She tells us nothing

I worked with Rimi. Here are her pictures, and the story she told:

'I feel at home everywhere but my home. My house is very noisy – I have three brothers always yelling. I like to come to the beach to sit and feel the wind. I am so free here. I come by myself to get away from the confusion at home.

'My mother is Jewish, my father Arab. My mother’s family didn’t like it. Her brothers don’t like it. She was pregnant and her brothers tried to make her have an abortion. Her family didn’t go to the wedding. Now that my father has died, my mother’s family they want to reconnect. But I don’t feel they are my family now.

'In Jaffa there is trash everywhere. Drugs and violence. A lot of people I know don’t like to be at home. They steal and do drugs. My father was like that. He had 14 brothers and sisters. When my father died, at the funeral all these people came up to me who I didn’t know and started to hug and kiss me, and my mother was upstairs crying and pregnant with twins.

'I made this drawing for my mother, after my father died.

'This is my father when he was young, before he met my mother. He is the one on the left. They met on the beach in Jaffa. He tried to stop another man taking my mother's photograph – a stranger walking past.

'And this is me with him when I was a baby. My father was an amazing man, I loved him so much. He saw if I was sad and made things better.

'He smoked all the time. He was in and out of jail. Had he been Jewish this would not have happened. If you’re Arabic then you are a criminal, something has to be wrong – that’s what most of the people think. My father was always in and out of prison for selling drugs, but if a Jewish person did the same they wouldn’t go to prison. Police come to catch Arabic people.

'My father's family think I'm Arab and my mother's family say I'm Jewish. It's confusing. It's a problem. When I get married, if it is to an Arab there will be another fight with my mother's family. And the army – the first thing they check is if you're Jewish or not. I want to do the army – I need the experience for my job – but my father's family don't want me to.

'My brother hates the Arabs. He's scared because when he was a child he saw Arabs throwing rocks on cars and all that.

'My father had so many friends – not just in Jaffa. Until now they come to the house and ask for him, some of them who don't know he died. It's really sad. Me and my father were all the time together.

'My mother's family is from Iraq. She tells us nothing about her life. There is just this one picture from her past.'

Comments

[Libby and Len]

Leila,

Your newest blog entries are so relevant and important, with their stories and photos.

Keep touching people, Leila.

Photography can stir people, and Story is the real power today.

Your information about System Ali is included in http://traubman.igc.org/messages/545.htm , which we recently sent to our e-mail circle.

Love, Libby and Len

[Gudrun Dalibor]

Leila
I really do like your website. I am very interested in your theme of 'unifying the fragmented self'. Being involved with adoption support groups, it's immediately made me think that your work would be relevant to adopted kids and adults. This would be a first and I don't know how easy it would be to get funding for a project but I would like to approach a couple of charities.
Gudrun

[dakota lane]

rimi's story hits me with so much beauty and power and i am so grateful that she had the courage to tell so much truth.

[leila]

dakota it's great to hear from you... thanks for your comment. rimi will be so glad to know.

[Anna Gordon]

Yes, this is extremely interesting and moving-the photographs and commentary about living at the centre of conflict. Rimis voice is direct, honest and subtle.

[Delme]

More good work, great snaps, love the chair and graffiti shots

[Leila]

thanks delme, your support made this work possible... thank you!