“I am Al Walajeh” Photography Exhibition Opens at Dar Kalima

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“I am Al Walajeh” a part of the “Image and Identity” Arts Advocacy project I started in 2011, opened Wednesday, July 11th at Dar Kalima College in Bethlehem to over 120 attendees. The project teaches Palestinian youth how to creatively articulate local culture, history, identity and space using images.

The Al Walajeh’s youth’s images are expressly vacant and removed. They tell a story of a once thriving agricultural community, slowly turned into refugees and pushed from their land. They also tell the story of the challenge of photographing Al Walajeh, whose land is occupied by several settlements, the Apartheid Wall and Israeli soldiers constantly on patrol. Since most Al Walajeh’s population travels outside for work, the children struggled to find people to photograph in their homes and village.

The project is a continuation my arts advocacy work, which started in 2011 with the “I am Nabi Saleh” project. Under the instruction of Issa Freij, ten youth from Nabi Saleh spent the summer learning how to use photography to tell a story about their village and to advocate for their child rights. The students images documented social issues in the village from poverty and lack of water to children playing with tear gas bombs and rubber bullets – trash left over from clashes between Israeli soldiers, villagers and international activists. The images also show the local culture and heritage of Nabi Saleh, with its special pastries preserved by women who use them to build their local economy.

In order to encourage youth to consider higher education in the arts, the “I am Nabi Saleh” Photography Exhibition was held at the International Academy of Art Ramallah.

In 2012, “Image and Identity” became a project of Grassroots Jerusalem, an urban and human rights organization focused on mapping Palestinian civil society in Jerusalem, and one of their local partners, the Ansar Center in Al Walajeh, to create the exhibition. Ten students (14 – 16) worked with a photography instructor to create the “I am Al Walajeh” exhibition at Dar Kalima.

In August 2012, “Image and Identity” will work in Silwan with both Issa Freij and Ahed Izhiman to create the “I am Silwan” Photography Exhibition. Following the completion of “I am Nabi Saleh,” “I am Al Walajeh” and “I am Silwan,” a national exhibition will be shown in historic Palestinian cities and travelling to Australia, the United States and Europe (pending funding). If you would like to host the exhibition, please contact Alison Ramer at alison@grassrootsjerusalem.org.

This project was made possible by the following organizations and individuals:

“I am Al Walajeh”

  • Producer – Alison Ramer
  • Assistant Producers – Ahmad Shihadeh and E.M.
  • Filmmaker – Hamoudi Shehada
  • Photographer – Stephen Jeter
  • Curatorial – Nancy Salsa Taweel

Global Webinar on Youth, Governance, Peace-building and the Role of Social Media, University of Victoria, Canada

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Tuesday, June 26th at 10:00 AM PST I will be participating in a panel moderated by Dr. Phillip Cook about “E-Governance, Peace building and Democratic Development: A Young Paradigm Shift”. The global seminar/webinar at the University of Victoria, Centre for Global Studies and online via a 48-hour Global Teleseminar.  The event, hosted by the Centre for Global Studies (CFGS) and the International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), seeks to share the global experience of young peoples’ use of Information Communication Technologies (ICT)/social media and other collaborative technologies to influence local, national, regional and international systems of governance and to affect peace-building and young citizen engagement. Please find attached a brief discussion paper on the seminar.

Speakers will be from youth-led organizations, UN agencies, government leaders, academics, research institutions and other experts to a 2 day seminar to share experiences, connect networks, and examine present and future youth-led governance trends from different regions of the world.  Key presenters during the 2 days will include:

  • Ravi Karkara, UN Habitat, Youth 21
  • Don Popo, Colombian Hip Hop Artist and Founder of La Familia Araya
  • Canadian Indigenous youth leaders
  • Karim Kisma, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Egyptian youth leader
  • Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
  • Mekong Youth Net
  • Jon Ramer, Compassion Action Network
  • Alison Ramer, Grassroots Jerusalem
  • Phil Lane Jr., Deloria ManyGrey Horses, Four Worlds International Institute

In addition to the group of delegates who will be physically present in Victoria, I will be engaged via a webinar social conferencing platform.   You can access the webcast here http://bit.ly/ypidwebinar

Article published in “Forget Fear” – 7th Berlin Biennale’s Book

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To protest Israel’s occupation of Palestine (and occupation everywhere), I teamed up with Khaled Jarrar to stamp my passport and raise my pen. Now Khaled’s work is being shown at the 7th Berlin Bienalle and my article has been published in the Bienalle’s book (yes, it’s my first print publication with ISBN number)!

FORGET FEAR

THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF THE 7TH BERLIN BIENNALE

edited by Artur Żmijewski and Joanna Warsza.

