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"Jewish Indian Bride," taken in Bombay, India in 2001, is showing at Zion Ozeri's exhibit at the

Where can you go in Los Angeles to witness Jews from all over the world performing centuries-old traditions and celebrating life-cycle events? Just venture a little ways up the hill from UCLA to the Skirball Cultural Center’s exhibit of Zion Ozeri’s photography, “Portraits of an Eternal People: A Jewish Family Album,” and you’ll find them.

This 50-piece black-and-white photo exhibit in the museum lobby is a pictorial meeting place of different people from around the world, bound together by their common faith, culture and history.

An Israeli-born photographer of Yemenite heritage who now lives in New York, Ozeri has traveled around the world, capturing images that simultaneously depict the diversity and similarities of an entire people.

Ozeri’s photography exhibit spans the globe – including images from North Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, South America, Israel and Yemen – yet many individual pictures are unified in common subject matter.

For example, “Simchat Torah” depicts a bustling Moscow synagogue, while in another work three Jewish men are “Waiting for Seven Jews” in an almost-empty Tunisian synagogue so that they can have the mandatory 10-person minimum to begin daily prayers.

Some of the exhibit’s most striking photographs illustrate Jewish ritual. From an Indian bride waiting for her henna tattoos to dry, to schoolchildren “Welcoming the Sabbath” in Zimbabwe, and U.S. troops holding Friday night services in “Basic Training,” Ozeri captures the breadth of distinct ways Jews celebrate a common religion and culture.

While a picture may be worth a thousand words, the word count on some of Ozeri’s works increases two-fold as the photographs’ titles poignantly expand the image’s meaning. Titles such as “Yemenite Gothic” add a laugh-out-loud touch to a work showing an elderly couple and a pitchfork, and “Waiting for Seven Jews” provides important context as to why the three men pictured are not yet engaged in prayer.

Just as any family’s photo album tells the story of a group and its members’ relationships to each other, Ozeri’s photographs bring to life the ritual and routine of a faith’s smaller factions scattered across the world, collectively bringing viewers the big picture.

“Portraits of an Eternal People: A Jewish Family Album” runs through Aug. 31. For more information, go to www.skirball.org or call (310) 440-4500.

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