The other side

Smells like a Jew

Man on a Tel Aviv street  (Mor Levy)

I'm in the car, and we're travelling along, Zahi, Karim and me, up to Yafa cafe. We've just been to a solidarity meeting with Arabs and Jews where they read poetry in Arabic and Hebrew, and people from the Jaffa community came. It started with a minute's silence for those who died in Gaza. Mohammad, who was leading, had to stop two or three times because he couldn't talk, because he cried.

Jews and Arabs stood in a line on the stage and held each other's hands. System Ali rapped their poetry without music, to mourn. 

And now we're going for something to eat in Yafa cafe.

What no car, Zahi? What happened to your car? Zahi always used to come by and pick me up in a little white car. I don't remember the make. He'd come by when he didn't need to, even, just to be nice. Like, if I could walk there, if it wasn't even far, he'd come by just to take care of me. But anyway, now we're in Karim's car, working out why Zahi doesn't have his.

'Did you write it off?' I ask, turning to Zahi in the back.

'No – it was stolen.' Karim answers for him. Zahi's slow off the mark, he must be tired.

'Stolen–'

'Yeah, stolen. By some Jews.'

What do you mean some Jews? I don't say this. Because I remember the other day, the first day I met Karim, in fact, when we were sitting down to a dinner at Yafa cafe. A dinner with music and oud, and everyone gets up to dance, like Michel the owner and a beautiful girl. And Zahi's asking me if I recognise that kind of dance, if I know what it means, and I say, Zahi, you know some things we have everywhere, and he's, oh you have Arabs in London? And I say, no Zahi – some things are universal. Like what? OK, do I have to spell it out? Some things are universal, like sex.

Karim's to my right at the table, and opposite there's this Jewish woman with very short hair. It's grey and short, and she's always smiling with crinkly bits around her eyes. I think she's the only Jewish woman there, apart from me. This woman asks if we'll light the Hanukah candles. Michel looks around, and there's a menorah, but candles are nowhere to be found.

'Never mind.' Karim leans into me. 'Let's burn some Jews.'

I'm like, what? I don't know what to say. I need some time. Let's burn some Jews. He has a merry twinkle, the kind of goatee you'd find in Shoreditch, and American hip-hop clothes. 

The conversation has moved on slightly. The Jewish woman's spooning up kubbe and smiling again. And I still don't know what to say. OK, now I do. 'I think you meant that as a joke,' I tell Karim, 'but I found it offensive.'

'Why? Are you Jewish?' he says.

'I am, but even if I wasn't, you know, I'd still say it's wrong.'

'But I think it's funny!' the Jewish woman says. 'Don't you see? The power imbalance. Between our two groups. It's funny because of that!'

OK. So you feel better if you get the shit ripped out of you. Somehow, that way, you pay.

Back in the car with Karim, and he's still on his Jewish trip. I'm kind of tired. 'Listen,' I tell him, 'don't do that. You know it feels bad.'

'Jews – yeah, Jews are everywhere. They stole his car.'

I turn my face away. We're still driving, up Yehuda Hayamit. 'Enough,' Zahi says, but he's laughing and it's not enough, yet, for Karim.

'There's a Jew in the car! I can smell a Jew.' He's staring hard ahead. 'Smells like a Jew in the car.'

I slam out as soon as we arrive. Karim follows me and we're both pacing up the hill. We go into the restaurant and sit down – there are five of us at the table. Four men, and me.

'You're not still mad at him, are you?' Zahi asks.

'Why? What happened? What did he say?' Abed wants to know.

So I'm sitting here at this table with these guys in the restaurant where they always go, and I have to say it. 'We were driving in Karim's car, and he told me ... he said ... Smells like a Jew.'

The whole table bursts out laughing. Abed's laughing. Zahi's laughing, Mustafa's laughing. Karim looks around, then bursts out laughing too. I'm just sitting there and I really wish to be swallowed up by the ground. Instead, I push back my chair, and I go to the bathroom and all of it, Gaza, Jericho, East Jerusalem, the death and the killing, all of this hate, swells out of me, and I cry.

Israel no love

Adjami, Jaffa - candlelit vigil for Gaza 

At Jamilah's house Al Jazeera is on the TV. Al Jazeera shows what bombs do. Limbs come off. Eyes melt shut. Dead children have white faces from the dust. Jamilah's mother puts her head in her hands and cries.

Jamilah reports that a colleague at work (they're all Jewish except her) demanded to know today, are you for or against Hamas? 

'Why should I tell you that?' she says to her colleague. But he won't let up, so she tells him, 'look, it's not like you see on TV - you know only half the story. We see the whole picture.'

'We have to do it,' the guy says. 'We don't kill children on purpose.'

'Did I ever ask to talk politics with you?' she says.

'You're a traitor,' he replies.

The manager calls Jamilah in and Jamilah's shouting, she can't stop shouting: 'Look what he's doing to me!'

'It's not the case,' the manager says. 'You provoked him. That's what he told me.'

Jamilah's big-boned brother is lying on the sofa. He turns to me and says: 'Israel - no good, no bad ... Israel - no love.'

All that's left

IDF fundraising banner, outside army radio station Galgalatz, Jaffa

My neighbour is worried about me. He sits me down earnestly and tells me I am in danger. It's the Arabs. My Arab friends. 'Because, you see, it's not just in the West Bank. In Jaffa too. They can kill you here too.'

I'm friends with Arabs, although I'm a Jew. That's not normal here. Oh, it's accepted, tolerated. I'm a lefty. They feel sorry for me. I'm European – I don't really understand.

