Ta’ayush

Mourning is Foreclosed: Umm al-Khair, November 1, 2025. Text and photographs: Margaret Olin

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*NB: Please read to the end. Or skip the rest and go directly to the end.

Hanady’s sitting room is a shrine to her late husband, 31-year-old Awdah Hathaleen, killed in cold blood in July by a settler who was punished with three days of house arrest. Only a small diamond-shaped design of sequins to break the unrelenting darkness of her black draped clothing, Hanady tells me that everything is gone for her: everything left with Awdah: her home life, her future, her dreams, the list goes on.

Note: While I cannot photograph the faces of the Bedouin women of Umm al-Khair, I am encouraged to photograph the children.

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In Memoriam: Michal Peleg, 1959-2025. Text by David Shulman; photographs and additional text by Margaret Olin

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Jerusalem, 2022. Photograph: Margaret Olin

Michal Peleg is now gone. Another enormous loss, just two weeks after Muhammad died.

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December, 2024, Masafer Yatta, February 2, Mu‘arrajat: texts Margaret Olin and David Shulman

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Ahribat a-Nabi, December, 2024

1. Visits to Prisoners. Text and photographs by Margaret Olin

I began this post on Martin Luther King Day, 2025, a moment to think back on all we in the United States have achieved and the distance we still must go to realize King’s dream of racial equality. In 2025, this day of concern for justice and love also marked the inauguration of a president who opposes these values and many others we hold. Some, dreading this event, found ways of trying to forget about it. My way was to think back to my visit to Israel and Palestine this past December.

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March 16, 2024: Balagan, again

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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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Ein Rashash, September 4, 2023. text: David Shulman

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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. NB: the first, modest goal has now (Sept. 9) been met; donations are still very welcome and much appreciated.

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

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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

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

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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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May 19, 2023.  ‘Auja. Text by David Shulman

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Photograph: Margaret Olin, 2022

Dawn. Several children still asleep in their blankets, on the ground outside the house. Good desert smells. The older girls are beginning their chores: water has to be brought from the tanker; milk is being churned, or perhaps pasteurized, in what could be a repurposed washing-machine. There is a new baby, two months old, sleeping in her crib. Ghazal, maybe a year and a half old, holds a glass of tea in her hand while her eyes, obsidian black, study Yigal and me with unwavering interest. Then a smile.  Nadia asks if we’ve been well. Yigal answers with the blessing: “‘aishin min shafek,” “We come alive when we see you.”

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