Emerging from the Shdows
The Photographs of Sara Ayal

curated by Amichai Chasson

For many decades, Sarah Ayal (1915-2004) served as a photographer for Israel's security service. She took intelligence and espionage photographs, taught in the security service, and even invented innovative methods of clandestine photography.

While her classified photographs are kept in closed archives, her artistic photographs were stored in many boxes in the basement of her family's home in Tel Aviv. Among the thousands of pictures that she took in her free time, traces of her intelligence and covert work can be found. For example, Ayal chose not infrequently to take the photograph from a concealed location, with the subjects unaware that she was observing them.

The photographs portray Ayal’s unique approach in capturing Israeli landscapes and people in the 1950s and 60s. With her camera she brings to life a young country that is trying to define itself and form its identity. Her gaze at times adopts an oriental and romantic view, and at the same time is full of light, feeling, tranquility, an understanding of perspective, and a free spirit.

Following months of careful work in which thousands of negatives and photographs in Ayal’s personal archive were digitized, Beit Avi Chai opened an exhibition for the general public that displays a select portion of the collection for the very first time.

This website includes photographs that appear in Beit Avi Chai’s exhibition that was curated by Amichai Chasson with Design by Studio Dov Abramson; an exhibition catalogue was also produced and can be purchased at Beit Avi Chai.

For those wishing to learn more about Sarah Ayal, please refer to the article by Ha’aretz History Correspondent Ofer Aderet that can be accessed here; and a brief overview by Beit Avi Chai’s Executive Director Dr. David Rozenson that can be accessed here

* As Ayal did not date many of the photographs nor indicate their location, we cannot state for certain where and when many of the photographs in the exhibition were taken.

 

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Emerging from the Shadows

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A long coat, elegant gloves, dark glasses, and, of course, a camera. On a sunny but apparently chilly day, Sarah Ayal is documented outside the Israel Museum. During her lifetime she enjoyed only limited recognition, and one can only wonder whether, standing there outside the national bastion of art, she hoped that her works would be exhibited in its venerable galleries.
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Opposite the walls of the old city of Acre, built over the course of 90 years in the Ottoman period, Ayal captured a moment that produces conflicting emotions in the viewer: on the one hand the photograph projects hope and the children's happiness, while on the other hand, the adult observing from the side cannot avoid a sense of fear for the safety of the jumpers as they leap into the sea. The photo may also be viewed as a depiction of ancient stones, or as the history of this land, used as a springboard for the young swimmers, our future generations.
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On the face of it, a routine moment on a typical European boulevard, captured in the lens of a shadow photographer - but a deeper look reveals that Ayal has immortalized here a particularly varied scene. Each of the women in the picture is engaged in a completely different activity - one is babysitting, the second is dozing, a third is arranging documents, while the fourth is keeping up with the day's news. We can see signs of the typical fashion of the time, including platform shoes and chunky heels. The women are perfectly aligned, the shadows of the tree above falling on them and on the sidewalk; each is in a different pose - lounging, reading, writing, sleeping, while the grandmother keeps a careful eye on the young child drinking from a bottle.
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An advertisement on the Mifal Hapayis booth announces a draw for 50,000 Israeli lira, an astronomical amount in those days. A small sticker says that the booth also sells the "minor" vouchers, which boosted the lottery sales sky-high. These tickets gave buyers the chance to win an amount of money equal to the price of the ticket. Mifal Hapayis and Toto are the only gambling enterprises that are legal under Israeli law. Both the man dressed in typical Arab clothes, and Jewish lottery seller, with the cap, mustache, and thick black glasses popular at the time, are looking down, intently studying the possibilities of a loss - or a win.

