This is a photograph of seven young children dressed in Purim costumes. The photograph was taken by Rudi Weissenstein in 1937 in Tel Aviv. The children are standing near an apartment building on a dirt pile in front of barbed wire. The Mediterranean Sea can be seen behind the group of children. Tel Aviv was almost 30 years old at the time. It is obvious from the photograph that it was still an underdeveloped city, very different to what it looks like today.
The children are wearing what appear to be homemade yet elaborate costumes. Each costume includes a hat and several layers of clothing. Two of the children are dressed in army or police uniforms, one is dressed in what seems to be a Mexican costume, one girl is dressed as a clown, another as a Native American and one girl is wearing a short frilly skirt. Even the dog in front of the group is wearing a hat!
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Purim - Purim is celebrated on the 14 Adar as the day the Jewish people were saved from destruction during the fourth century BCE. The heroine of the Purim story, Queen Esther, worked together with her uncle, Mordechai, to reverse the decree of genocide issued against the Jewish people by Haman, the vizier of Persia. It is the tradition on Purim to dress up in costumes, distribute small food packages known as mishloach manot, give charity, and listen to the reading of the Megilla – the Book of Esther.
Hatzalmania (PhotoHouse) – Rudi (Rudolph) Weissenstein (1910–1992) was born in Czechoslovakia, where he studied photography from his father before going to school in Vienna. Weissenstein moved to Israel in 1935 after experiencing anti-Semitism. In Israel, he began working as an independent photographer, taking photographs all over Israel and providing pictures of the pre-state development which were spread all over the world. In 1940, Weissenstein opened the Pri-Or Photo House, later known as Hatzalmania or PhotoHouse, where he built an archive of his work along with documentation about the subjects. After his death in 1992, his wife and, later, his grandson continued to run the Photo House.
