George Azar (born February 3, 1959) is a Lebanese-American

photojournalist Photojournalism is journalism that uses images to tell a news story. It usually only refers to still images, but can also refer to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (such ...

and

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

maker. His photographs have appeared on the front pages of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', the ''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France for international English-speaking readers. It had the aim of becoming "the world's first global newspaper" and could fairly be said ...

'', ''

The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...

'', ''

Saudi Aramco World ''Aramco World'' (formerly ''Saudi Aramco World'') is a bi-monthly magazine published by Aramco Services Company, a US-based subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The first issue of the magazine a ...

'' and other leading publications. Since 2006 he and Mariam Shahin, have produced over 50 films for the international satellite news network,

Al Jazeera Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...

. Azar has also produced several documentaries for the internet news channel '' Vice News'', including "Crime and Punishment in Gaza", "Renegade Jewish Settlers" and 'The Islamic State vs Lebanon". Azar has covered the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

and

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

ic culture since 1981 and is the subject of the CBS

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

-winning news feature, ''Beirut Photographer''. He was also profiled in the BBC's Firing Line. He was nominated for the 2007

Rory Peck Award The Rory Peck Award is an award given to freelance camera operators who have risked their lives to report on newsworthy events.Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...

'' also received great acclaim, winning the Japan Prize in Education in 2008, and the British

Royal Television Society The Royal Television Society (RTS) is a British-based educational charity for the discussion, and analysis of television in all its forms, past, present, and future. It is the oldest television society in the world. It currently has fourteen r ...

Education Award in 2009. In addition, Azar is the author and photographer of the critically acclaimed book ''Palestine: A Photographic Journey'', and the photographer of ''Palestine: A Guide'', written by Mariam Shahin. In addition to his work as a photojournalist and filmmaker, Azar is a historian and curator. His writing, photography and photo curation is on permanent display on the first three floors of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

's historic U.S. Customhouse, and New York's International Center of Photography hosted Azar's 2002 curation of

Bill Biggart William G. Biggart (July 20, 1947 – September 11, 2001) was an American freelance photojournalist and a victim of the September 11 attacks, notable for his street-view photographs of the event before being killed by the collapse of the World Tr ...

's "Twin Towers", which marked the one-year anniversary of the tragedy. Azar commands unique insight into both the Arab world and the western perceptions and misperceptions of it, and has lectured on the subject at major universities including the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

, Vanderbilt,

Pepperdine Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and th ...

and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Azar is currently a Photojournalist in Residence and a full-time instructor in Journalism and Digital Media at the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...

since Fall 2018–19.

Early life

Azar was born in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

on February 3, 1959, the middle child of George Azar, Jr. and Gladys Saddic, both the children of Lebanese immigrants. He has three siblings, an older sister, Madelynn, and two younger brothers, Michael and Habib. When he was eight years old, the family relocated to

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, where he spent the remainder of his childhood. Between 1977 and 1981, Azar attended the

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...

and the

, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in political science, history. He graduated magna cum laude. Having grown up in a Lebanese American household, and visiting

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...

several times throughout his youth, Azar was always extremely interested in the

. In the introduction to his book, ''Palestine: A Photographic Journey'', Azar writes:

"My grandfather, 'Jiddu' Haleem, often spoke of a place where by custom, a hungry traveler could pick fruit from orchards, where snowy mountaintops overlooked the
Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
, and where villages with red-tiled roofs nestled in forests of cedar and
pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...
. He called that country biladi, my homeland...the Arab world came alive for me through those stories."Azar, George, ''Palestine: A Photographic Journey'', Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.

