In my recent article debunking the myth that the portable camera was a ‘jewish invention’ I pointed out that the source of the claim – ‘MNews’ – was probably (accidentally) confusing the portable still camera with the portable film camera. (1)
The ‘jewish invention’ claim that ‘MNews’ originally made was:
‘Emanuel Goldberg – Early Compact Cameras
German-Jewish engineer and inventor Emanuel Goldberg created one of the world’s first portable cameras. His designs paved the way for modern photography and the popularization of personal cameras.’ (2)
Now what I think they actually meant to claim was that Goldberg ‘created one of the world’s first portable film cameras’ referring to his invention of the 1921 ‘Kinamo’ film camera for ‘Internationale Camera Aktiengesellschaft’ (better known as ICA) who were a subsidiary of the ‘Carl Zeiss Stiftung’.
It would be correct to say that Goldberg created ‘one of the first compact personal film cameras’ – the Kinamo in 1921 – but he certainly didn’t originate the idea but rather took an extant idea and made it even tinier. The inventor of the portable film camera in the sense of being easily man-portable rather than simply moveable was in fact a British American photographer named Birt Acres in 1898 when he patented the first compact 8 mm film camera that he named the ‘Birtac’. (3)
It wasn’t however a commercial success and then all of a sudden in 1921 Goldberg seized upon Acres’ invention and presented it to the world as his own.
So, no; the portable film camera was not invented by jews either.
References
(1) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-the-portable-5cb
(2) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions
(3) https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co18660/birtac-cine-camera-projector
Karl’s SubstackRead More
R1
T1
