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David Rubinger (; 29 June 1924 – 2 March 2017) was an Israeli photographer and photojournalist. His famous photo of three Israeli paratroopers after the recapture of the Western Wall has become an iconic image of the Six-Day War. Shimon Peres called Rubinger "the photographer of the nation in the making".
After the war, he visited his father in England and learned that he had other relatives in Germany. There, he met his cousin Anni and her mother, who had survived the Holocaust. He offered to marry her to secure her emigration to mandatory Palestine, but the marriage of convenience ended up lasting more than 50 years until her death. The couple had two children together, including notable children author and illustrator Ami Rubinger. He described his marriage as "tempestuous" and stated in his autobiography Israel Through My Lens that he had numerous affairs over the years. However, he faithfully cared for his wife in the final years of her life when she was stricken with cancer.
After Anni's death, Rubinger, aged 78, met Ziona Spivak, a Yemeni Jews immigrant, with whom he had a relationship for two and a half years, although they never married. Spivak was murdered in her home in 2004 by her former gardener, Mohammad Mahmoud Sabarna, a Palestinian from the West Bank who entered the home and demanded that she give him 25,000 shekels, grabbing a knife and stabbing her to death when she refused.
Rubinger died on 2 March 2017 at the age of 92.
As Time–Life's primary photographer for the region, Rubinger covered all of Israel's wars and was given unprecedented access to governmental leaders: he was the only photographer allowed in the Knesset cafeteria. With the sort of access and exposure that allows the subjects to disregard the photographer's presence, Rubinger was able to take memorable photos of Golda Meir feeding her granddaughter or quiet moments between Yitzhak Rabin and Leah Rabin, for example.
Rubinger's signature photograph is of at the Western Wall, shortly after its recapture by Israeli forces in the Six-Day War. Shot from a low angle, the faces of (left to right) Zion Karasenti, Yitzhak Yifat, and Haim Oshri are framed against the wall. The three of them are framed with their backs toward the wall, gazing off into the distance, and Yifat (centre) holds his helmet in his hand.Yossi Klein Halevi, "The Photograph: A Search for June 1967", Azure (Summer 2007) Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi calls it "the most beloved Jewish photographic image of our time".
Prior to taking the photograph, Rubinger had been at Arish on the Sinai Peninsula when he heard a rumour that something big was going to happen in Jerusalem. He hopped aboard a helicopter ferrying wounded soldiers to Beersheba, although he didn't know its destination at the time. His car happened to be there, and he drove the rest of the way, at one point asking a hitchhiking soldier he had picked up to drive because he was too sleepy. He arrived in the Old City and after visiting quickly with his family, made his way to the wall. The space between the wall and the buildings in front of it was very narrow, so he lay down to get a shot of the wall itself, when the paratroopers walked by and he took several shots of them.
Twenty minutes later, IDF Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren arrived on scene with a shofar and a Sefer Torah, whereupon Goren was hoisted upon the shoulders of the soldiers. It was an emotional scene and Rubinger by far preferred his photograph of that, though his wife Anni told him "the one of the three soldiers" was better.
As part of his agreement with the Israeli Army allowing him front-line access, he turned the negatives over to the government, who distributed it to everyone for a mere Israeli pound2 each. It was then widely pirated as well. Although Rubinger was upset about his work being stolen, the photo's widespread distribution made it famous.
The image engenders such a strong emotional component that it has become an icon of Israel. Israeli Supreme Court Justice Misha'el Kheshin declared in 2001 that the photo had "become the property of the entire nation".
On 5 March 2017, Israel's mass-circulation Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth, for whom Rubinger had worked in the past, published a 21-page special photographic supplement in colour of selected photographs spanning his career. Titled "The Man Who Was There," the cover caption read: "There's no Israeli leader he didn't document or historic event where he wasn't present. To a great extent, David Rubinger, who passed away last week, is the photographer of our life here in Israel."
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