Then in July 1981, the

Israeli Air Force The Israeli Air Force (IAF; he, זְרוֹעַ הָאֲוִיר וְהֶחָלָל, Zroa HaAvir VeHahalal, tl, "Air and Space Arm", commonly known as , ''Kheil HaAvir'', "Air Corps") operates as the aerial warfare branch of the Israel Defense ...

bombed a neighborhood in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

called Fakhani, sending stacks of 700 pound bombs slamming into densely packed apartment buildings. Some 400 civilians were killed by the explosions or crushed by the weight of the fallen buildings. Azar read about it in a newspaper, clipped the short article, and taped it onto the refrigerator door so his friends could see it. Throughout the summer he would look at this article and become overwhelmed. This Israeli bombing campaign in West Beirut was part of the early stages of what would eventually transform into the

1982 Lebanon War The 1982 Lebanon War, dubbed Operation Peace for Galilee ( he, מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג ''Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil'' or ''Mivtsa Sheleg'') by the Israeli government, later known in Israel as the Lebanon War or the First L ...

. Azar writes, "I could imagine the press coverage that would have followed if 400 Jewish civilians been killed in a Palestinian attack. Yet, in 1981, the killing of 400 Arab civilians by Israel hardly caused a ripple in the American public mind." By the end of the summer, shocked and troubled, Azar decided to see, first-hand, the conflict he had read about in

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...

s. So, in September 1981, he departed for Beirut with his friend and college roommate, Michael Nelson. They hitchhiked across Europe to Lebanon, with the goal of pursuing careers in photojournalism. They finally arrived in Beirut in November 1981. And it was there and then that Azar's career began.

Career

Once in Beirut, Azar became a news

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

, covering the Lebanese War as a stringer for the Associated Press (AP), United Press International (UPI) and later for the French photo agency, Gamma. From 1981 to 1989 Azar chronicled the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, the destruction of the U.S. Marine compound, the civil insurrection in West Beirut, the vicious inter-factional war among the Palestinians in North Lebanon, The Druze-Maronite war in the Chouf mountains and the Syrian siege of Mount Lebanon. During the early days of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, Azar was trapped under an intense bombardment, abandoned by his driver in a small town on the Lebanese coast, called

Jieh Jieh (or Jiyé, Jiyeh, الجية) is a seaside town in Lebanon with an estimated population of 5000, 23 km south of Beirut, in the Chouf district via a 20-minute drive along the Beirut to Sidon highway south of the capital. In Phoenician tim ...

. He was covering the war for ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis (businessman), Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print m ...

''. When the Israelis overran the town there was a brief, but intense fight. Jieh was left in ruins. Azar was taken by the Israeli army, and marched to the outskirts of Damour. Because he held press credentials and U.S. citizenship he was not blindfolded, handcuffed and beaten, as were the other Arab men he saw. He was kept with a group of paratroopers in a large house overlooking the ocean, which, unknown to them, was owned by former Lebanese president Camille Chamoun. After three days he was taken to the local Israeli command center where he was interrogated. His cameras and pockets were emptied and his film destroyed. Upon the insistence of an Israeli photographer, Shalomo Arad, who was serving in the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) he was put on a military helicopter and flown out of the war zone to Israel. Azar wrote about the experience:

"Peering from the helicopter window, I felt, in a strange way like Elijah in his flaming chariot, flying among the clouds above the
Holy Land The Holy Land; Arabic: or is an area roughly located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Eastern Bank of the Jordan River, traditionally synonymous both with the biblical Land of Israel and with the region of Palestine. The term "Holy ...
. Looking down I could see funnel clouds of black smoke billowing from a hundred different points along the Lebanese countryside. Houses lay smashed by artillery fire. Burned out cars and taxis, strafed by fighter-bombers were strewn upside down, or lying in bomb craters along the coast highway. Lebanon burned below. Armored columns of tanks snaked northward from Israel, laying waste to the land."

