PROJECTS | WOMEN OF THE PROMISED LAND
-
Every friday, since 2005, Palestinian protestors have gathered to participate in a protest against a wired fence that demarcates and divides Palestinian-occupied land from Israeli settlements. It has come to further symbolize a resistance against the larger wall that divides the two peoples. Amongst the inevitable violence that occurs during the protest, this Palestinian woman, flag in hand, paces the length of the battleground, demonstrating her own non-violent form of resistance.
-
-
Shifad sits in a classroom at the Palestinian Prisoner's Club where she works to represent the rights of prisoners in Israeli jails. Shifad planned a suicide mission 9 years ago but two hours before the attack was arrested by Israeli intelligence . She spent 6 years in an Israeli prison. Through her experiences, she has come to realize that her words are more powerful than her body. She now encourages others considering suicide missions to use the their voices and the media to express their anger and feelings of entrapment.
-
Anat in her dance therapy office in Tel Aviv, Israel. Anat is a dance and movement therapist. Helping others has helped her cope with her own experiences of loss. While a teenager, Anat lost both of her brothers in the 1967 war. She is active in a group called the Parent's Circle where bereaved Palestinian and Israeli families come together for support. She is also involved with a group of mothers who support the refusal to allow their children to serve in the military.
-
Hamda has lived in Haifa, Israel for 42 years in a mixed (Jewish/Arab) neighborhood. She attends a senior center where she is one of three Muslim Arab women. Hamda''s physically abusive husband, now deceased, had left her for a Jewish woman. She continues to remove the photo of her husband from the wall of her home and her son continues to replace it.
-
Ayelet as she's decorated for her 'hinna' party in Tel Aviv, Israel. Traditionally, Yemen Jewish women gather together for food, dance, and a henna ceremony where family and friends apply a small amount of henna to the bride's palm for good luck. She is adorned in a traditional Yemeni costume that can weigh as much as 40 pounds.
-
Mina, a centenarian, shows a photograph of her mother who fled to Siberia to escape the Nazi regime in Poland. Mina lives with her daughter, granddaughter and great granddaughter in Netanya, Israel.
-
Mina, 101, Poland, Orna, 74, Brazil, and Hadass, 50, Israel, are three generations of women, now living in Israel yet each born with a different nationality.
-
Palestinian sisters stand under a portrait of their aunt- the first aunt to marry and move out of the family home. The girls live with their parents, and all of their unwed aunts in their grandfather's home in Jericho, Palestine.
-
Livnat in front of a wall of collected memories from her two years spent in the army. Livnat grew up Orthodox, yet still decided to serve in the military as an observer on the Israel-Lebanon border. Serving in the Israeli Defense Force has significantly impacted her perspective on the conflict as well as her identity as an Israeli woman.
-
Noga looks out over the disputed Green Line outside of her daughter's home in the settlement of Tekoa. Last year, the IDF destroyed the first permanently-built home in Tekoa, but the community came together to rebuild it.
-
Aeush Jalayta in her home in Jericho, Palestine. Due to financial reasons, Aeush might lose the home in which she raised her seven children.
-
Rachel, the first female rabbinical lawyer in Israel, has successfully passed a law in the rabbinical courts that requires a prenuptial agreement that protects a woman from needing her husband's approval for divorce. This step is part of a larger reform against the male-dominated laws of the Halakha by women within Modern Orthodoxy. was the first female rabbinical lawyer in Israel and has successfully passed a law in the rabbinical courts that requires a prenuptial agreement that protects a woman from needing her husband's approval for divorce. This step is part of a larger reform against the male-dominated laws of the Halakha by women within Modern Orthodoxy. Rachel lives in the settlement of Efrat.
-
Ismah works for the Palestinian Prisoners' Club after having been incarcerated for three years in a women's prison in Israel for trying to stab an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in Tulkarem. She recalls the endless physical and emotional abuses the female prisoners endured from the Israeli guards and the conditions she had to withstand within the prison walls.
-
Betty, one of few female race car drivers in Palestine, at a race course outside of Ramallah, Palestine. As a Christian, Betty experiences less pressures than many of her Muslim friends to follow traditional female roles within Palestinian society. Her races take place near an Israeli checkpoint and must always be coordinated with Israeli authorities in advance.
-
Ola and her girls sit together on their couch for a portrait in Jericho, Palestine. Ola, mother of six, struggles with time, energy and money, as two of her girls were born with severe mental disabilities. At school, these children often experience physical and emotional abuse.
-
Manar with her mother in their home in Abu Dis, Palestine. Manar has a Masters degree from Abu Dis University. She comes from a family that despite her gender, allows her a number of freedoms less traditional families might not allow, such as, a college education, full-time job, and her own car.
-
Hadia with her baby in their home in Hebron, Palestine. Hadia lives with her husband in a 300-hundred year old home that borders the Israeli settlement. Controversial altercations between Israelis and Palestinians still occur regularly outside of her home and there is a high Israeli military presence within the city.
-
Noura smokes argila in a cafe in Bethlehem. Unlike in more traditional parts of Palestine, women in Bethlehem are allowed to smoke in public. As a single, divorced mother, Noura will only be able to marry again as a second wife because she is no longer a virgin.