My Mother and I and Palestine

November, 2023

In 2022, my sister sent me a very large box. I found 10 picture albums, along with a tattered red jewelry box of documents. They now rest on a shelf, in my studio.

The images I have chosen to show are those that my mother took in Palestine in the 1930’s, and my own photos from the 80’s and 90’s. Her images were taken before the 1948 Nakba, and mine before/after the first and second Intifada.

It wasn’t until I was living on Kibbutz Kfar Haruv, in the Golan Heights in the early 70’s, that I saw we were living on occupied land. Finding a broken doll, then a child’s shoe, walking on a freshly plowed field…

We were taught at a young age that Israelis were the strong, brilliant warriors and the Palestinians, terrorists at best. I still remember my Aunt Pnina, my mother’s sister, in a rant about how the Nakba never happened. 

On October 7th 2023, there was a horrific slaughter of human life in the most brutal and barbaric way in the south of Israel. Hamas murdered 1400 Israelis and took over 250 hostages who, as of this document, are in Gaza. It’s never been this bad… I fear another Nakba is happening in front of our eyes…

Still, I love looking at these images.The lightness of my mother’s photos, and the darkness of mine. The chain stitches around these cyanotypes, trying to hold on to a dream once told, of sweeter times under a pomegranate tree.