Clifford Lester is a professor of photography and a student of the Jewish experience. This month, he embarked on his latest journey—a three-week tour to Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Krakow and Budapest to document contemporary Jewish life there. “I think what we’re trying to show here is that the Jews survived, and that their lives are beginning to thrive again in these countries where Judaism was almost wiped out,” he explains. “So I want to show the full circle—the cemeteries and new life and kids and older people, all again celebrating their faith in these countries where Judaism almost became extinct.” A photo gallery of his tour will appear on Chabad.org, and some of the images, he expects, will wind up in a book he’s working on with Rabbi Dovid Eliezrie, director of the North County Chabad in Yorba Linda, Calif., who has encouraged him to get more involved with his heritage and to use his art in a more Jewish way. RELATED Lester, 57, says he wants to reveal—from a photographic perspective and trained eye—how the Jewish faith gets practiced, especially the celebration of life and beauty he sees in it.

Art Brought Him Closer to Faith His photography has, he says, been part of what has brought him closer to Judaism: “I just found this was my avenue toward learning about my faith—through these situations I found myself in.” Drawn to cameras at a young age, he joined the Downey High School yearbook staff, in Modesto, Calif., snapping pictures for school. Later, in 1973, he went to Israel, where he bought his first camera. “And somewhere in the process very early on,” he says, “I realized that I was noticing things through my camera that other people would just walk by.” Lester on the first day of his European tour putting on tefillin with the help of Rabbi Yehuda Tiechtel. (Photo: Clifford Lester) He went on to switch accounting classes for photography classes, and then to work full time in his new craft. Eventually, one of Lester’s clients invited him to study with a Chabad rabbi. Always passionate about his faith, he says he was glad to have the chance to learn more about Judaism. He pursued the opportunity through different channels, which led him to Eliezrie, whose Chabad center in Yorba Linda is just a few short miles from where Lester lives. “Essentially, I heard that Chabad’s mission was to help bring Jews back to Judaism, and that’s sort of what happened with me,” he says. Involved for about a dozen years now with Chabad, he takes pictures of Jewish rituals and has visited Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y., to capture meaningful Jewish images. “My career in photography is really connected with my faith, just in helping me to appreciate what we have,” he says. Lester teaches at Cypress College in southern California. Before that, he used his skills to help raise money for hungry children, including doing work for an organization called Para Los Ninos—“For the Children.” “I worked for them for over 10 years when I accepted my full-time teaching position and so couldn’t continue,” he says. “But I discovered that involving my students with the group was a wonderful way for them to do some good through their photography, and also to be grateful for what they have.” Lester says his students have created thousands of images for the charitable organization. Moreover, he adds, “a wonderful reward that I received for my efforts was the ‘Teacher of the Year’ honor in 2011 for helping students become involved in meaningful photographic work beyond the classroom.”