Yaakov Rosner

Yaakov Rosner was born in 1902 in Munich

Yaakov Rosner was born in Munich in 1902. Antisemitic incidents at school made him aware of his Jewish identity, and he became a Zionist. He was active as a leader in the Blau-Weiss youth movement in Munich.

He studied economics at the University of Frankfurt and received a doctorate in 1925. At the same time he wrote on economics for the Frankfurter Zeitung. In 1926 and 1927 he was in the United States to study advertising, and there he met the photographer Alfred Stieglitz, who influenced his work.

In 1926 he married Margot Klausner in Berlin, and the couple spent their honeymoon in the Land of Israel. He helped her bring the Habima Theatre from Moscow to Tel Aviv. They later divorced, and in 1934 he married Edith Grosswachs.

Rosner moved to Tel Aviv in 1936. He worked in photography, film and graphic design, and was chief photographer of the Jewish National Fund. He also photographed for Keren Hayesod, WIZO and the Hebrew University.

He died in Tel Aviv on 26 August 1950 and was buried in Kiryat Shaul Cemetery. His daughter Naomi Schwartz later gave a collection of his photographs to the Israel Museum.