“The first publication of the 7th Berlin Biennale—Forget Fear—is a report on real action within culture, on the uses of artistic pragmatism. It is about concrete dealings by artists, curators, and politicians that lead to visible effects. We’re interested in finding answers, not asking questions. We’re interested in situations where art acts for real and solutions are proposed and implemented responsibly. We are interested neither in preserving artistic immunity nor in distancing ourselves from society. We consider politics to be among the most complex and difficult of human activities. We sought out people—artists, activists, politicians—who engage in substantive politics through art.

Forget Fear includes texts and conversations with political leaders such as Antanas Mockus, former mayor of Bogotá, who has significantly contributed to social change with a political theory stemming from art; theater-maker Árpád Schilling, who abandoned bourgeois theater to act directly within the political context of right-wing Hungary; Voina Group, who doesn’t believe in art without engagement; Tímea Junghaus, who uses art in a struggle against the oppression of the Roma people in Europe; the Brazilian underclass tagger groups Pixadores, who attacked the Sao Paolo Biennale; and the Icelandic Best Party, which came to power after the financial crash in 2008. All these actors use performative tools in order to make their cases, and to reveal the social and political forces and interests lurking in the background. With this first publication, we present leftist engagement not only as a critical, self-referential condition, but also as a proposition for empowerment and a productive set of political practices.”

With contributions (amongst others) by Paweł Althamer, Gábor Bakos, Yael Bartana, Einar Örn Benediktsson, Daniel Blatman, Christian Boltanski, Galit Eilat, Olafur Eliasson, Julián García, Jón Gnarr, Jan Tomasz Gross, Jerzy Hausner, Péter Juhász, Gideon Levy, Renzo Martens, Antanas Mockus, Joanna Mytkowska, Luis Ospina, the Pixadores, Srđa Popović, Alison Ramer, Dorota Sajewska, Árpád Schilling, Marcin Śliwa, Igor Stokfiszewski, Hans-Christian Täubrich, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Fernando Vallejo, the art collective Voina, Zofia Waślicka and Rafał Żurek as well as a CD by Teresa Margolles.

To read the forward, written by Artur Żmijewski, click here.

“Little Red” Video Art

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By: Alis, Motaz and Issa

Song: “Twisted Nerve” – Kill Bill Soundtrack

This is the second draft of a video art piece that I made in the 12 hours bridging my last day as 24 and my first day as 25. It is a gift to my friends, family.

The photographs used for this stop-motion video were shot on an incomplete part of the Separation Wall in Bethlehem, 20 minutes from downtown Jerusalem. Sitting atop the highest mountain, next to the famous Everest Hotel, this location has some of the most beautiful, sweeping views of Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

My friend Motaz, who grew up in and lives in Bethlehem (Beit Jalla), showed me the site before the wall was constructed — it was a natural wonder where we could escape all occupations. Over the course of the last year, we spent many afternoons sitting on the olive terraces, breathing in the fresh air — finding peace in such a noisy place.

Like a new building that blocks your view, the birth of the wall was ugly, violent and threatened the natural beauty of the land. In response, sometimes I tried to push on the wall — as if I could make it move just a bit. Other times, I let go of the physical space and pretended to have a magic wand that could make it all disappear.

Both my imaginary and physical responses to the wall were insufficient — after I let the wall hurt me so terribly I had to change first how I felt about the wall, before I could change it. As a result, I made this stop-motion video; I transformed the wall into a screen for a puppet show, I made it the backdrop for a dance and then stitched a sereis of still images together to make it move.

There, in a dance with the wall and my shadows, we found Little Red and together, we made beautiful memories.

 

New State of Palestine VISA

By Posted in Activism, Art, Cultural Resistance, Identity, Israel, Non-Violent Movement Tagged , , , , , , , 10 Comments

I am the proud carrier of a new “State of Palestine” VISA. No, I am not proud that we have IDs that must be stamped at all. In fact, if this conflict has taught me anything, it is that it is part of my duty as a human being to make those “borders” less powerful. To create a world where gender, religion and national identities are no longer life threatening issues, where being a human being is enough to guarantee your human rights.

But in the meantime, I’m going to use my American and Israeli passports to advocate for human rights by stamping them with a new State of Palestine VISA, issued by Ramallah based artists Khaled Jarrar. Even though 100 states recognize the State of Palestine, the PA does not issue a VISA. What does that say about their thinking? Who is more powerful — 100 states or the Israeli occupiers?

I don’t know why the PA hasn’t issued VISAs. But I do know why I am going to be carrying one:

At conception, I was given two identities: human being and female — not woman. When I emerged from my mother’s womb, my parent’s gave me a gendered name and the state gave me a national identity. I was raised as a Jew and at thirteen, given the choice to be in or out. I chose to be in, had a party (Bat Mitzvah) and joined the Jew Crew for life — or so they say.

