Torat Tzedek

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

/ Margaret Olin / Leave a comment

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

/ Margaret Olin / Leave a comment

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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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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Muarrajat, January 20, 2023. Text: David Shulman

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‘Auja, May, 2022. Photograph: Margaret Olin

Umm Rashid, the most intrepid of the ‘Auja shepherdesses, has sold off most of her sheep and goats. I don’t have all the details; a close friend of hers sold her herd a few months earlier. I assume she couldn’t take any more of the ceaseless harassment, beatings, and threats from the settlers. But I don’t think this is the end of the story.

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Slogging on: Dir Jarir, Turmus’ayya, May 24, 2022

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1.

Everyday drudgery has its own kind of beauty, heartbreak and even suspense, especially when it comes to facing down the occupation. Today as we pass Taybeh’s quarry on the way to the lands of its neighbor Deir Jarir, darkness lifts almost enough to show us the dull glow of the earth we have come to protect.

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April 22, 2022. ‘Auja. Text: David Shulman

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The hills of ‘Auja in January. Photograph: Margaret Olin

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Abu Isma‘il calls at 7 in the morning, in a panic. Four or five settlers are lined up to block the shepherds’ path to their grazing grounds. What to do? Still half-asleep, I make some phone calls and learn that two of our activists are on their way. I let Abu Isma‘il know. I can hear the relief in his voice. In the end he and the other herds take a long, roundabout way into the hills, and the sheep get to eat their fill. Enough for one day.

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August 20, 2021. Dir Jarir. Text and Photographs: David Shulman

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Dawn at Dir Jarir. One herd of sheep is already out on the hills with Khairi’s son. They’re grazing not so far from the noxious outpost of Maaleh Ahuvia, but for now things are quiet. No settlers in sight. That sentence reveals the story of Dir Jarir. Dawn, noon, dusk, midnight, and all the hours in between– demented teenage settlers can turn up at any moment, in the Palestinian fields, in their makeshift tents, and even in their homes. They threaten and bully them, often they beat them, and always they invade their fields, vineyards, olive groves, and grazing grounds, wreaking havoc. The shepherds and farmers live in a state of terror, and the apparatus of the State is unwilling to intervene. There are good reasons to think that the army in the area stands with the settlers. The police are reluctant to come to Dir Jarir without an army escort.

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July 18, 2021. The 9th of Av. Ras at-Tin and Humsa. David Shulman

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Ras at-Tin. photograph: David Shulman

For miles around Ras at-Tin there is little but rocks, empty hills, yellow grass, and a few passing clouds, except for a dusty rock quarry about two miles to the west named for the settlement Kochav Hashahar. The closest settler outpost is the ironically named Malachei Hashalom, “Angels of Peace,” the tormenters of Ein Rashshash. Sometimes, in their spare time, they also harass the people of Ras at-Tin– a small community of Bedouin shepherds, about 120 souls, leading their lives, hurting no one. Lots of children. Lots of sheep. Lots of fiery sun.

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