On a dark, chilly Autumn night, Tel Aviv's normally quiet College for Geographical Photography is abuzz with activity. Spotlights illuminate the trees in the courtyard; tables are loaded with bottles of red wine and snacks. Children thread their way through the crowd, laughing and pushing one another.
But despite appearances, this is not a wedding or a birthday party. The boisterous children, a mix of Jewish and Muslim kids from the southern West Bank town of Hebron, are in fact the stars of the opening night of the college's new photographic show, "Hebron, My Home".
The exhibition is the culmination of an 18-month collaborative project between French news agency Agence France Presse and two of its photographers, Israeli Menahem Kahana and Palestinian Hazem Bader. The two photographers chose a group of 14 neighboring Hebron children, aged between six and 18, with no previous experience of photography, to capture in images their everyday lives. What makes the project unique, however, is that half of the kids are Israelis living in two small orthodox Jewish enclaves of the city, while the other half, though just across the street, are Palestinian Muslims.
Each group of seven children was provided with digital cameras and instructions on how to use them, and was then sent off to photograph the world as they see it. Every week throughout the period, Kahana and Bader met with the kids, setting them fresh challenges in order to truly distill the essence of their lives into a series of pictures. The resulting exhibition, now running in Tel Aviv until December 31, displays the outcome: 60 photos of life in Hebron, selected from the 5000 the children shot during the 18-month period.
Home to some 120,000 Palestinian Muslims, a handful of Christians and a small Jewish enclave of roughly 500 people, Hebron has been a place of contention ever since the 1994 murder of 29 Muslims at a local mosque by Jewish resident Baruch Goldstein. To the Israeli religious right, Goldstein remains a hero, whose grave inscription speaks of a "martyr" who died "sanctifying God's name". Not only does Hebron house these most radical factions of the Israeli religious right, but it is also seen as the main West Bank center for the fundamentalist Islamic Hamas movement.
Nowadays, approximately 80 percent of Hebron is administered by the Palestinian Authority while the remaining 20 percent is under Israeli control, with international observers continuously monitoring the city. And while incidents of violence are rare today, the city remains a potential 'flashpoint' in which Jewish-Muslim tensions run high. The "Hebron, My Home" project, therefore, provides one of only very few points of connection between the children on either side of the conflict.
Looking a little closer at the crowds thronging the entrance to the gallery, it becomes clear that this not a typical sophisticated Tel Aviv gallery crowd. An ultra-orthodox Jewish man, in black traditional dress, stands examining one of the first pictures in the series: a photograph depicting a classroom full of Palestinian kids midway through a lesson. Near him, two Palestinian women in headscarves discuss another of the photographs, depicting a group of Jewish children splashing happily in a waterhole.
A tour of the exhibition reveals obvious parallels between the seemingly opposing lives of Hebron's two populations. The photos cover all areas of the children's existence: home life, religious routines, recreation. In one, a Jewish mother blesses the meal she is preparing; in another, a Palestinian mother does the same. Another photo shows a Palestinian father praying with his children; in yet another, a Jewish father does the same.
Moreover, the children's photography not only depicts their own experiences, but also encompasses the daily lives of those around them. A candid shot of a Jewish bride on her way to her wedding is juxtaposed with a posed picture of a Muslim bride before the ceremony. In both, the anxiety and trepidation of the wife-to-be is equally apparent. A photograph depicting a group of young Jewish boys playing snooker on a makeshift table is set against a shot of a group of Palestinian boys improvising games on a rooftop. The boys' youthful energy and delight in their games is equally apparent, despite their different 'worlds'.
At one end of the gallery, Noam Federman, the controversial spokesman for Hebron's tiny Jewish population, surveys the scene. With a history of arrests and incarceration for his suspected right-wing extremist activities (including his 2002 arrest on suspicion of plotting to bomb a girls' school in East Jerusalem), Federman seems an unlikely guest at such an event. Near him, two middle-aged Palestinian men talk heatedly with a young English-speaking man wearing a yarmulke. But despite the potential for conflict - at least of a verbal kind - the exhibition's spirit is one of peace, hope and tolerance. While not exactly mingling freely, these very different groups of adults share the same room, examine the works of their children, and co-exist over a drink and an amicable discussion.
Perhaps the most telling pictures in the exhibition are a pair showing a child from the 'other side' photographing the person taking the picture. Both, thus, depict a child, pointing his or her camera at the viewer, from behind a heavy barbed wire fence. These two images seem to capture the spirit of the exhibition: a reminder to adults everywhere that you just cannot ignore your neighbors, no matter how much you might want to.
Through the eyes of children
TOOLBAR
To add a comment,
Please log in:
Don't have an account?
Register now to comment on stories and stay up to date on important events and issues in the Middle East with our newsletter.