Zoltan Kluger

Zoltan (Zvi) Kluger (February 8, 1896 – May 16, 1977) was an Austro-Hungarian born Israeli photographer. He is known as one of the most important photographers in Mandatory Palestine.

Hungary and Germany
Zoltan Kluger was born in the city of Kecskemet in Hungary in 1896. During World War I he served as an airborne photographer in the Austro-Hungarian Aviation Troops. At the end of the 1920s he emigrated to Berlin, the capital of Germany, where he worked as a press photographer.

Mandatory Palestine (1933)
In April 1933, with the rise of the Nazis to power, he arrived in Palestine as a tourist, and then received a British certificate to stay, thanks to the intervention of Moshe Shertok (layer Sharett). Later that year, Nachman Shifrin, whom Kluger had met in Berlin, founded the "East Photography Society for the Press" in Tel Aviv. In 1934 Kluger joined Shifrin and became a partner and chief photographer.

Kluger's prominent clients were the JNF and Keren Hayesod photography department, which sent Kluger to photograph economic enterprises and immigrants. In 1937 Kluger took a series of 250 aerial photographs, commissioned by Zalman Schocken. The book "Ella Pnei Israel" was published, in which Kluger's photographs are accompanied by a text by Moshe Shamir.

Private life; emigration to the US (1958)
Kluger married Sarah, and the two had a son, Paul, who was sent in 1950 by the Israeli Air Force to study in the United States and remained there. In 1958, Kluger and his wife immigrated to the United States following their son. His wife threatened to commit suicide if they didn't follow him. Kluger opened a photography shop in New York. At the same time, he made a living by filming events, mainly of the Hungarian community in New York.

Shortly after the couple arrived in the United States, his wife fell ill and died, and he remarried to Irena.

Kluger's mother and his sister Elsa survived the Holocaust in Hungary. His mother died in 1949, while her daughter, husband, daughter, husband and children emigrated to the United States in 1956 and settled in California. Kluger and his sister renewed their relationship. Kluger remained in the United States until his death.

Estate
Zoltan Kluger died in Manhattan, New York in 1977. At his departure from Israel, he left behind a total of some 50,000 negatives, which were distributed among several public archives, including the Keren Hayesod collection in the Central Zionist Archives, the Jewish National Fund collection, the Government Press Office, the State Archives and the IDF Archives. In 1968, a collection of about 40,000 negatives from the years 1933-1948 came to the State Archives, and in 2017 the entire collection was uploaded to the State Archives, which includes a useful search engine for pictures.

Exhibitions
Zoltan Kluger works have been exhibited in museums and galleries in Israel, including the Israel Museum. In 2008, the first solo exhibition of Zoltan Kluger was held at the Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv. The exhibition was named "Zoltan Kluger - Principal Photographer, 1958-1933", curated by Dr. Ruth Oren and Guy Raz.