Description of the Besa project

 

"When I first learned of the WW2 rescue of Jews in Muslim Albania and Kosovo my reaction was visceral. Muslims who saved Jews? I must record this forgotten event with my camera and tell the story through the various family histories I was to meet. As a Jew and a Sufi my spiritual connection with the beauty of Islam and Judaism is seamless. The old adage of a picture is worth a thousand words is manifested in our photographic project.

 

For over 6 years I have been traveling to Muslim Albania and Kosovo documenting and doing portraits of Muslim families that saved Jews in WW2. Although Besa is a traditional Albanian code of honor many Muslim families have incorporated Besa in their religious beliefs and often were inspired by their faith in saving Jews from the Nazis. The rescue of Jews in Albania was a unique experience in Holocaust history as Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler were welcomed not as refugees but as guests.

 

Besa is a message to the world of brotherhood and compassion for those in need and unique to the Albanian people. Equally important is the message, through my portraits and stories, of the compassion extended to Jews by Albanian Muslim families during the Holocaust.

 

As a Jew, and a student of the Sufi tradition, I always made it a point to thank those Muslim families I photographed for the saving of Jews during those harrowing times."