15 degree angle to each other, so that each page has
slightly different design. The age of N. in the photographs is approximately from five
months until the age of two.
N. was born in 1966, by which time cameras were quick; household flashes, fast
shutter speed cameras using sensitive roll film were common along with familiar
amateur photographers encouraging smiles and informal, natural situations instead
of premeditated facial expressions. Processing and printing were made easier, which
explains the large amount of indoor photographs and the feeling of spontaneity in
the photographs, as opposed to Annas own childhood photos, in which the figures
appear rigid and the photographers was dependant on outdoor lighting. Around a
third of the photographs were taken in the childrens home some were taken in a
sequence. The rest were taken in Anna and Shmuels room (the term used on kibbutz
for home). N.s album is rich with images, the photographs are characterised by
spontaneity, closeness and bonding; they are of good quality, expressive and well
composed. N. appears as the central figure surrounded by family members in most of
 Social Semiotics 111

the pictures. There is minor visual evidence the childrens homes in these images in
some photos and no photographs of the metapelet.
In Figure 5a
c, the children are viewed from above, not at eye level. The
photographer himself does not physically appear as a parent in the photographs,
although he is the father of one of the babies, the images do not reveal any particular
parental association.
Anna made an effort to construct a visual documentation of herself as an active
and fully present mother, in spite of the challenges she faced. Her possibilities of
creating the photographs were restricted to those hours in which she could spend
time with her son in the afternoon, after work hours and on the weekend. In her
family album, which she created, she is presented as an involved mother who
maintains a physical relationship with her son. She holds him warmly, kisses him and
is very present in the photos. Even in the photos where the child appears to be alone,
one of the parents can be discerned in the background, whether they are holding the
childs hand or one of their shoes peeps into the frame.
In Figure 6a
g, N. is responding to his parents who are not physically present in
every single photograph but visually exist in his smiles.
Figure 7a and b carries weight in relation to the other photographs in the album
because of the layers of symbolism they contain. Anna is holding N. during feeding
hours in the childrens home. She is seated with her back facing the cradle in which he
slept. Her body serves as a barrier between the infant and the immediate communal
environment of the childrens home. Her body is physically separating him from his
surroundings and she is carrying out the task of feeding him, which is a task she was
unable to perform during the day, and was normally carried out by the metaplot. In
these images, Anna is claiming her role as caretaker and parent of her child, the
motherly role she wished to fulfil. The photographs taken at her home did not show
this form of nurturing activity, one which she was denied, because according to the
kibbutz system the time spent at home was considered quality time and feeding ones
child did not qualify as quality time, so that feeding only took place communally in
the childrens home.
Anna tended to keep all the photographs she owned, and admitted that until this
very day she has not thrown out a single photograph, every image found (Figure 8a
and b) its way into the album. In Annas words:

In the past, I used to put photographs that hadnt come out well into the album. In my
eyes, each photograph was a masterpiece. Even if the photograph was blurred or not
good [to me], it commemorated a certain period in our sons life. If I had a photo of him
at fourteen months, then I would put it in the album. If there was just one photograph,

Figure 5. Photographs in the childrens home, taken by the kibbutz photographer.

112 E. Barromi Perlman

Figure 6. Anna and Shmuel and N. as a toddler during afternoon parenting hours.

then that was the one I put in the album. Shmuel disagrees with me on this subject, he
always has. Even today I wont give up on a photograph, even if it isnt perfect. They are
irreplaceable.

This clinging to the photographs appears to be a vestige of the distress she had
experienced in respect the lack of control over the process of creating photographs
and her dependency on the system. The fact that Anna did not discard any
photograph and preferred to insert all the photographs in her album indicates that
she did not create a hierarchy of selected photographs. She did not prefer to keep
only those images which presented an ideal representation of reality for her; a
personal visual utopia or a preferred construction of identity. Jo Spence (1995)
explains that there are various gazes that help to control, define and mirror identities.
These images, which are mirrored to us, construct our identities. By internalising
these gazes we learn to differentiate ourselves from others in terms of our class,
gender, race and sexuality. We learn to distinguish the shifting hierarchies within
which we are positioned (1995, 167). The mother represents the first level of
 Social Semiotics 113

Figure 7. Anna and N. at the childrens home.

hierarchy: the primary gaze. The family, the second level of hierarchy, secondary to
the mother, is positioned within the discourses of society and it in turn sets up its
own gaze of definition, power and control (1995, 167). In this case there exist
multiple gazes in the album: there is the gaze of the child towards his mother, the
gaze of the mother at the child, the non-iterated gaze of Anna towards kibbutz
society and the gaze of the father at the child. The hierarchy seems confused and
undefined, allowing room for a variety of representations. This may explain why the