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A group of youngsters "sitting on the railings", a classic pose that has disappeared from the streets in these days of abundant places of recreation and screens. Around them are advertisements for Dubek cigarettes, and a billboard announcing a screening of "Hamlet" - the Shakespeare play that was apparently the focus of the young people's entertainment. Underneath the announcement for Hamlet, a far larger poster announces the screening, in English, of "The Agony and the Ecstasy" - the 1965 American film that was partly based on Irving Stone's biographical novel of the same name, describing the conflicts between Michelangelo and Pope Julius II during the painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
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A crowded afternoon at the King David hotel swimming pool, the only luxury hotel in those years, where Israel hosted official visitors. As part of the Jewish resistance to the British in the 1940s, members of the "Irgun" (a Zionist paramilitary organization) infiltrated the hotel and blew up one of its wings, but even this did not tarnish its luster. A time of leisure, surrounded by the Jerusalem hills and the walls of the Old City
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A child in a white dress passes by a store, on the front of which hang Israeli flags. The flag - two blue stripes that are reminiscent of a prayer shawl, with a Magen David between them - flies over many windows and entrances around the time of Independence Day. Some people extended this custom after the Six Day War, and left the flag flying until Jerusalem Liberation Day. Independence Day is a national holiday in Israel, a day on which no one works, and indeed the stores in the picture are closed and shuttered.
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The word 'jala' is mainly used today to describe a mixture of nuts and seeds served over a salad, but it originally referred to a unique tradition of Yemenite Jews on special occasions. The 'jala' is a gathering of young people and adults around a table laden with fruit, roasted seeds, and drinks, for Torah study, singing, and spiritual elevation.
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A tower of bagels, waving like a spear, is offered for sale during the Independence Day celebrations in Tel Aviv. Over the years certain foods have become a fixture in Israeli culture, characterizing the way the occasion is celebrated, among them grilled meat, cotton candy, and toffee apples.

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A child sits on an adult's shoulders, clutching an Israeli flag, during the Independence Day celebrations. In the background is the façade of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality building, all lit up for the event, on one of the only days when it is permitted by law to make noise even in the small hours of the night.

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By contrast with many outdoor events that are aimed at a specific audience, on Independence Day Israelis of all ages can be seen out in the streets, dressed in their holiday best. The different ways of marking the occasion include musical performances, a flyover display by the Air Force, picnics at nature reserves, and so on.
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An unusual picture in terms of Ayal's style, in which the subjects are looking directly at the camera lens. The yawning child is holding a plastic hammer - that has also succeeded in becoming one of the symbols of Independence Day, alongside spray foam and sticky string spray. The viewer can feel the happiness of the Independence Day celebrations that the photo expresses.

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The celebration of Israel's Independence Day is a mixture of fireworks, music, and quality family time - and, of course, the ubiquitous picnics that have become the standard way to mark the day.

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A burst of fireworks marks the start of the Independence Day celebrations. Every year, millions of shekels are spent around the country on buying fireworks, which are launched into the air at more than 600 locations, by people who have been specially trained by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.
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Children outside a residential building playing hopscotch, a game that involves jumping between squares marked out with chalk. The unique composition once again highlights the concealed position typical of Ayal, the Mossad photographer, who was used to seeing and not being seen.

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hildren sprawled out on the lawn, a slice of nature in the heart of the city. Like the social game documented in the previous photograph, sights like this are also becoming more and more rare today, as playing fields move inside homes and into a world of virtual celebration.

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A walking bulletin board is not such a rare sight on Purim, when many parents have to demonstrate their creativity in constructing winning costumes for their children. Over 350 bulletin boards like this are scattered around Tel Aviv, and in the days when Ayal was taking her photographs they also served as a focus for social gatherings, in the absence of other platforms for regularly keeping up to date.

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The custom of dressing up is not exclusively for the young, as can be seen in the thousands of carnivals and parties at which the grown-ups also take this obligation seriously. Although this photograph captures impressive extra-large costumes, the camera lenses directed at the children show without a doubt who has succeeded in stealing the day.
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For three weeks in 1967, Israel was in a state of tense anticipation, between the incursion of Egyptian forces into Sinai and the outbreak of the Six Day War. Ayal photographed the moments when, as part of the preparations, the country's citizens were required to implement a "blackout" - covering the windows of their houses and the headlights of their cars so as to hamper night-time aerial bombing raids by enemy planes.
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n the days preceding the Six Day War, sandbags were piled up outside residential buildings to protect them against possible bomb explosions. A main street in a large city is turned into a kind of civilian bunker, for fear that the Egyptians would bomb city centers in Israel.

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Parked tanks after the Six Day War. No fewer than 1,095 tanks were used by the IDF in the 1967 war, and they had a decisive impact on its outcome - especially in the Golan Heights.

