An Only Kid: March 20-22, 2024, Mu‘arrajat, Magha’ir ad-Dir. Photographs, text: Margaret Olin

Goat in front of military installation, Al-Hadidiya, Jordan Valley, 2019. Back cover of a Passover Haggadah, 5779.

Before Pesach most years, I revise the Haggadah I began to compile decades ago. I gather material from traditional sources as well as from more recent alternative Haggadot created with various agendas in mind – political, ecological; or from commentary, unrelated literature, and remarks of friends and colleagues relevant to our family or to whomever we might be hosting at our seder table that year. I insert images that I find or create. Some years ago, I placed on the back cover of my Haggadah a photograph of a goat I met in the Jordan Valley, to recall the traditional song Had Gadya, an only kid, sung toward the end of the seder. It begins with the verse “an only ,kid, an only kid, my father bought for two zuzzim, and continues with a litany of woe, as the goat is eaten by a cat, that is then bitten by a dog, and, after a series of beatings and burnings and slaughter by various agents, including objects and living creatures animal and human, the song ends with retribution by the angel of death, who in turn succumbs to the Holy One, blessed be He, thus ending the carnage on a peaceful note, none of the predators left standing, like the end of a bloody Elizabethan play.  

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March 16, 2024: Balagan, again

It seems quiet and peaceful. We are with Jibrin, planting a small crop of tobacco, which he sells, and I suppose, smokes. Since my last visit, his wife Wadha has had an operation on her back and I am happy to see her bending down to plant in the straight furrows he plows in the tiny field.

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Wadi a-Siq, September 14, 2023. Text by David Shulman

The school at Wadi a-Siq in July. photograph: Margaret Olin
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Ein Rashash, September 4, 2023. text: David Shulman

Ein Rashash, 2018, photograph: Margaret Olin

Like so many Palestinian villages in the central West Bank, between Ramallah and Jericho, Ein Rashash is hanging by a thread in the perilous space between life and death. A massive program of ethnic cleansing is taking place before our eyes. Israeli settlers, religious in some perverted sense of the word, have perfected very effective methods to reach their goal. Readers of this blog are familiar with some of them.

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September 1, 2023, Al-‘Auja: Text by David Shulman

avant-propos: Next year Intellect Press will publish The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine, a book of photographs and texts inspired by our work on this blog. Please consider donating to our kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the book. The campaign ends September 27. You can see our video, read our story and donate at this link.

photograph: Rita Mendes-Flohr
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Balagan in Twaneh, July 15, 2023. Text and Photographs, Margaret Olin

1.

I read that modern Hebrew borrowed the word balagan from Russian or Polish. In all three languages, balagan means utter chaos. But chaos came later in the town of Twaneh. This hot day began quietly in Wadi Jhesch, where we were the only disruption. A man who had been asleep in the back of his truck awoke at our approach and chatted with us in his excellent English.

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Al-‘Auja and Za‘atra, July 14, 2023. Text, David Shulman; photographs, Margaret Olin

1.              

Sometimes trying to find Abu Isma‘il in the hills and wadis of Al-‘Auja is, well, like looking for a goat in a desert. The Rashaidi Bedouins of ‘Auja have names for every rocky hill and wadi, names that no one else knows, that appear on no map; and Abu Isma‘il usually has trouble telling me on the phone where he is with his flock. Finally, not long after dawn, we climb a few hills until we sight him, with his red keffiyeh, surrounded by sheep, sheep dogs, and one very young donkey.       

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A Brief Conversation in Gawawis, July 8, 2023: Text and Photographs, Margaret Olin

If someone is going to warn you to stay away from your own land, is it better to hear it spoken fluently in your native language? So it appeared in Gawawis last Saturday, at least for a moment.*

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April 22, 2023. Week 16 of the anti-government, anti-coup demonstrations. Text by David Shulman

Jerusalem, March 23, “democracy.”

So far, there is no doubt that we are winning. We will stop the thugs and killers of this so-called government in their tracks.

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Muarrajat. April 7, 2023, text and photos by David Shulman

One momentous event took place during today’s grazing. I’ll tell you in a minute.

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