Oscar Tauber – the photographer who immortalized half a century of Haifa • 2. Oscar's legacy

Oscar Tauber photographs history

Oskar Tauber was primarily a field photographer. He covered every event in Haifa and the north and also reached Gaza, Hebron, Ismailia and Suez.

Among his works you can find photographs of public figures, demonstrations and political speeches, sports events, theater performances, crossings in Haifa and its surroundings, Arab and Druze villages, kibbutzim, construction companies, factories, construction works of the Kishon Port, the Port of Haifa, Israel Shipyards, Israel Railways, the Technion, The University of Haifa, the Municipality of Haifa, the police, the courts, and much more.

Among the many events photographed by Tauber we can mention the capture of the Egyptian destroyer "Ibrahim El Awal" in the Sinai War, the visit of Egyptian President Sadat, the opening of the Carmelite by Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, the filming of "Exodus", the works of the "Carmelite" and its dedication, the visit of Edward Kennedy , visits by famous movie actors, singers, sports events, theater performances, and more.

Oskar Tauber - events in the history of the country (photo series)

Oscar Tauber - cultural events in Haifa

From the events of Wadi Salib

One of the most important events that Tauber documented were the riots in Wadi Salib, which he photographed from the beginning. He documented police activity in the streets from point blank range. He also followed what was happening in the courts, in prison, and in the investigative committee.

At the outbreak of the riots, Oskar ran around the wadi from morning to night, to get up close and authentic photos. Almost and perhaps even all the photos documenting the first two days of the riots came from Oskar Tauber's camera. Tauber's exclusive photographs of Wadi Salib covered the pages of the weekly "This World". The weekly completely identified with what it called the "Rebellion of the Moroccans", and they also appeared in the daily papers. Oscar's photographs are, and will always be, a central part of the documentation of that event.

Oscar Tauber - Wadi Salib events

The Mystery of the Lost Pictures (1)

The photos that Tauber took during those stormy days in Wadi Salib, created their own stories. Tauber, as mentioned, covered the events from the stormy streets, when others were afraid to enter the neighborhood. On the first evening of the riots, a group of young people from the Wadi residents spotted him while he was taking pictures. The gang attacked him, forcibly took the camera from him and threatened to break it.

Tauber begged not to touch the expensive camera on which his livelihood depended, and asked that they be content with the photographic film. They agreed to settle for that. The police soon managed to get their hands on the rioters who were sent to Jalmi prison. One of them had the photographic film, and Oskar, who at the time was taking pictures for the weekly "Holam Hez", reported the incident to the system.

Shalom Cohen, a representative of "HaOlam Hez", came to visit the Shebaniks at the detention center. He asked to receive the photographic film, but was unable to receive it.

The Mystery of the Lost Pictures (2)

The other photographic films were kept in Tauber's photographic laboratory at 15 Arlozorov St. in Haifa. After the death of the owner of the apartment (one of whose rooms was used as a photo lab), the attorney for the heirs turned to Joseph Tauber, Oskar's son, to remove all the materials before they were thrown on the street.

At the same time, a wealthy Haifa resident turned to Yosef. The man introduced himself as a media person and asked to purchase the photographer's collection. Yosef did not agree to this, but he intends to sign an agreement for the use of the photographs while retaining the rights to the photographs in his hands.

Yosef agreed that the collection would be stored and sorted in the media man's spacious home, and there would also be access to it with Yosef's approval. In 1996, an agreement was signed between the parties that reflected this. When the media person arrived at the lab to collect the negatives and photographs, he brought another person with him, who later turned out to be a photographer by profession. The two assured Yosef that the material would be transferred to the photographer for temporary storage, for two weeks only. The temporary storage evolved over time and became a permanent arrangement.

Three years later, the media person called Yosef Tauber. He announced that he no longer needed the materials, and asked to return them. When Yosef received the material, he discovered that many of the photographic films were missing. Among the missing were six of the photographic films that documented the events of Wadi Salib. When he asked about them, he was told that some of the film had gotten wet and spoiled over time.

Who distributes the lost photos?

Later, photographs of Oskar Tauber "that had not seen the light of day before" began to appear on the market, and to be sold to various parties. One of the people, who received an offer to purchase photographs from the collection, suspected the legitimacy of the deal. He turned to Yosef Tauber and even intended to give evidence to the police.

As a result, the police raided the house of that photographer in 2002, who had the material in his possession for years. During the raid, a lot of material from Oscar's collection was seized, which was returned to Yosef. In 2009, the book "Wadi Salib - the myth and its destruction" by the authors Eli Nachmias and Ron Spiegel was published. The book featured, among other things, photos by Oscar Tauber, with the credit given to another photographer.

One of the identifying signs of this was the photographs taken at night. Oskar Tauber was the only photographer in the scene who owned night photography equipment, which was valuable and rare at the time. An inquiry with the authors of the book revealed that they received the photos from a third party and that they were misled or made a mistake in good faith. In 2018, a four-part series appeared on Channel 13 called: "Salah, this is the Land of Israel". The third episode dealt, among other things, with the riots that started in Wadi Salib. Yosef Tauber who watched the series was surprised to discover there still photographs taken by his father, without credit being given to the photographer.

Yosef contacted the producers, and they rushed to correct and add the required credit for each and every shot, but did not agree to reveal where the photos came from. In fact, all the stills in the film related to the Wadi Salib riots are the result of Oskar Tauber's camera.

Yosef Tauber estimates that the origin of the "new" images that have emerged, and perhaps of others that will emerge, "that have not seen the light of day before", are from the photographic film collection - the one taken from the Oscars that night in 1959, and others that were taken during the riots, which disappeared from the collection. To the best of Yosef's knowledge, out of the 72 boxes of negatives, about 4 boxes disappeared, which were not returned to him.

End of the Road

At the age of 83, after a health incident, Oscar Tauber moved to live in a nursing home in the city, but continued to take pictures and even ski.

He died in 2000, at the age of 91, and left behind thousands of photographic films describing the growth of the State of Israel in black and white and color. In the same year, his photographs were shown in the exhibition "Time Frame: One Hundred Years of Photography in the Land of Israel" at the Israel Museum.

In 2009, a photo exhibition was held in his honor in the city of Sarajevo under the auspices of the municipality on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth. The exhibition was attended by the ambassadors of the diplomatic missions in the city, clergy, representatives of the Jewish community, journalists and television photographers. The exhibition received a lot of media coverage and was recognized by UNESCO as an annual cultural event. The exhibition traveled between several cities in Europe.

In March 2014, Haifa University held an exhibition of his photographs on the topic: "The beginning of the university". In 2019, an exhibition was held at the Haifa City Museum about Wadi Salib and Oscar's photographs as a "photojournalist" covered the walls of the museum and documented his work.

Some of his sports photos are for display In the Maccabi Haifa Museum which is to be opened at the Sami Ofer Stadium.

The Tauber couple had a daughter, Dalia, and a son, Yosef. Oscar's photographic films are kept by his son Yosef, who is the sole copyright holder of his father's photographs.

It was appropriate that a man like Oscar Tauber, who was involved in the perpetuation of Haifa's history for about half a century, should be commemorated by reading his name on a street or site in the city. A request submitted by the family members for this expires on some shelf of the municipality, while streets in the city are named after junior businessmen or such and such singers who are not connected to the city, which is a shame.

It's not too late to fix it.