By 21, this Jewish identity ran into Zionism — and a Zionist narrative that uses the horrors of Jewish genocide and the power of Judaism to mobilize Jewish people for a nationalist cause. As a result of my Birthright journey, I became the Zionist dream, used the racist Right of Return for Jewish people and became an Israeli citizen. Boy, Jews can be stupid sometimes.

But if I’m a little easier on myself, in some respects it was a practical, adolescent decision. I was empowered by the Zionist narrative which took me out of the Jewish minority in America and placed me in the Jewish majority in Israel. I wanted to further explore my American relationship with Israel, a state which receives more American military aid than any other nation and which claims to be representing the Jewish people. The Israeli government made this easy by offering cash, subsidies, tax breaks and other privileges – Jewish organizations also chipped in and offer to fly and ship a bunch of your worldly belongings at no cost to the “Jewish Homeland”. And so, in the land where national identity, ID cards and passports are life or death issues, I naively became an Israeli citizen.

After living for three years in Tel Aviv, enjoying the beach, boys and booze,  my bubble was burst by the Israeli War in (and on) Gaza (2009) and I felt a need to see another face of Israel. I became a border crosser, leaving the seemingly occupation free Tel Aviv for more thorny territories (Israeli soldiers, walls and checkpoints–Oh my!), and lived behind the wall in Palestinian villages — Nabi Saleh (Ramallah) and Beit Ummar (Hebron), Beit Jalla (Bethlehem) and Al – Ram (Al – Quds or Jerusalem). Over the course of two years, I  lived with Palestinian families and engaged Palestinian officials and taxi drivers, artists and accountants to see Israel from their’ eyes.

Rarely was there a day when someone carrying a machine gun didn’t require me to show him or her my ID. “Where are you going? What do you do there? Where are you from?”, all common questions along the journey which determine your fate. But more powerful than the words you say, the disposition you hold or the attitude you carry, was my ID.

To my surprise, my Israeli ID is the easiest to move with. Like all IDs, it provokes questions. When I spoke Hebrew or English to the soldiers, they asked me if I was Jewish. When I started to speak Arabic to them, I got a lot less questions — in fact, life was easier, for this cute, secular dressing girl. Other girl friends of mine, who look more Arab and cover their hair, have a much harder time and boys — well they have it the worst.

Over the past two years, my American passport has become increasingly difficult to move with, since I no longer carry a VISA. A year ago, soldiers would just wave me through — it seemed to be a courtesy to tourists. Now, foreigners enjoy heavier harassment as the Israeli government attempts to intimidate international activists. Deportation of human rights activists has become common place and as a result elaborate schemes have been devised to visit Palestine, even if activists will never go to 1967 Israeli territory.

As a Jewish Israeli citizen, it is illegal for me to enter what was deemed by the Oslo Accords as Area A — all of the cities in the Palestinian territories. If I am arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces, I can face thousands of dollars in fines and possibly jail time. However, I can move about Area B and C freely — areas that are still under Israeli military control, but were supposed to transition into full Palestinian control within five years. This freedom has enabled settlers to colonize the West Bank and so — in these areas settlers and Palestinians live side by side.

My Israeli passport is by far the easiest to move with since it doesn’t have any indication of my Jewish identity on it.  My Israeli ID on the other hand, has my mother’s Hebrew name on it. In the recent past, the IDs used to explicitly state your religion, while today the identification is more discreet. Of course, this doesn’t stop soldiers from asking questions about my identity and in protest, I answer the question “Are you Jewish?” by telling them that I’m Christian, Muslim and Jewish. Granted that this harassment is nothing compared to what Palestinians  carrying green Palestinian or blue Israeli IDs (Israeli – Arabs) experience, it touches on how powerful an ID is here in a place no larger than New Jersey.

Aside from daily harassment and intimidation, many people face incredibly difficult life-long struggles to stay in their homeland, where they were born, or to return to the land of their parent’s and grandparents. IDs become a weapon which the Israeli government uses to deem who is in and who is out. And of course, this isn’t some haphazard plan — it is an incredibly systematic way to displace Palestinians, win the “demographic dilemma” and to construct the Zionist myth that Israel was “a land without a people, for a people without a land”.

Since I have the inhumane and unwarranted privilege of crossing checkpoints daily, my ID has become one of the most essential objects I carry daily. When Palestinian artist Khaled Jarrar approached me (in Ramallah) with his “State of Palestine” VISA and invited me to stamp my passport I was ecstatic. It enables me to make fun of the current border control system and to create contradictions that the official system doesn’t have a protocol for — yet.  His project provides me with a new tool for protesting the Israeli occupation and an outlet for freedom of expression that was unavailable before.

