RUBIN, GAIL

RUBIN, GAIL (1939–1978), U.S. photographer. The only child of a prominent New York family, Rubin graduated from Finch College and worked as a photographer in advertising and as an editor at several publishing houses before moving to Israel in 1971. She began her photographic career in Israel as a press photographer and served as a war photographer. She was one of the first civilians to cross into Egypt with Israeli troops during the 1973 war. Rubin turned her attention to nature photography and a collection of her wildlife photographs was exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1977. In March of 1978, Rubin was shooting the nesting habits of storks and pelicans in a bird sanctuary when she was shot to death by Palestinian terrorists who had infiltrated a remote beach north of Tel Aviv. Her legacy is a book called Psalmist with a Camera, published in 1979. Rubin's descriptions and photographs are rooted in biblical phrases; she had resolved to show the birds, beasts, and other aspects of nature mentioned in the Bible. In the Ḥuleh Nature Reserve, for example, she photographed water buffalo, pelicans, and doves. The book also contains impressionistic images of the bark of eucalyptus trees at different seasons. (Stewart Kampel (2nd ed.)