Figure 8. Anna and Shmuel appear as active, hands-on parents who are engaged with their
children and have a bonding relationship with them. The home serves as a backdrop for the
closeness and intimacy they have.
114 E. Barromi Perlman

Figure 9. Anna holding N. and Anna being held by her mother as a child. The visual signs of
proximity and intimacy which Anna appropriated in her album of N. resemble those she was
familiar with as a child.

album is not clearly an album of her child, or of herself or of her family, as the
process of creating a hierarchy of meaning did not occur.
Anna attempted to construct a photo album for herself that would help her cope
with the feelings of frustration and loss of control: not only was the photographic craft
controlled by others, but the content of the images was also dictated by the social
system of the kibbutz which preferred to document kibbutz-related collective events
consonant with kibbutz ideology (Figure 9a and b). Anna wished to be the dominant
figure in her sons life, and her construction of the visual documentation in the album
reflects this desire. She attempted to create an album which suited her visual self-
perception of her role as mother, one that was impermeable to the outside world and a
form of escapism from the external social pressure. This desire was just as strong as her
wish to present her images of her son in the album: to create not only an album of her
son but also an album of herself as a mother to her son. The process of the construction
of the album itself and the ritual of viewing the album allowed Anna to partially re-
appropriate the role of the mother to her son N., as she perceived it, albeit in a restricted
form. Unfortunately she was only partially successful; when looking at her 40-year-old
photos, the memories that well up are not only sweet ones. Although she presents her
motherly role forcefully and persuasively through the photographs in the album, the
album also brings up painful emotions, to this very day, as she turns its pages.

The collective vision of kibbutz society

The reading and analysis of Annas family album should be contextualised with the
time frame of the sociocultural background prevailing on kibbutz in Israel during the
period in which they were produced, before the Six Day War, before the days of
 Social Semiotics 115

prosperity and changes in the standard of living in Israel. During the period in
question, the habits of kibbutz life were consolidated and enjoyed a long stretch of
ideological continuity that was supported institutionally by the government and
morally by a broad societal consensus. The public documentary material created on
kibbutz was aimed at being consistent with kibbutz ideology, kibbutz members were
expected to construct similar personal and ideological responses to the images.
(Barromi Perlman 2007, 257). They were joined by a vision which enabled them to
endorse the same decoding system for signs and symbols which existed in kibbutz
photographs, they cooperated with the collective vision by accepting the decoding
system suggested by kibbutz society and by its mechanisms. This, in turn, created a
basis for a uniform and communal reading of kibbutz photographs stored in the
kibbutz archives, a process which enabled the construction of a utopian vision
of kibbutz life (Barromi Perlman 2011, 15). Thus, image construction and produc-
tion in kibbutz society was meant to support that societys ideological structure; the
intentionality of the visual images was to promote the ideology and visions of utopia.
This state of mind at the time left little room for the creation of alternative, personal
forms of documentation, such as those Anna created in private.
This question is relevant to the process of construction of meaning in family
photographs created on kibbutz. The genre of family snaps and the analysis of this
genre have created a body of literature and theory regarding the cultural, economic
and social conventions of creating domestic photography and viewing family snaps in
Kodak culture in western, democratic societies. My research led me to understand
that family snaps, a mass marketing consumer product of capitalist society, leisure
commodities in the home (Slater 1995, 132) as we know them today, did not exist on
kibbutz during that era. Snapshots which carry an air of spontaneity to them,
characterised by bourgeois pleasure, which Kuhn describes as a testimony to happy
beginnings, happy middles (2003, 401) were not part of the ethos of kibbutz life at
that time.
Some public photographs found in kibbutzim or in Annas album can be
perceived as belonging to the genre of snapshots: quick, spontaneous, haphazard
images. If a snapshot can be defined as a spontaneous photograph, unpremeditated,
with no ulterior motives, then in the case of Anna, the gap lies in the awareness of
intentionality. The process of creation of public photographs on kibbutz was
controlled, not spontaneous and suffered from a shortage of a democratic
participation process, therefore not pertaining the attributes of a snapshot genre.
Social theories regarding the democratising of the medium of photography on
kibbutz do not apply, the development of domestic photography on kibbutz during
this era and the snapshot aesthetic (Cobley and Haeffner, 2009, 126) was not
developed. Although some of Annas photographs may seem to contain a snapshot
air or sentimentality, altogether, the cumbersome process of construction, the
restriction and challenges turned each and every photograph into a masterpiece, a
unique object, worthy of narration, attention and analysis.