Azar was taken to the ''Newsweek'' office in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

, where he handed over two rolls of color film he had taken of the Israeli assault on Jieh, and hidden from the Israelis in his underwear. On the rolls were photographs of terrified

Palestinian refugee Palestinian refugees are citizens of Mandatory Palestine, and their descendants, who fled or were expelled from their country over the course of the 1947–49 Palestine war ( 1948 Palestinian exodus) and the Six-Day War ( 1967 Palestinian exo ...

s trapped in a building as it was being shelled, and Israeli battle-tanks leveling Lebanese houses at point-blank range. When the magazine appeared the following week it carried two of Azar's photographs. One was of two Lebanese militiamen firing a machine-gun at Israeli jets, and the other of a

PLO The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO; ar, منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية, ') is a Palestinian nationalist political and militant organization founded in 1964 with the initial purpose of establishing Arab unity and s ...

guerrilla walking past a destroyed building. The photographs of the Israeli assault on Jieh were never seen again. ''Newsweek'' claims they were lost. After delivering his film to ''Newsweek'', Azar was free to go on his way. But before returning to Beirut, he traveled to the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Azar was horrified by the devastation he saw. And so began a fascination with Palestine and a desire to document and report the plight of the Palestinian people; a desire that would shape and dominate his career in the following years. When the

First Intifada The First Intifada, or First Palestinian Intifada (also known simply as the intifada or intifadah),The word ''intifada'' () is an Arabic word meaning "uprising". Its strict Arabic transliteration is '. was a sustained series of Palestinian ...

erupted in Palestine in the winter of 1987, Azar was living in the United States, working as a photographer for ''

The Philadelphia Inquirer ''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...

''. He had left the horror of Beirut, Damour and

Tripoli Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to: Cities and other geographic units Greece *Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece * Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in ...

behind almost two years before and resisted the thought of ever going back. But as he watched images on the news of the people of the villages, refugee camps and towns of Palestine taking to the streets, protected by nothing save the cloth of their

keffiyeh The keffiyeh or kufiya ( ar, كُوفِيَّة, kūfīyah, relating to Kufa, link=no), also known in Arabic as a ghutrah (), shemagh ( '), (), in Kurdish as a Shemagh ''(''شه‌ماغ'')'' or Serwîn (سه‌روین) and in Persian, as a ...

s, and armed with stones, he finally decided to return to Palestine. The photos he took during that stay in Palestine would become his first book, the critically acclaimed ''Palestine: A Photographic Journey'', published in 1991. In December 2012, Al Jazeera English flagship documentary series "Witness" aired "Beirut Photographer" Directed by George Azar and Mariam Shahin. The film is about Azar's return to Beirut 30 years after his first visit and documents his journey to the past and how he finds and reconnects to many of the people he photographed in 1982.

Production

Documentaries for Al Jazeera

2012

''Beirut Photographer''
(48 min documentary)

(44 min documentary)

2011

* (25 min documentary)

2010

* (47 min documentary)

2009

* (22 min documentary) * (22 min documentary) * (22 min documentary) * (22 min documentary)

2008

* (22 min documentary) * (22 min documentary) *''Lost Manuscripts of Timbuktu'' (22 min documentary) *''Abduallah Goes to Essekane'' (22 min documentary) *''On War with Josh Rushing'' (22 min documentary)

2007

*''Crossroads Europe: Islam in Berlin'' (22 min documentary)

(22 min film) *''Hostages of Gaza'' (22 min documentary) *''Seen But Not Heard'' (6 min documentary) *''Samaritan Brides'' (6 min documentary) *''The Get'' (6 min documentary) * (44 min documentary) *''Cheating to Live'' (22 min documentary) *''Hope on Hold'' (3 x 22 min documentary series)

(3 x 22 min documentary series made with filmmaker Tom Evans) - Winner of 2008 Japan Prize in Education & 2009

Education Award

2006

*''In Exile Next Door'' (22 min documentary) *''No One Left Behind'' (22 min documentary) *''Hollywood: Casting the Enemy'' (22 min documentary) *''Bargaining Chips'' (22 min documentary) * (22 min documentary) Al Jazeera: ''Gaza Fixer''
Retrieved 2012-12-12- Winner of 2007 Rory Peck Award

Published photographs

2000s

*2007 - Gaza Strip & West Bank,

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

*2006 - Gaza Strip & West Bank, New York Times, Boston Globe *2005 - Palestinian Presidential Elections, New York Times *2005 - Palestine: A Guide, Interlink books *2004 - ‘This Is Palestine’, Educational CD-Rom,

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human dev ...

