Sometimes, possibly more often than we think, there is also good news.
Continue readingFebruary 6, 2021. The Hague, text: David Shulman, photographs: Margaret Olin
visual activism
Hollywood Endings: The Northern and Southern Jordan Valley. Text and photographs: Margaret Olin
Before the fires: Al-‘Auja, July 22, 2017
Fields were burning in the fall of 2017, but in late July the story was different.
Continue readingNovember 11, 2019: ‘Ein Rashshash. Text by David Shulman.
We are three—Guy, Nina, and me. We reach Rashshash with the dawn. Tea is served. How are things? “Settlers at our throat every day.”
Photograph: David Shulman, 2019
Continue readingReflections of a demonstration: the woman’s march, 2017, New York City
I am trying to make the best out of an unwelcome break from the Palestinian territories with a few modest digressions. This one, from January, 2017, could also have been titled “the lonely demonstration.” I prepared it in a more innocent time, but never posted it until a thread on crowd photography, on the FlakPhoto Network, inspired me to take it out of mothballs. The third to last image is the cover of a book due out next week, Photography and Imagination, which I co-edited with Amos Morris-Reich.
Blind justice – and blindness
Al-‘Auja Jordan Valley, April 20, 2018. In the back of the police car, a newly arrested Palestinian shepherd was about to be driven to the police station, blindfolded.
March 17, 2019 Al-Hadidiya, Halat Makhul, Umm Zuqa. text: David Shulman; Photographs: Margaret Olin (except for one)
Out of sight: Ein ar Rashshash in December, 2018. Post by Margaret Olin
December 12: “If a tree falls in the forest . . . “
There is barely a single tree here, but nearly everyone today voiced some version of the famous philosophical puzzle about the observer and existence. Or coexistence.
Continue readingSeptember 14, 2018: al-Khan al-Ahmar Post by David Shulman
Photograph: David Shulman
Days of Judgment, bein keseh le-asor, between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. Thick time. Heavy time. We spend the night in al-Khan al-Ahmar, which has already been judged. In an act of moral cowardice to a degree rare even by Israeli standards, the High Court removed the last legal impediments to the demolition of this Bedouin village and the violent expulsion of its people (some 200 in all). Judgment having been rendered, they await the execution. The army bulldozers could come at any moment. Continue reading
June 22, 2018 Al-‘Auja, Khan al-Ahmar. Post by David Shulman, Photos: Margaret Olin and others
Mhammad and his flock last month. photograph: Margaret Olin
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Today the shepherds wanted to set out at dawn. In summer, here on the outskirts of Jericho, by 9 or 9:30 in the morning it’s already over 38 degrees (100 Fahrenheit)—too hot even for goats. So we leave Jerusalem at first light, and by 6:30 we find Mhammad deep in the desert, close to the fenced-off date-palm grove of the settler Omer, who calls all the shots. Mhammad greets us happily; he’s in a good mood; so far things are quiet. “Soldiers? Have you seen any soldiers?” he asks. “Not yet,” we say. Continue reading
May 14, 2018: Al-Auja, Turmus‘ayya. Text by David Shulman; Photos: Margaret Olin
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First, today, there was the madness and the dissonance, sharp as thorns. Early morning in the Jordan Valley: still cool. We step out into the light. In the distance, the soft, convex mauve of the hills. Closer to us, they turn beige, then white, billowing like waves. Closer still, it’s all yellow and brown and thick with jagged pebbles. About two hundred yards away, scattered over the slope, are black and white goats and disheveled sheep. I recognize one of them, from long-standing acquaintance; her fleece has been dyed a spotty red. There’s a donkey, too, down in the wadi. Two young shepherds—Ahmad, whom I know well, and Mhammad. This hill and the wadi are also, by now, old friends. Continue reading
