Ras al-‘Ain has been partly vacated. Muhammad’s compound is totally empty: no sheep, no shepherds, empty sheepfolds. We are told they went north to the hill country, near Tubas, where the temperatures are somewhat cooler. Many of the shepherds in the Jordan Valley have made this seasonal migration in the summer months. But this time it’s different. After the ceaseless harassment and attacks, the massive theft of sheep, the lack of water, the shameless complicity of the soldiers and police in the settlers’ crimes—or for that matter, their joint initiatives—Muhammad’s sons may have embarked on the first stage of leaving their homes forever.
Continue readingMuarrajat
October 15, 2024. Ras al-‘Ain, Mu‘arrajat. Text and Photographs by David Shulman

1.
By 5 PM we’ re at the water. Long-Hair, the all-too-familiar settler adolescent, is there with his herd, as usual, on Musa’s land. Usually he’s dour, sour, and obnoxious; this time he seems a little curious about Amir and me. Amir—he’s a psychotherapist– wants to talk to him. The conversation, if you can call it that, goes like this:
Continue readingAn Only Kid: March 20-22, 2024, Mu‘arrajat, Magha’ir ad-Dir. Photographs, text: Margaret Olin

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.
Continue readingMuarrajat. April 7, 2023, text and photos by David Shulman
Muarrajat, January 20, 2023. Text: David Shulman

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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