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Customers at a Tel Aviv café perusing a special edition of the Ma'ariv newspaper published on June 7, 1967, at the unusual time of 4:30 pm. The reason for this historic print-run lies in the headline at the heart of the paper: "The flag of Zion on the Temple Mount", and the capture of Sharm el-Sheikh.
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The bus stop marked "Mt. Sinai", near the starting point for climbing what some believe to be the location of the biblical Mount Sinai where, according to Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, Moses received the Ten Commandments. Ayal once again captures people from the vantage point of an undercover photographer. She is never seen.
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Coral Island - or Pharaoh's Island - is a small island near to Taba in Sinai, surrounded by belts of impressive corals on all sides. It is a beautiful diving site that was captured by Israel during the Six Day War, and returned to Egyptian sovereignty in the peace treaty with Egypt. Located in the narrowest part of the Gulf of Aqaba, the most prominent feature of Pharaoh's Island is the large citadel or fortress that dominates its skyline, and dates back to 1116. From the fortress there are amazing views of Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. Sarah Ayal has captured the image in such a way that the viewer can see not only the Island, but also the countries that surround it.
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1977. The Egyptian president at the time, Anwar Sadat (right) becomes the first Arab leader to visit Israel. Among those greeting him were the prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin (left), and over 3,000 journalists, broadcasters, and television presenters who came to Israel to cover the visit. To the right, with the famous patch over his eye, stands Moshe Dayan - one of the people who paved the way for the dramatic peace agreement with Egypt.
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Over the years, many temporary bridges were constructed over Israel's streams by the Engineering t Corps, in order to carry water quickly at times of emergency. These bridges are particularly suitable for military use, because they can be built manually, without the need for cranes or other heavy engineering machinery.
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In a series of photographs, Ayal focused on important sites in Jerusalem. This picture shows the Tower of David, an ancient fortress that defended Jerusalem for thousands of years from the highest point in the Old City. It acquired its name by historical error, since it was actually built many years after the death of the psalmist. Located near the Jaffa Gate, the historical entrance to the Old City and the point where East meets West, the Tower of David has been the symbol of Jerusalem for generations. The tower's heights provide a magnificent view of the old and new city, the four quarters, new Jerusalem neighborhoods, the Mount of Olives, Mount Scopus, the Judean Desert, and the Dead Sea in the distance.
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A look at the prayer plaza of the Western Wall, at the center of which is the dividing line between the men's area and the women's area. A week after the Old City of Jerusalem was liberated by the Paratroopers Brigade, 200,000 emotional people flocked to the site in a single day, having been denied access for two decades. The photograph was taken at the end of the 1960s, following a comprehensive renovation of the site.
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Absalom's Tomb is one of the famed symbols of old Jerusalem, lying between the Mount of Olives and the Temple Mount. Despite the name attributing the splendid monument to the son of King David, in 2013 an Israeli archaeologist discovered that the person buried in it was actually King Agrippas, who lived 1,000 years later.
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A black priest's cloak hangs on a protuberance in the wall in GREEK ORTHODOX PATRIARCHATE ROAD, in the Christian quarter of Jerusalem. Sarah Ayal captured the light falling on the ancient walls, as well as the steps trodden by thousands in their search for the Divine.
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People in traditional Muslim dress wait for transport in the south of Israel. Despite the Egged bus stop and the clearly modern building behind it, the eye is caught by the more ancient form of transport - a camel, the "Ship of the Desert." Once again, Sarah Ayal plays with the old world and the new.

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שרה אייל
 
Israeli workers studying a text, surrounded by piles of Tnuva crates: today the food corporation is largely foreign-owned, but in the past it was a Zionist agricultural cooperative association, the main supplier of food products to the Jewish community during times of crisis and emergency.
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A man and a woman at an archaeological antiquities site. Archaeology began flourishing as a young and innovative field in the 19th century, quickly becoming a national sport in Israel with deep significance; people such as Yigael Yadin (the second Chief of Staff of the IDF) emphasized its importance in proving our historic roots in the land of Israel.
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The Yarkon River, old eucalyptus trees, an elderly couple; the woman sits on a Yiddish newspaper called "Letste Nayes" - "Latest News", which came out in Israel between 1949 and 2006. Israel's new Interior Ministry initially refused to allow to be published as a daily, due to the fierce opposition to Yiddish in the young state, and daily publication was only permitted in 1957. It became popular due to its role in helping immigrants, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, to integrate into the country, with special sections that helped readers resolve general and personal problems. Without any description, Sarah Ayal allows us to sense the efforts of the elderly couple, struggling to confront the new.
 
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Ben Yehuda St., a central street in Tel Aviv, in a quiet moment that appears almost surreal in light of its character today - one of the most crowded and noisy traffic thoroughfares in the city, not far from the sea.
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Today women in uniform are part of the Tel Aviv landscape, crowding the sidewalks and places of entertainment; Ayal's angle of photography captures them as a separate group, belonging / not belonging, watching from the side as people cross the street.