*2004 - Death of Arafat,

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

*2003 - Palestine Photographic Survey, United Nations Development Programme *2002 - World Trade Center Martyr Bill Biggart, International Center for Photography

1990s

*1998-2001 - World Featherweight Boxing Champion,

Prince Naseem Naseem Hamed (born 12 February 1974), nicknamed Prince Naseem and Naz, is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2002.. Retrieved 25 February 2016. He held multiple featherweight world championships, including the WBO ti ...

*1997 - Dick Dale, King of the Surf Guitar, Aramco World Magazine *1996 - Nader Khalili's Earth Architecture, Fine Homebuilding *1995 - Syrian Archeology, Aramco World Magazine *1994 - Hardwood Craftsman Sam Maloof, Aramco World Magazine *1994 - Naturalist Gary Paul Nabhan, Aramco World Magazine *1993 - Beirut, Up From the Ashes, Aramco World Magazine *1993 - Lebanese Archeology, Aramco World Magazine *1992 - Master Dancer Elie Chaib, Aramco World Magazine *1992 - Hanan Ashrawi & The Washington Peace Talks, Mother Ines *1992 - Iraq After Desert Storm,

San Francisco Bay Guardian The ''San Francisco Bay Guardian'' was a free alternative newspaper published weekly in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1966 by Bruce B. Brugmann and his wife, Jean Dibble. The paper was shut down on October 14, 2014. It was relaun ...

*1991 - Iraq War, San Jose Mercury News

1980s

*1989 - The Syrian Siege of Mt. Lebanon, Philadelphia Inquirer *1988 - The Palestinian Uprising,

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

*1987 - The Grateful Dead, Philadelphia Inquirer *1987 - Philadelphia Prizefighters,

Philadelphia Magazine ''Philadelphia'' (also called "''Philadelphia'' magazine" or referred to by the nickname "Phillymag", once called ''Greater Philadelphia'') is a regional monthly magazine published in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by the Lipson family of Philadelphia ...

*1985 - The Iran-Iraq War, Battle of Basra, U.S. News & World Report *1985 - East Beirut & Mt. Lebanon, Philadelphia Inquirer *1984 - Insurrection in West Beirut,

*1984 - A Sniper's Story, Beirut, Philadelphia Inquirer *1983 - Bombing of the U.S. Marine Compound Beirut, UPI *1983 - War of the Camps, Northern Lebanon, Newsweek *1982 - The Israeli Invasion of Lebanon, Newsweek *1981 - The Lebanese Civil War, AP

Books

*Azar, George, ''Palestine, A Photographic Journey'', Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991. *Mariam Shahin & George Azar, ''Palestine, A Guide,'' Northampton, MA: Interlink Books, 2005. - finalist for the Independent Publisher Book Award 2006, received an Honorable Mention for '' ForeWord Magazine's'' Book of the Year Awards, and was ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''s "Pick of the Picture Books Award".

References

External links

''George Azar: Middle East Photographer''
Retrieved 2012-12-12

Retrieved 2012-12-12 * ttp://photography.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/8670/beirut-photographer_interview-with-george-azar Jadaliyya, November 29, 2012: ''Beirut Photographer: Interview with George Azar''Retrieved 2012-12-12
New York Times article by George Azar, June 12, 2006: ''Errant Shell Turns Girl Into Palestinian Icon''
Retrieved 2012-12-12 {{DEFAULTSORT:Azar, George 1959 births Living people American documentary filmmakers American people of Lebanese descent UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni American photojournalists Photographers from Philadelphia The New York Times visual journalists