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Photo: Shira Gorelick

About me

Joan Roth is an internationally acclaimed photographer, photojournalist, ethnographer, and portraitist. For over five decades she used her camera to affect change for women who wouldn’t otherwise be seen. Her work includes homeless women in New York City, the U.S. Women’s Movement from the 1970s to today, and the diverse lives of Jewish women around the world.

She is most well known for her seminal work on Jews in Ethiopia and publication on Jewish Women: A World of Tradition and Change, a topic which she continues to work on to the present day. She has made a distinct impact on the lives of women cementing her place in a line of photographers who have used film to create art with a conscience.

More about Joan

Current Features

Documentary Film A Feminist Lens: The Art & Activism of Photographer Joan Roth - 2022

A Feminist Lens: The Art & Activism of Photographer Joan Roth is an intimate portrait of internationally acclaimed photographer Joan Roth.

The film focuses on five decades of Roth’s pioneering use of her camera as a tool to advocate for homeless women in New York City, document leaders in the U.S. Women’s Movement from the 1970s to today, and shine a light on the diverse lives of Jewish women around the world.

More on the film

Holy Sparks: Celebrating 50 Years of Women in the Rabbinate - 2022

Celebrating 50 Years of Women in the Rabbinate with Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion and The Braid.

Holy Sparks pairs leading artists with 24 woman rabbis to illuminate the creativity, commitment, and vision of women who were “firsts” in their time. Their challenges and contributions, struggles and successes, represent the achievements of all women rabbis since June 3, 1972, when Rabbi Sally Priesand was ordained by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

Camera Ready, Lilith Magazine 2021

Joan Roth’s photography was featured in Lilith Magazine. The article shares Joan’s life story and highlights her pioneering work.

Lilith Article Camera Ready

In Search of Jewish Women: My Travels Into Light, Nashim - A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies and Gender studies, a publication of The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, and the Hadassah Brandeis Institute.

Nashim Article

Women saying the blessing over Shabbat Candles Mumbai India

Jewish Women Around the World

Portfolios feature pioneering work on celebrating the diversity, culture, and religious practice of Jewish Women around the world, in the US and Israel from 1980’s to today.

Ethiopian Jews

This special portfolio documents the Ethiopian Jewish community prior to its migration to Israel in the 1980s showcasing how the Ethiopian community lived for thousands of years.

Imprints of open hands on this woman's food storage bins are the blessings of protection

U.S. Women's Movement

The portfolio documents the women’s movement from the frontlines featuring the second wave women’s movement in the 1970s through today’s activism on abortion access.

New York

Using her Leica camera, Roth visually captures the voices of the underdog and the activists who have stories to tell and are working to make a better life for all.

Homeless Women

Portfolio includes the plight of homeless women in Shopping Bag Ladies of New York, Maggie and Marcia living in Central Park and her activism to save women from evictions.

Portraits

Roth has photographed renowned women all over the world capturing their essence and stories in a frame. Her portrait of the first female rabbi in America Sally Prisend will soon be exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery - Smithsonian.

Gloria Steinem

Writer, Political Activist,

and Feminist Organizer

"Joan Roth has looked at the Jewish world as if women mattered and therefore as if everyone mattered. Across all boundaries of geography and language, there is not only a common world of belief, but a common world of women. We see into its intimacy through her eyes."

Alice Shalvi

President Emerita of the

Israeli Women's Network

“[Joan Roth] has the gift for seeing the significant moment, the meaningful gesture, and the fleeting look, which convey an in-depth character, a lifetime of experience, and an entire culture. [Her] gaze is a female gaze and, in the capacity to penetrate below the surface to the essence of women's lives, it is a feminist gaze, which does not objectify, but rather empathizes, sympathizes, and identifies with the subjects of her work.”

Ed Geffner

Former Executive Director of the Manhattan Project

“Joan Roth was a pioneer in uncovering the problem of homelessness among women. She photographed and interviewed many women living in the streets in the 1970s, a time of little interest and virtually no understanding of what was happening to these women, and contributed invaluable information about the way they live, and how some of them become homeless…Her work called public attention to what turned out to be the tip of the iceberg of an important social problem. We have continued to work in the field of adult homelessness and consider Ms. Roth's early reports to be of significant value.”

Featured Clients

Project Kesher

Jewish Women’s Archives

Lilith Magazine

Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance

Israel Museum

Beth Hatefutsoth - Museum of Jewish Diaspora

info@joanroth.com

Blog

JoanRothBlogSpot