The Grandmother Photos

 Jewish Home recently became the recipient of a remarkable collection of photographs – The Grandmother Photos – donated to the Home by the renowned photographer Jessica Burstein. 

Residents, friends, family and Trustees of Jewish Home joined Ms. Burstein on Grandparents’ Day, September 9th, for a ribbon-cutting ceremony followed by a reception with the photographer, marking the exhibit’s grand opening at the Home. The collection, comprised of 61 black and white photographs – many of which were published in 2000 in The Grandmother Book, a collaboration between the photographer and her sister, journalist Patricia Burstein – is now permanently housed in the Manhattan Division’s Friedman First Floor.

Ms. Burstein related that her decision to donate the collection to Jewish Home resulted from a visit to a friend who was undergoing physical rehabilitation in 2005. Impressed by the care and compassion of Jewish Home’s staff, as well as by the excellence of the rehabilitation program, she decided that the exhibition should have its permanent home at Jewish Home’s Manhattan Division. The Home is deeply grateful to the photographer for this meaningful gift.America and a tribute to grandmothers everywhere.New York City headquarters. Ms. Burstein’s portraiture is in the corporate collections of JPMorgan Chase, Philip Morris and Time Warner, as well as in numerous private collections including that of Jerry Bruckheimer, the family of Robert Altman and Harry Winston, Inc. She was recently elected to the National Executive Board of the International Cinematographer’s Guild. Ms. Burstein lives in New York City.

About the Collection

The photographs depict grandmothers in all their regional and ethnic diversity, in the strength of their faith and spirit, in their humor, in their triumphs and struggles, in their ability to overcome life’s tragedies and losses and as our clearest link between the past and present. Among the 45 women included in the collection are: Thelma Mothershed Wair, one of “The Little Rock Nine;” Ann Turner Cook, the Gerber baby; and Tsuyako Kitashima, a Japanese American sent to an internment camp during World War II and who later led the redress and reparations movement. Taken as a whole, the collection is a compendium of 20th Century

About the Photographer

Jessica Burstein began her career in 1974, as the first female staff photographer for NBC. For numerous years she has been the photographer for the critically acclaimed Law & Order franchise. Her photography has appeared in publications world-wide, including Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Paris Match, Stern, Vanity Fair, and Rolling Stone. She had an eight-year commission from HBO to create photomontage murals for the walls of its