Conclusion
Kibbutz society expected nuclear families to extend and share their personal parental
feelings and bonding with their children with the entire community. In turn, it
created public forms of documentation of children, which were intended for the
116 E. Barromi Perlman

community as a whole, particularly in the case of photographs found in the kibbutz

archives (Barromi Perlman 2011). The public documentation of children created on
kibbutz may have appeared to be innocent representations, but photographs of
children on kibbutz were in fact carriers of kibbutz ideology (Barromi Perlman
2007). The photographs of groups of children in the childrens homes and during
educational activities were divested of their privacy and re-instated with public
emotions and interpretations. This in turn neutralised private meanings and
interpretations of images for the sake of the collective ideology.
Annas album, in its entirety, served as a memorial of her bond with her son and
of the pain created by the conflict of emotion and her ambivalent relation to the
kibbutz. She was not prepared to relinquish her dilemmas and conflicts of emotions,
even though she lacked support from within her family and insisted on iterating her
emotions in her narratives. I believe it is fair to say that kibbutz life provided Anna
with an impetus to create a powerful visual testimony of her motherhood and
emotional bond between mother and son, which would not have necessarily been
presented in such a moving and emotional visual form if the parenting had taken
place outside kibbutz.
The two poles of interpretation and contextualisation of family photographs
presented in this article
kibbutz visions of utopia on the one hand, and personal
rebellious representations of motherhood and individuality on the other, all deriving
from the same core of photographs
contest the notion that family photographs
provide bland evidence or mere truthful representations of reality. The notion that
photographs depict reality and are therefore trustworthy can only apply and be valid
if the viewers, the public audience, are in accord with the interpretation of the
content of the photographs.
Annas actions, created in an intuitive, unarticulated mode, far from the public
eye, were a personal form of individual rebellion towards the system of kibbutz
society (a rebellion which paradoxically was aimed at regaining the traditional role of
a mother). One can call her album a form of subversive activity which is a far cry
from the perception of the family albums innocent representation of reality. Annas
choice to prioritise the unity of her biological family to her own needs was painful
and her private photo album serves as a testimony to her personal individual pain

but Anna was not alone in her rebellion. Eventually, communal child rearing was
abolished in all kibbutzim in Israel; Annas kibbutz was one of the last kibbutzim in
Israel to relinquish the practice. This article focuses on family album but, in fact
points to the history in which the combined and diverse efforts of mothers and
fathers on kibbutz promoted change.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Dr. Paul Cobley for his assistance and support. His critical reading and
analysis have contributed valuable insights to my work and were meaningful to the creation of
this paper. I would also like to thank the interviewees on kibbutz in Israel who opened their
doors to me and enabled me to explore their private albums.

Notes
1. The study was conducted for my Ph.D. thesis. 12 families were interviewed, according to
the criteria:
 Social Semiotics 117

Parents between 1948 and 1967

In possession of photo albums of their children from the period between 1948 and 1967
Willing to participate in in-depth interviews
Willing to give permission to use their material for the purpose of the research
Of solid mind and lucid regarding their past
Kibbutz members during the time frame of the interview
Living presently on kibbutz

2. A Marxist Zionist youth movement, founded in Europe about 1913, established within the
Jewish people, to prepare Jewish youth for kibbutz life in Israel.
3. These albums were selected because the parents were responsible for the creation of the
album, the choice of photographs, appearance of the albums and content of the
photographs. The parents of the case studies retained memories as to the process of
construction of the photographs in the albums.
4. Pseudo names.
5. During the time frame of this case study, kibbutz society turned more lenient towards the
needs of the individuals and parental needs of biological families. Outward manifestations
of emotion and bonding towards children were common, and parents time was considered
and respected as the families quality time.
6. Used with permission by S.G., Kibbutz Bet Alfa.
7. Photographs used with permission from Anna and Shmuel.
8. Yuval Danieli (2006) wrote an article based on writings of Avraham Toren (1988), who
wrote a survey on the Cultural Institutions, Creators and Fields of Interest in the Kibbutz
Movement, for an internal publication of the kibbutz movement. Toren surveyed the
major photographers active in the kibbutz movement, the vast majority being male.

Notes on contributor
Dr Edna Barromi Perlman received her Ph.D. at the University of Sussex, in the UK. She is an
independent researcher and a lecturer at Kibbutz College of Education, Technology and Arts
in Tel Aviv, in Israel. She is a Research Associate at HBI at Brandeis University in MA, USA.
Her research focuses in the field of visual studies, and particularly in the area of family albums.

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