Aliza Auerbach was born in Haifa in 1940. In her youth she moved to Jerusalem, where she studied at the Hebrew University as a student of philosophy and Bible, and where she also built her home.
At the age of 25, she received her first camera from her grandmother, and from then on she began to photograph.
First she worked as a stills photographer in film productions, then as a photojournalist, and finally she made a name for herself as an art photographer focusing on documentary projects that were presented in exhibitions, published in books and won awards.
At the same time, Auerbach documented the city that was her home. The photographs in the exhibition I Stood in Jerusalem span almost three decades: they begin immediately after the Six-Day War (1967) and end with the funeral of Yitzhak Rabin (1995).
Auerbach captured the changing city, its people, its holidays, and its landscapes with her lens. Documenting important historical events alongside everyday trivia. She developed and printed her photographs herself in a home lab, without the use of effects, in modest black and white that required a focus on form and content.
Auerbach drew a close connection between her photographs and Hebrew poetry. The title of the exhibition – I Stood in Jerusalem, like the title of a poem by Zelda – indicates this deep connection.
Aliza Auerbach died in Jerusalem in 2016. Her family—art critic Dr. Gideon Ofrat and her daughter, artist Eden Auerbach Ofrat—donated her personal archive to the National Library. The photographs featured in the exhibition were developed from this collection. Additional materials, including poems and photographs, articles, and historical information, are available for viewing and reading on the Beit Avi Chai Gallery website in Hebrew and English.
