Jerusalemites — The Photography Book | Sharon Gabay

Jerusalem is usually documented through its stones. This book turns the gaze toward the people.

How a Book Is Born

Not every book begins with a plan. Jerusalemites began with a life.

Fifteen years of walking the streets of Jerusalem. Thousands of hours of watching and waiting. A million and a half moments caught in the lens. And a full year in front of the screen — day after day, hours at a stretch — trying to draw out of that cloud the photographs that tell the city's true story.

The work of selection, as I wrote in the book's introduction, proved a longer and more grueling journey than the photography itself. Letting go of certain images was as hard as a farewell.

The Jerusalem You Haven't Seen

Most photographs of Jerusalem fix on the stones. The Western Wall, the spires, the walls. Monumental images that have hardened into symbols.

Jerusalemites asks for something else.

The book turns the gaze from the symbols toward the living fabric. From the myth toward the reality. This is a Jerusalem of flesh and blood — exposed, complex and human.

Two nuns, a woman in a hijab pushing a stroller, an ultra-Orthodox man — all at the same gate of the Old City, in the same moment, breathing in the smell of the same bagel.

The camera does not try to decide. It documents.

A Native's Eye

The perspective in this book is that of someone born and raised in this city — not a visitor, not a tourist, not a journalist who flew in to file a story.

My grandfather used to take me, as a boy, on a standing Saturday-morning walk through the alleys of the Old City. I remember how merchants would rise to greet him, welcoming him with a warm embrace. My father taught me the secrets of the market. My mother taught me to love Jerusalem in spite of its flaws.

These are not just memories. They are the gaze behind the lens.

My life did not begin behind the camera. For years I worked as a senior sales-and-marketing executive at a range of companies. Only at 38 did I pick up a camera and walk out into the streets of Jerusalem — no plan, no idea where it would lead. Fifteen years later, this is my sixth book.

The Book Born Out of the War

After documenting Kibbutz Kfar Aza in October 2023 — among the hardest work I have ever done — I withdrew into the studio. The war was outside. The work on Jerusalemites was inside.

It was the need to finish the book that drew me back out into the street for the first time, at the end of 2025. Jerusalem took me back the way it always does — with the same alleys, with faces both new and familiar, with that singular light that has no equal anywhere in the world.

What's in the Book

Jerusalemites is my sixth photography book. A visual and documentary essay, carefully built — not a collection of pictures, but a narrative sequence.

A look inside the book — a spread from Jerusalemites (mockup)

In Memory of Aner Shapira

Jerusalemites is dedicated to the memory of Aner Shapira — a musician and soldier, a son of Jerusalem.

On October 7, Aner stood at the entrance of a crowded roadside shelter near the Nova festival and threw back, one after another, seven grenades hurled inside — saving many lives. The eighth took his. He was 22. Israel posthumously awarded him the Medal of Valor, its highest military decoration.

The book's title on the cover is set in Aner's own handwriting. 20% of the profits are donated to the Aner Shapira Foundation, with the blessing and consent of his parents.

Aner's father with "Jerusalemites"

Jerusalem in Pictures — What You'll Find in the Book

The book presents images of Jerusalem you won't see anywhere else. Not the Western Wall familiar from postcards, not the Dome of the Rock from a tourist's angle. These are pictures of real people in real moments — a vendor in the Mahane Yehuda market who has fallen asleep at his stall, an ultra-Orthodox boy playing soccer with an Arab boy in an Old City alley, nuns walking alongside soldiers at the Jaffa Gate. Jerusalem street photography that documents life as it is — without staging, without filters, without an agenda. The book records the Jerusalem of markets and gates, of alleys and stone steps, of unexpected encounters between different worlds that share the same space.

How the Narrative Sequence Was Built

Jerusalemites is not a photo album. It is a deliberate journey with a beginning, a middle and an end. Every picture in the book is placed in relation to the one before it and the one after. The anchor images — the once-in-a-lifetime moments that will never return — serve as load-bearing columns, and the entire narrative is built around them. The selection process was punishing: out of a million and a half photographs taken over 15 years, only a few hundred made the book. Letting images go was as painful as a parting. But in the end, every page received the picture that was born for it.

A spread from the book: two worlds on the same street (mockup)

What People Say About the Book

Thank you, dear Sharon Gabay, for this mission you carried out with talent, with professionalism, and above all with an immense love for Jerusalem.

