Marc Israel Sellem: From Paris to Jerusalem

Marc Israel Sellem, chief photographer for The Jerusalem Post, arrives at the appointed hour of our meeting outside a coffee shop on Jerusalem’s Emek Refaim Street, Canon camera in hand, smiles, and asks, “Who are we photographing today?” I remind him that today he is the subject of the interview. “Me?” he says with a look of surprise. “I’ve never been interviewed before.” The assignment clarified, we enter the café and his story unfolds.Born in 1974, Sellem grew up in the Paris suburb of Ivry sur Seine. The youngest of four children, he became fascinated with filmmaking at an early age after watching Steven Spielberg’s 1982 science-fiction classic E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. “I wanted to become a film director,” he says. “That was my dream, but there were no digital cameras and film was expensive. I decided that instead of becoming a movie director, I would be a photographer.” He discovered cameras at age 12 when his mother asked him to clean a small storage room in their home before Passover. “I found a plastic bag with a manual camera,” he recalls. “I started with this camera. That was the beginning that gave me a push.” As he got older, Sellem began working small photography jobs in France and purchased cameras and film with the money he earned from his photo gigs.“I was a secular Jew growing up,” he says, “a Jew of Yom Kippur and Passover and Rosh Hashanah.” Sellem began to attend synagogue with greater frequency when he was 16, playing ping-pong there, and eventually became fully observant. The ping-pong helped, and he says it was an excellent way to attract Jewish youth to the synagogue. “I have a table at home today,” he adds, chuckling. Sellem has a boyish, friendly demeanor, and he speaks English with a charming French accent reminiscent of Peter Sellers’s Inspector Clouseau.In 1990, after his older brother moved to Israel, the 16-year-old began to think about the possibility of aliyah. “My parents – especially my mother – were very Zionistic. She told us that we had to live in Israel, and that there was no future in France. She was right.” Five years later, Sellem arrived in Israel at age 21 on a tourist visa, determined to try living here for a year. After a year of study at Machon Meir he enrolled at Machon Lev, where he studied marketing. He then decided that his future lay elsewhere and was hired by the French edition of the Post, where he worked in the circulation department and contributed photos to In Jerusalem. In 2010, he became chief photographer at the Post. Sellem says he has snapped more than 50,000 photos for the paper.  As a beginner photographer, Sellem took private lessons from more experienced photographers to sharpen his skills, and to this day, shows his pictures to other professionals to get feedback and tips. “If I don’t do it, I will not get better,” he explains. “You have to have someone look at it to know if it is good or not good. If you think you are the best, you cannot progress. You have to check yourself in order to grow.”As chief photographer, Sellem’s primary responsibility is taking pictures of daily news events. On an average workday he wakes up early, attends services at his nearby synagogue, listens to the radio to catch up on daily events and checks his email and the Post website. At 8 a.m., he joins the WhatsApp group of newspaper photographers, speaks with colleagues and then checks in with the Post editors to get his assignments. “Eighty percent of my job is news,” he says, “so it is very interesting because you see what is going on, and you don’t have any filter in front of you. You see what is happening with your own eyes, and it’s good to have your own idea.” Events happen quickly, he reveals, and when taking news photos, one must be quick. Sellem frequently finds himself in the midst of conflict and violence, photographing the news. In October 2020, after haredi institutions defied a government order to close schools during corona, he was sent to take photos of haredi students arriving for school. He was attacked and someone tried to steal his camera. But he remains undaunted and goes wherever the news takes him.When taking photos for Magazine stories, Sellem has more time to think and prepare for taking shots of his subjects. While some photographers like to take pictures alone with the subject, he prefers to be present at the interview because “when you see what the guy is thinking, it’s easier for you to get the picture and get something for the article.”When he is not taking pictures, he enjoys watching movies in theaters. “Streaming is not for me,” he sniffs. In addition, he loves eating in restaurants – “all kinds, and not just French” – and visiting museums. “Whenever I travel, it is important to see something that is a treasure for the eyes.”Sellem met his wife Racheli under unusual circumstances. His father was ill in the hospital and told his 45-year-old son that if he couldn’t find a wife, he (Sellem’s father) would find a nurse working in the hospital for Sellem to marry. His father’s condition worsened, and Sellem was spending increasing amounts of time in the hospital, caring for his father. One of the nurses decided to play matchmaker and told him of a nurse who worked in a different hospital that perhaps he would like to meet. “I said no way,” remembers Sellem, “because I am with my father now.” The nurse insisted, and Sellem agreed. He met the woman in July of 2019, and the two began to see each other.“The very same day I told my father I had found a nurse to be my bride was the day he died. He did his job.” Marc and Racheli married in March 2020.  Today, his immediate family is living in Israel. One sister made aliyah in 2001, his parents arrived in 2006 and his other sister came in 2007.Aliyah, says Sellem, was one of the best things he did in his life, along with becoming a photographer. “But the best thing I have is my wife,” he laughs. Sellem says Israel is one of the best places to live in the world. “It is easy to be Jewish in Israel.” Recalling his aliyah more than 25 years ago, he says, “When I came to Israel, Israelis wanted to be like foreigners – like Americans and Europeans. Now I think Israelis want to be themselves, and Americans and others want to be like Israelis.” He says that while in France, it is customary to greet one’s neighbor in the morning, few people will come to the assistance of someone who has fallen in the street. In Israel people may skip perfunctory morning greetings, but they will come to your aid immediately when something serious occurs. “The future of Israel is in its youth,” stresses Sellem. “We shouldn’t call it the Ministry of Education – we have to call it the Ministry of the Future because education is the future of Israel. This is the only way to make a better country.” Having seen and experienced violence and hatred, he adds that ignorance is the worst weapon in the world. “All the hate comes because we don’t make an effort to know someone else. If we want to have a better world, we must stop being ignorant.”“The most important skill for a photographer,” he adds, “is to know how to look at the world, at what is around you.” Marc Israel Sellem has been looking at the world through the lens of his camera and loves his work. “It’s a hobby that became a profession. I enjoy each day.”