New book titled ‘What Does a Jew Look Like?’ challenges Jewish stereotypes

A Jewish sociologist and a news photographer have jointly published a book tackling the tricky and often controversial subject of “what a Jew looks like”.

Keith Kahn-Harris, an author who has worked with the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR), said the stereotyped image of a bearded Orthodox man in a black hat and black coat was a lazy “journalistic crutch to illustrate every story about communal life”.

For the new book – titled ‘What does a Jew look like?’ – he has worked with Robert Stothard, whose photography has taken him to places like Egypt, Ukraine, and Ireland. The co-authors said the project “showcases some of the many different ways men and women can be Jewish in Britain today”.

They added: “For those who don’t know what a Jew looks like – or for those who think they know – the book is designed to surprise, inform and beguile. For those who are Jewish, the book will perhaps introduce parts of the Jewish community that they may not be familiar with.”

Keith Kahn-Harris, who lectures at Leo Baeck College and runs JPR’s European Jewish Research Archive, said: “Everyone deserves to have their own story told. A Haredi man, young or old, deserves better than to be used as a journalistic crutch.

“A picture may tell a thousand words, but as this collection shows, those thousand words aren’t anywhere near as compelling as letting the subject speak, not on behalf of a whole community, but for themselves.”

In 2015, Stothard was tasked with producing images to accompany a story on greater police protection in Jewish communities and sent to Stamford Hill to do so.

“The reality is that when an editor sees a story about British Jews, they immediately think about the Charedi community,” he said. “There was never a question about where I was going to be sent.”

He added: “Having now completed the photographs, I still don’t know what a Jew looks like. I’ve learnt everything and nothing! Part of the reason behind the title is to add to people’s assumptions about what the community looks like.”