Michael Gora

Limited Edition Fine Art Photography 3/5

22" x 17"

Last June fellow attorney Charles Cohen and I traveled to Israel on a photography
expedition. Neither of us had been to Israel before. We were fortunate enough to hire Moshe Mor as our guide. Moshe had lived in Baton Rouge for a few years and was a former Israeli army officer and long-time licensed guide.
After spending the first two days in Old City Jerusalem and the new Jerusalem, we then left on a trip circumnavigating the country. We first went south and stayed at a modern spa on the Dead Sea. We then headed north to central Israel and a hotel run by a Kibbutz on the Sea of Galilee. After spending two days visiting interesting small towns of the central and northern borders of the country, we headed south along the Mediterranean and then to Tel Aviv before grabbing a red-eye flight home that was populated by constantly praying Chassids.
Our photographic subjects covered the gambit from the architecture of Jerusalem's Old City to members of the diverse clergy in and around the Old City, the prayerful at the West Wall and the Ethiopian boys being Bar Mitzvaed at the "Wall." We saw Israel's colorful and historic landscapes from Masada to the Golan Heights, to the Sea of Galilee.
We found ourselves in the middle of a herd of 100 goats directed by a single Arab. I engaged one of the lead goats with a fist/nose bump after photographing the herd. Our guide filled us in on the history and directed us to photographic sites from ancient Roman Ruins and five century old synagogue mosaic floors to baptism on the Jordan River.
Charles and I agreed that neither of us ever had a better trip. We each produced some of our best photographs, which have been in a local gallery in Boca Raton, Griffin Gallery, owned by attorney Stephen Beiner and his wife Judith. We have happily donated several of the photographs to Legal Aid.

Michael Gora
Shapiro Blasi Wasserman & Gora P.A.