Wolberg is capable of creating characters that are simultaneously individual and symbolic: and individual that is whole unique and the integral outcome of his era. This can be felt even in his photographs of masses and large crowds.   Photographs of the wedding of the granddaughter of the Rebbe of the Vishnitz Hassidic court in Bnei Brak, for example, are stunningly powerful.  The bride’s isolation; the unfolding of the sacred moment to a sort of gross physical voyeurism; hundreds of years of Jewish tradition, preserved and made present at one moment of stounding ceremony; the materialization of faith in symbols of pageantry – all these, and more, are portrayed in these pictures’ shiny façade. But something about them attracts our eyes to the background too, to the congregation; even Wolberg turns the lens there.

Photographs of religious assemblies are in many cases photographs of dehumanization. They often present amorphous crowds whose facial features and signs of personality have been obliterated and turned into a uniform expression, the reflection of uniform thinking, of submission to authority or of self-denial before a higher power. And yet, loos at the photographs of the crowd at the wedding in Bnei Brak. Despite the deep perspective, the women seater behind the bride are shown, each of them has an expression of her own, a head slant of her own, clear-cut features that are necessarily linked to the distinct emotional worlds, to distinct view points and views. In the photograph of the men in that crowd, these same elements reappear. Despite the blur, despite the uniformity of apparel and head coverings – as if by magic, everyone in the photographed is wearing glasses – despite all these each guest is perceived as having a distinct reaction regarding the events taking place in front of him. Each one holds a different affective allegiance a different fantasy, a different vulnerability, regarding what is happening before his eyes. 

Erez Schweitzer