Visualizing the past: the role of images in fostering the Sephardic identity of Sarajevo Jewry

This article explores the use of photographs in Moritz Levy’s book dedicated to the history of Sephardic Jews in Bosnia, published in Sarajevo in 1911. While the photographs accompany the historical narrative and aim to prove the preservation and continuity of the unique Bosnian Sephardic identity throughout the centuries, they were, as the article argues, distinctly modern creation. Visually prominent and imbued with an aestheticized quality, they relied on Ottoman official albums of promotional photography, Austro-Hungarian orientalized images of occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the new Jewish art. As a result of this novelty, Levy’s book became a model for the way in which later Yugoslav Jewish publications presented Bosnian Sephardim. Due to the turbulent historical events in the region these images became politicized, assumed a memorial role, and have also recently inspired a renewal.