Susiya is in danger again. Here’s how to help

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Slightly over a year ago David Shulman pleaded urgently on this blog for help in sparing Susiya, a Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills, from immanent destruction by the bulldozers of the Israeli Civil Administration. You may read his eloquent message here. At the time, people mobilized in Israel and abroad. Continue reading

Photographic Aggression, Trust, Shame: Susiya, Sheikh Jarrah, June 5, 26, 2015

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You won’t see the touching photograph I took at a memorial wall in New York after September 11, 2001, when a woman’s smile gave way to tears as my shutter clicked. It amounted to inadvertent aggression. Some regard all “street photography” categorically as aggressive and unethical. But I think photographic aggression needs to be judged on a case-by-case basis, even when that can be difficult. Such moments arise frequently during and between my intermittent visits to Palestine this past year, where I have been thinking about and documenting photographic practices while engaging in them. As a foreigner I learn local customs slowly. In my effort to do no harm, I navigate photography’s interrelations and worry about breaking photographic taboos.

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