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There are some frames that can only be interpreted in one way. Four young men surround a girl, like stars surrounding the sun, the trees surrounding all of them, looking like the perfect poster for a television series for youth.
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In her camera lens Ayal has captured a bulletin board encapsulating the public agenda of pre-war Israel: an advertisement for cocktails at the top, an invitation to lessons in Judaism at the bottom, and between them - blackout orders, an order to go to the recruitment offices, and Civil Defense instructions on how to act in an emergency.
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Although she frequently took photographs during periods of tension, Ayal also documented bohemian life and leisure: beer, cigarettes, and guitars around the table in a restaurant in Old Jaffa, a center of entertainment and tourism ever since the 1960s.

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Although Israel did not have glamorous motorcycle stars like James Dean and Marlon Brando, and the bike in the picture is not exactly a Harley-Davidson, local movies such as "Eskimo Lemon" helped immortalize the biker as a rugged man, a charming rebel.
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Ayal did not document only national sites and festivities: in this photograph she has captured an authentic moment, like a scene that has been filmed countless times: a man and a woman part at the old Central Bus Station in Tel Aviv, and one can only imagine when they will meet again.

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The coastal strip in Israel today is characterized by hotels, fish restaurants, and vast numbers of sunshades; before the era of tourist development, bathers in the Mediterranean were forced to make do with a view of earth ramparts, and tires instead of deckchairs.
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Beaches are known to be a source of attraction for a particularly wide range of people, from young lovers to pensioners on a sunrise stroll. In this picture the disparity in ages between the children decorating their sandcastle with feathers and the adult asleep on the sand alongside them is particularly striking.
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The repeated motif of the seashore as a multipurpose place: people engaged in a game of chess are dressed in beachwear, indicating their intention to swim (or sunbathe), while walkers and dogs pass by them on their morning stroll.
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A natural pool in the stream? The shallow part of the sea? A family outing or school children accompanied by their teachers? Sarah Ayal, as always an uninvolved observer, has captured part of the whole picture and chosen to leave the rest to our interpretation. 
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An adult couple looks at the sea, holding 'matkot' - bats used for a ball game. The game of 'matkot' has established itself as the ultimate beach game, and has even been crowned as "Israel's national sport".
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"One by one they gathered, long-haired and barefoot", wrote Ehud Manor of the flower children, one of whose Tel Aviv representatives is documented in this photograph. Hippie culture came late to Israel, which in the 1960s and '70s was involved in wars instead of 'peace and love'.
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As in other photographs, Ayal has captured the contrast between everyday routine and life in a young country subject to war: the unkempt hair, B-class uniform, and civilian jacket leave us in no doubt that this is a soldier on reserve duty, attached to his transistor, against the background of an urban stodio.
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It could have been an innocent moment between two friends, one looking for a pen or a nail file in the handbag of the other. Nonetheless, Israeli reality immediately raises the association of a security check.

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There are few items of clothing that have survived from the 1960s: the toe-thong sandals, cheap as they were, were captured by Ayal's camera a number of times, and are still to be seen in the streets of Israel even in 2020.
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Markets have always been a goldmine setting for generations of photographers. At the same time, it is rare to find women stallholders in the Israeli market, which is considered to be the tough province of men.
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Many old cities in Israel provide a historic meeting point between different cultures and religions. In this picture, Ayal documents such a meeting, around a large barrel used for cooking corncobs, typical Israeli street food of the 1970s and also the subject of the beloved children's book "Tiras Cham" (Hot corn on the cob), by Miriam Roth.
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A glimpse into the interior courtyard of an elderly couple, eating their midday meal or playing a game of cards beneath the drying laundry. The door frame is poorly built, the elderly woman wears thick stockings although the door is open, and we can almost hear her putting down a winning card to the angst of her companion.
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Israeli-Bulgarian sculptor Joseph Teger (1923 - 1992). Teger left behind hundreds of sculptures made of every possible material, saying of himself that he would have no reason to go on living if he was not able to create. He was also an outstanding athlete, and a designer of objets d'art. Sarah Ayal photographed him a number of times, and had in her possession a sculpture that he gave her as a gift.
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One of the main precepts of the Sukkot (Tabernacles) holiday in Jewish tradition involves waving the "four species" - the lulav (date palm), etrog (citron), hadas (myrtle) and arava (willow), four plants that have symbolic meaning. Throughout the country exclusive markets spring up before the Tishrei holidays, selling the four species, which are bound together and waved even by children of a very young age - as can be seen in this photograph.
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As with other Jewish customs, a wide-ranging culture of distinction and rigorousness has developed around the four species. Many of those thronging the four species markets spend considerable time examining the quality of the goods on offer, and bargaining over the price, in order to fulfil the commandment with maximum punctiliousness.
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What might appear to be a noisy incident in a kind of Indian bazaar is, in fact, just further evidence of the fever surrounding the Sukkot holiday. The center of the picture is taken up this time by the palm branches that are used as roofing for the sukkah.
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A moment of quiet in the tumult and melee. One of the shoppers in the four species market is holding a lulav, which has to meet a number of criteria in order to be fit for use: length, source, the density of the fronds, and so on.
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For the younger generation, building the sukkah is a source of great excitement. The children easily connect to the underlying motif of temporariness, and are happy to have the opportunity to break out of the boundaries: sleeping and eating outside in the sukkah that they helped build, almost in the heart of nature.

