March 24, Umm al-Amad
It’s cold. It’s raining. Aziza serves us hot tea. Continue reading
activism in Jordan Valley
Protected: March 23, 2018: Along the Road to Bet She’an
March 23: Along the Road to Bet She’an. Post by Margaret Olin
Gavriel is the one running, the one with the flowing hair. He looks like he might be at home in a coffee shop with a guitar on his knee, passing a joint. I remember Gavriels like him from my adolescence, non-violent activists who sang of peace. As we shall see, I believe even this Gavriel may see himself as a messenger of peace.
Apologies: The remainder of this post is temporarily removed. I hope to republish it soon.
September 29, 2017, Erev Yom Kippur Al-Auja – David Shulman
Most photographs here were taken by Margaret Olin in Al-Auja in late July, 2017.
Dotting the slopes on either side of Wadi Auja are the widely scattered houses of Al-Auja. In most cases only three or four Bedouin families live in each such tiny point, some to the west, climbing the steep hill less than halfway up to the ridge that overlooks the Jordan Valley, others, like the homes of our shepherd friends today, further east, near the road to Jericho. Continue reading
Preemptive Demolition Humsa al-Tahta, Jordan Valley, 26 July, 2017
It’s her first time, and it’s an easy start, but it must still be confusing to watch people demolish your home, even if those people are your father, Mahmoud Zouba, Continue reading
Waiting: Jinba, January 11, 2017
texts Margaret Olin, with D.M. and A.O. photographs: Margaret Olin 
‘Ah, all things come to those who wait,’
(I say these words to make me glad),
But something answers soft and sad,
‘They come, but often come too late.’
Mary M. Singleton Currie (Violet Fane)
I regarded my understanding of waiting as complex and subtle. Continue reading
Al-Hadidiya, Jordan Valley (David Shulman)
photograph: Guy Hircefeld
June 30, 2016
Four months away provide just enough distance to see the madness and the cruelty for what they are. Who has set up this crazy system and kept it running for half a century? Is it not mad to deliberately deprive human beings—families, children, the elderly– of water at the height of summer in a scorching desert? It was at least 37 or 38 degrees Centigrade, almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit, today in Al-Hadidiya. No running water, of course, and almost no water at all. You can’t survive there without water. Continue reading