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.”
Continue readingAl-Auja
December 2, 2022 Al-‘Auja. Text: David Shulman. Photographs: Margaret Olin and David Shulman
Just after dawn, the air still cold; Umm Rashid tells us on the phone that she plans to take the herd deeper into the hills, closer to the big settlement, where there’s more edible green on the ground. Good, we say, we’re with you. But it takes some time before we find each other in the open spaces of the desert. A second herd, Nawal’s, is just visible on the top of the ridge.
Continue readingMay 6, 2022, `Auja: Text, David Shulman

The worst thing was looking into his eyes. That was anyway about all I could see of him, since his face was masked with a filthy cloth, lest he be photographed and identified. Not that there was any likelihood the police would bother him in any way.
Continue readingApril 22, 2022. ‘Auja. Text: David Shulman
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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.
Continue readingReturn to the Occupation: Al-‘Auja, January 14, 2022. Text and Photographs: Margaret Olin
The women did not think they would ever miss Omer, the notorious settler who apparently commands the occupation forces.
Continue readingAl-‘Auja. October 22, 2021. Text by David Shulman
Abu Isma‘il says: “How long can a person live? Sixty used to be old. [Abu Isma‘il is 62.] Let’s say that today people live till seventy or eighty. It’s not very long. Why would anyone waste his little lease on life by stealing from others, by inflicting pain? By giving in to greed? Filastin, this land, used to be paradise, jannah. Allah created it as the jannah. Even now—just look around—it would be paradise, fruitful, peaceful, gracious, if only the settlers and the soldiers…..”
Continue readingJune 26 2020. Al-‘Auja. Text by David Shulman, with photographs by Margaret Olin
Four months in quarantine; the virus now raging again in Israel-Palestine; and I’m back where I belong. The hardest part of the lock-down was not seeing our grandchildren face to face; second hardest, not coming to be with the shepherds.
Continue readingJanuary 14, 2020. Al-‘Auja. Text: David Shulman
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.

June 21, 2019. Al-‘Auja. Text by David Shulman

“Not long ago the settlers came and shot two of my sheep,” Ahmad says. “If you hadn’t been here today, they might have shot two more. And for sure they would have beaten us as hard as they could.”
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