Isaac Herzog, President of Israel

You are such a unique photographer. You have the ability to photograph the soul of the people, and in this book, one can see the soul of Jerusalem. It is an amazing and important book that deserves to be distributed globally.

Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel

Sharon doesn't just photograph the Western Wall, the walls and the stones, but the human fabric that gives Jerusalem its soul. Thank you, Sharon, for building a living archive of Jerusalem — not only as it looks, but as it feels.

Rabbi Menachem Bombach

An important book like no other.

Minister of Culture and Sport

A masterpiece. A one-of-a-kind work of art.

Yelena Perlman, Director of the Culture Division, Ministry of Culture and Sport

This book is stunning. A precise blend of Jerusalem — its landscapes, its people, its colors.

Dr. Israel Tal-Saranga

The book is truly perfect. Profound, moving, and aesthetic. A new perspective on Jerusalem I had never seen before.

Dafna Liel, Channel 12 News

I have never seen a book like this, or anything similar done about Jerusalem.

Yitzchak Weiss, Director, Jerusalem House of Quality

The books are BEAUTIFUL! What an accomplishment and a gift for Jerusalem.

Charlene Seidle, Executive Vice President, Leichtag Foundation

A Recommendation Letter from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee

"You have the ability to photograph the soul of the people, and in this book, one can see the soul of Jerusalem. It is an amazing and important book that deserves to be distributed globally."

Mike Huckabee, US Ambassador

From an official recommendation letter sent by U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee to Sharon Gabay, on U.S. Embassy Jerusalem letterhead (July 14, 2026).

The recommendation letter from U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee (July 2026)

With U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee (2026)

Ambassador Huckabee browsing Jerusalemites in his office (2026)

A Blessing from the President of Israel

An official blessing from Israel's President Isaac Herzog for the book Jerusalemites, marking Jerusalem Day.

The Book as a Jerusalem Gift

Jerusalemites has become the perfect gift for anyone who loves Jerusalem. Readers abroad who receive it feel they've been given a piece of the city. Diplomats, business leaders and heads of Jewish communities around the world already own it. Thanks to its three-language edition — Hebrew, English and Arabic — the book speaks to everyone. It makes a fitting gift for Jerusalem Day, for the holidays, for birthdays, for corporate events, and for anyone who wants to give something unique that you can't find on Amazon.

The Exhibition — 60 Years of a United Jerusalem

In 2027, Jerusalem marks 60 years since its reunification. For the occasion, Jerusalemites is offered to Jewish communities abroad not only as a book but as a complete cultural experience — a photography exhibition and book, ready to host.

The question behind it is a simple one: how do you celebrate Jerusalem, in a divided world, without dividing your own community? The answer isn't another story of triumph. It's a human one — the same gaze that underlies the book. Full details are on the dedicated page for communities abroad.

Who Stands Behind the Lens

Sharon Gabay was born and raised in the Nachlaot neighborhood of Jerusalem. Before he became a photographer, he worked for years in management and communications. At 38 he picked up a camera and went out into the street. He hasn't stopped since. Jerusalemites is his sixth photography book. His work has been exhibited at the United Nations building in New York, the U.S. Congress in Washington and the Israeli Knesset. His portraits serve as the lead images in dozens of Wikipedia entries for Israeli public figures — politicians, Israel Prize laureates, Nobel Prize winners and military commanders. His photographs are used in the public-diplomacy work of the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Tourism.

Jerusalem — The City You Cannot Photograph

Every photographer who comes to Jerusalem shoots the same things — the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock, the walls of the Old City. These are the images of Jerusalem we've seen a thousand times. But the real Jerusalem is not the stones. It is the people who live among them. It is the vendor in the market who offers you tea you never asked for. It is the nun waiting for a bus beside a soldier carrying a weapon. It is the boy running down an alley with a ball, among tourists from Japan. Street photography in Jerusalem is a challenge unlike any other city in the world, because here every corner holds three religions, ten cultures and 3,500 years of history all at once. It is this Jerusalem that I tried to capture in Jerusalemites.

Technical Details: Format 28x25 cm, roughly 304 interior pages, 170 gsm matte chromo paper, hardcover with matte lamination, a trilingual edition — Hebrew, English, Arabic.

For the press: For a review copy, further details or to arrange an interview, contact sharongabay2@gmail.com directly.

To Purchase

Last signed copies, available on the site.

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