Luckily, I had the perfect place for the stamp — directly above my Israeli immigration ID, which the Israeli Ministry of Interior put in my American passport. Even though many of my Palestinian friends also carry two passports, due to their green ID registration, the Israeli Occupation Forces will not let them pass the wall into many Palestinian cities (most notably Al Quds / Jerusalem).

American passport with “State of Palestine” VISA (top, left) above Israeli immigration document

Next week I will have my Israeli passport stamped and will be leaving and entering Israel with the State of Palestine VISA in June. Additionally, I will be publishing the numerous stories that I am sure will be prompted by this eloquent project here.

If you would like to have your passport stamped or be involved with the project on other levels, please contact Khaled Jarrar. Additionally, you can support the project by liking the facebook page, “Live and work in Palestine” (which in 24 hours got 500 likes!) and add the State of Palestine VISA to your profile pictures.

Now writing for PolicyMic

By Posted in Israel, News, Non-Violent Movement Tagged , , 2 Comments

I’m excited to announce that I will now be writing for PolicyMic, “an online political platform that promotes high-quality political discussion amongst young thinkers.” PolicyMic is still in beta, but I’m really impressed with what I’ve seen so far. You can check out my article “Netenyahu Institutionalizes Settlers’ Price Tagging Policy” on the site or read PolicyMic’s brochure here.

Since it’s March 15th, the day of Palestinian Unity, I also want to call attention to Fadi Quran’s article, which was published on PolicyMic last week, “On Shuhada Street, a Non-Violent Rap Global Revolution in Palestine?“. Fadi and others have been working to bring the democratic revolution to Palestine — calling for unity and an end to the occupation — and I wanted to wish them, and all the Palestinian youth, the best today.

Thoughts on the Fogel family and their murderer

By Posted in Commentary, Israel, Palestinian Territories 6 Comments

Berkeley, CA – All weekend, as I attempted to submerge myself in the Network of Spiritual Progressives at Tikkun Magazine’s 25th Anniversary, the murder of the Fogel family was laying heavily on my mind. The shocking initial news reports, followed by the high turn out (20,000 people) to the Jerusalem funeral and then the incredibly disappointing “emergency” decision of the Israeli government to approve 500 more homes in settlements, all left me nauseous – to say the least.

But it wasn’t until Sunday afternoon, when a facebook contact posted a Google Album of the murdered family on my wall that I started to write this entry. These images, while graphic and incredibly disturbing, will come to represent thousands of words people will write, say and think about this tragedy and the tragedies that are following.

That being said, it is the caption that my friend used when posting the link that inspired my response. He said:

X has hesitated, but decided to share the link exposing the corps of the Israeli family slaughtered by a terrorist this weekend. These are very disturbing images of what Israel’s enemies are capable of.

Firstly, these are the photographs of a family that was murdered this weekend. They are human beings, who were murdered by another human being — being a victim or murderer is a human experience that goes beyond national identity.

Calling this family an “Israeli family” and the person who murdered them a “terrorist” only furthers the type of violence that resulted in this murder. Arguing that these images are “of what Israel’s enemies are capable of” colludes an already dangerous, violent narrative  of “us” vs. “them” with nationalism.

I understand, that in moments like these — where we are shocked into disgust and anger — that we feel the need to bunker up, to know who is “us” and who is “them”. In fact, I think that’s a part of human nature. But this part of our human nature does not serve our needs as human beings. Distinguishing between the “victim” and the “murderer” will not help us end the cycle of violence that inspired this act.

In the future, we will probably come to know the Fogel family more — we will see pictures and videos of their children and their family. We will hear from their neighbors, friends and maybe even their remaining children. Surely, official representatives of both the Israeli and Palestinian nations will use their names to make political statements and hopefully to try and call for an end to this violent cycle that we are trapped in.

But one voice that I think is most important for us to hear, a voice that will probably be silenced, is the voice of the murderer and his / her family. What led this person to commit such a terrible crime? What message were they trying to send to the majority of Palestinians and Israelis who are working to end this cycle of violence? And most importantly, but surely difficult to ask is how is this murderer a victim?

Both the Fogel family and the murderer were highly dedicated to their national causes. The Fogels felt so strongly about their either national or religious convictions that they became a part of the settler movement — a movement that’s central values deny others their basic human rights and are far from the values of most Israelis. The murderer felt so strongly that the situation in which he / she was living in was so unjust that he / she had to take justice into their own hands and break one of the most central commandments G-d gave to all people — something most Palestinians would never dream of doing.

So on this eve, of yet another tragedy in our Holyland, may we find the courage to move beyond “us” and “them,” may we come together now and in the future against murder — Israeli and Palestinian alike — and never forget, to look beyond the binary.