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"Tashlich", a Jewish prayer ceremony customarily held at New Year, in which the worshippers symbolically cast their sins into a natural body of flowing water. The custom originated in Ashkenaz (Germany) in the 15th century.
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Many rabbis and community leaders over the years have held mass tashlich ceremonies on the banks of the water. One of the best known was the Admor of Vizhnitz, who used to hold a tashlich ceremony with his Hassidic followers in Ramat Gan Park. Because of "issues of modesty" that the worshippers came up against in the park, the location was changed to the more isolated Apollonia Beach near Herzliya.
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Emerging from the Shadows

Sara Ayal

The Tel Aviv shoreline, crowded with men, women, and children who have gone down to the water's edge for the tashlich ceremony. Looking carefully, one can see the minarets of Jaffa peeking out in the south, beyond the modern buildings of Tel Aviv that hug the seashore.

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Sara Ayal
 
In the days before Netflix, and even before cable television, public entertainment was completely different - this photograph shows the audience crowding the balcony above the hall of the first Knesset, excited to see the celebrities who, in those days, were the ministers and members of Knesset
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Emerging from the Shadows

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The view from the Knesset balcony. On the left sits David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister and the person largely responsible for shaping the cultural character of the young state of Israel.
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Emerging from the Shadows

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Haim-Moshe Shapira - the political leader of religious Zionism and its representative in the government of Israel - hastily entering the building of the first Knesset on Jerusalem's King George Street.
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Emerging from the Shadows

Sara Ayal
 
Frumin House, better known as the "old Knesset", served as the temporary seat of the Knesset between 1950 and 1966. The building, at 24 King George St. in Jerusalem, was home to the first to the sixth Knesset.
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A pelican, in an impossible pose, grasps the jaw of a sheep. The photograph was taken in the Haifa Institute of Biology, and was published in Life magazine in 1952 - one of the few photographs by Sarah Ayal published in her lifetime.
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Emerging from the Shadows

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A mass gathering in Malkei Yisrael Square (later Rabin Square), around the Tel Aviv Municipality building. The building was planned by the architect Menachem Cohen in the 1950s, who was surprisingly chosen to design it despite the fact that he was just 26 years old. The building has 720 windows, and an area of 27,000 m².
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A giant doll and a crowd celebrating the Adloyada, the huge and entertaining Purim procession and party that first took place in 1912, in the early days of Tel Aviv. Today the biggest Adloyada in the country is held in Holon, with thousands of participants in the procession, and an investment of millions of shekels. The source of the name adloyada comes from Masechet Megilla in the Babylonian Talmud, requiring one to revel on Purim by drinking until one no longer knows (ad delo yada) the difference between "blessed be Mordecai" and "cursed be Haman".
 
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In the forefront, two children with black yarmulkes and side locks indicating that they belong to the religious community. Behind them, youths wearing shorts, with fashionable hairstyles, and carrying musical instruments, apparently secular. Two different worlds, united by and enjoying the music. In between - cultural gaps.
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Emerging from the Shadows

שרה אייל
 
A man holds the symbol of the state of Israel, chosen in 1949 from among 450 possible alternatives. At the heart of the symbol is the seven-branched candelabra, similar in design to that carved on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
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An elderly newspaper seller takes a nap in the middle of the working day, while around him flows the street. a circular poster board typical of the times announces the latest news, two bicycles stand at the ready - and a far more modern female pedestrian briskly passes by. A typical day, life passing by.
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A well-coiffed woman in a dress waits on a bench, with her good friend, looking expectantly in the same direction, sitting beside her.

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An elderly man in a hat holds his glasses upside down to scrutinize the newspapers on offer at the stand - from the Ha'aretz newspaper to La'isha, an Israeli lifestyle magazine for women.
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With telescopic lens extended, aiming from above at some unknown scene, Sarah Ayal, the Mossad photographer, always preferred to remain in the shadows, watching people and capturing the moment unobserved.
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