Lenora Berson

Lenora Berson was born in 1926 in Philadelphia. She attended the University of Chicago and the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years she has been a case worker for the Pennsylvania Department of Public Assistance, a researcher for TIME Magazine, and the Director of Special Projects for the Office of the City Representative, City of Philadelphia. She has also been a freelance journalist. Lenora's credits include: The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Philadelphia Magazine and a stint as a weekly columnists for the Philadelphia Daily News. In 1971 Random House published her sociological study, The Negroes and the Jews. Berson has also been a political campaign manager and continues to be a social activist.

In the mid 70s Berson, who had long been interested in photography, attended the University of the Arts and took up the camera herself. In 1983 her first show, Culture Shock, Soviet Jews in Northeast Philadelphia was hung in the Balch Institute. Her second and third shows were at the University of Pennsylvania Faculty Club and the Central Library on Logan Square. Images taken for holiday cards form the core of the current show.