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Can I Say Shalom is a photographic series by Miriam Reik that explores her return to the Jewish community she grew up in, having distanced herself from it as a young adult. Raised in North West London within a close-knit Jewish environment, Reik left the community to pursue a broader and less constrained life, later establishing herself as a professional photographer. At the age of 40, she began to revisit the world she had left behind, using photography to reflect on the culture, identity and relationships that had shaped her.
The project is both personal and observational, capturing moments of ritual, celebration and everyday life with a sense of closeness and quiet familiarity. Reik was surprised by the access and ease with which she was welcomed back, allowing her camera to move freely and naturally within intimate spaces. The resulting photographs reveal an openness and warmth that reflect her renewed connection to the community.
Can I Say Shalom is a meditation on belonging, ambivalence and identity. Through the work, Reik acknowledges both the distance she once needed and the connection that never fully disappeared, offering a nuanced and deeply felt portrait of British Jewish life from both inside and out.
Reik wrote: "This is a story about a community. At the same time, it is also a personal retrospection into a world that both attracts and repels… My upbringing was happy, sheltered and womblike… As I grew up I found that membership seemed to exclude my participation in other, outside worlds."
Reik first collaborated with Amber and Side in 1992 when she participated in the Unclear Family project in Crook, County Durham.
Miriam Reik is a British photographer whose work focuses on portraiture, social environments and questions of identity and belonging. Working professionally since the 1980s, she is known for her observational style and sensitivity to the spaces and relationships that shape daily life. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is held in public collections including the National Portrait Gallery, London. Rooted in documentary practice, her photographs explore the thresholds between public and private, tradition and self-definition.
