Their Eyes Were Watching God

Aperture Priorities Contact Sheet #13

Preaching to Muslims. Porta Palazzo, Torino.

By Joel Schalit

I grew up in a secular household. For my parents, Judaism was a culture, not a faith. They got their religion through Zionism to the degree that they understood it.

They were typical first-generation Israelis, archetypal 48ers, as their generation was called.

My father’s family hadn’t been Haredi in over two generations, and my stepmother was a Mizrahi Tel Avivi who got to do her IDF service at the Israeli embassy in Paris - and stayed.

Attending high school in the United States in the mid-1980s gave me a serious case of culture shock. I went to Quaker and Anglican schools, where Protestantism was front and centre.

To say that I developed an interest in it would be the understatement of the century. I went on to earn two degrees in religious studies and cover it as a journalist in the US and Israel.

Hence, this edition of Aperture Priorities. Recent photos of Christians in Italy and London illustrate my continued interest in the subject.

Immigration and diversity, class and colonialism, even cultism. It’s all there. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate time to share them than the impending Easter holiday.

The title of this post is borrowed from the name of an anti-racist novel by Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960). First published in 1937, it was made into a movie in 2005.

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Filipino family values politics. Catholic march, Torino.

Only kids go to heaven. Catholic march, Torino.

All you need is Jehovah. Ponte Vecchio, Florence.

Faith is suffering. Bolivian migrant march, Torino.

Heart in a heartless world. Hounslow, London.

Jew for Jesus. Oxford Street, London.

Missionaries and Muslim. Jehovah's Witnesses, Hounslow.

The unchosen people. Regent Street, London.

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Photographs courtesy of Joel Schalit. All rights reserved.