'There are many faces of things here,' my neighbour says. 'There's the obvious face – the one we all see. But the Arabs who live here – we humiliate them every day. They hate us. You hear that–?' A car is driving around the square, playing Arabic music really loud. '–it's not just some young guy having fun. He's saying fuck you Jews. And one day he wants to get his own back. And that's why I'm worried about you. One day you might be sitting with some family in Jaffa – some nice Arab family–'

'Friends–'

'And someone who knows someone will come... I'm worried you'll get hurt.'

'But why pick me? There are Jews everywhere here. They can kill anyone they like.'

'You're the soft target,' he says darkly. 'You hear about that girl up north who got raped by six Arabs? We hate Jews, you fucking Jew, they told her.'

On the TV are black-masked men shooting huge rocket launchers at distant apartment buildings. 'Palestinians,' my neighbour says. 'Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Arabs. I just don't want to live with them. We've tried the right way to solve this conflict. It didn't work. Now all that is left is the wrong way.

'We're all fucked. If we can't do it the right way we might as well fucking shoot the Arabs. Shoot them all. If we can't solve it the good way, I want to be the one holding the gun.'

The lives lost

Women hold candles in remembrance of the lives lost in Gaza, street protest, Jaffa

A boy and a girl make the sign for peace

A mother and her children

Nobody is listening

I’m standing on Sderot Yerushalayim taking pictures, looking at Jaffa again, when a woman stops me and asks, ‘why are you taking a picture of that building?’

‘I like how it looks,’ I say. ‘It’s from the 30s and we don’t have buildings like that where I live.’

‘But why? There are many more old and beautiful buildings like that here. I can show you,’ the woman says.

Leora is from Bat Yam. She tells me that she volunteers in Jaffa, helping Arab women with their Hebrew. 

‘That’s nice,’ I say.

‘Yes. We are all God’s children. I give everyone respect. I don’t care who you are – Arab or Jew – I will work with everyone … if he doesn’t come to kill me, of course, then I come to kill him back.’

She points to my London-green parka. ‘You’re not cold in that?’

‘I’m ok,’ I say.

‘You know what I think?’ Leora puts one hand on my arm. ‘I think, oh my God, we live just 70 or 80 years. Oh my God, when we are young we are young, when we are old we are old. And in between, give us life.

‘We must live this 50 years that God gave us and enjoy, but nobody lets us. I told this already to the clever people but nobody is listening.’

Leora poses for a photograph. ‘You are very beautiful and very nice,’ she says. ‘You’re not Jewish, are you? You are? You light candles for Hanukah?’

She scrabbles in her bag for a scrap of paper and a pen. ‘Here is my number. We can sit and drink a coffee together. Call me – call me, whatever you need.’

Scent

Someone has been living in my apartment who smokes and I can smell him everywhere, in the sheets, in the bathroom, a strange ugly perfume that is not mine.

Yael has been here and she's cleaned for me. She left me flat chocolates on the table in a box, with a note: Welcome back!! Love! Yael.

I slept last night in fits, still in pain, so I had to get up and break one of my emergency valiums in half. I downed it licking the crumbs from my fingers like some London-dark desperado, even though here it's warm, and the sun shone a light I had to scrunch in half to hide from, in my oversize rented-out bed.

Following the home

Rimi Garbua receives a flower from Yael at our exhibition opening in Jaffa, Sunday. You can see more of Rimi's work here, and text and image from the exhibition here.

If you would like to help us continue the Jaffa Photography Project, click on the 'donate' button, right.

There is an article on the Guardian website about the exhibition here by Seth Freedman.

Living proof that love exists

Our exhibition, Following the home, opens Sunday (tomorrow) at New Horizon centre, 59 Kedem St, Jaffa. On show is the work of six girls from the Jaffa Photography Project - Jamilah, Sama, Jiana, Mor, Walaa and Rimi  - photography developed over a series of workshops exploring 'home', 'community' and 'the other'. Please come, and bring your friends, to see this moving, exciting work - image and text from girls in Jaffa, who have not been heard before.

Here is some of the work on show:

Friday night  (Sama Shakra)

'On Friday night everyone in the family comes to my house to relax and eat. In this picture you see my mum, my older brother Ibrahim and his wife Wardeh, which means ‘rose’, and their daughter Aida, named after my mother.

'On the left is my aunt Nawal and her husband Ahmed. Nawal is a healer through the Qur'an. A lot of people from Jaffa come to her and ask her to read for them. If you have stomach ache, feel anxious or suffer from the evil eye. When you hear her read from the Qur'an you feel really good. She feels what you feel. Once she read to me – and knew everything I felt. I was hot and she became red.

'I love it when Nawal comes to my home. You feel as if an angel came through the door. I have never seen a woman with so much strength apart from my mother. Nawal and Ahmed are living proof that love exists and lasts for years.'

My father  (Jiana Ashkar)

'This is a happy picture. It is important to my father that the family should be happy and smile. He says, 'if you smile the world smiles back at you, if you don't smile, the world steps away'. I agree.'

Washing  (Rimi Garbua)

‘This is beautiful because you can see here washing and it reminds me of home and family. You see colours and the blue sky but next to that you see the barbed wire that is closed and is trying to save the children and the family from the bad environment. It’s a shield for them and it stops people coming in, but it’s bad that we need such a shield.’

Amir by the window (Rimi Garbua)

‘In this picture we don’t see my brother’s face because of the light, which is behind him. It’s black and white but beyond that you see colours, and after that you see Jaffa. The child is kept safely in his warm house but beyond him, open the door and you see all the garbage, cigarettes, drugs and poor families.

‘Black is normally bad. Maybe this house is a place where the child is locked and must stay inside. Maybe the home is not a good place for him.’

Your way  (Mor Levy)

‘This woman is a survivor because she did it her way - she made her choices. You can see in her eyes that she's a happy person - she is not wearing a mask. She told us that she could see the future. One day she woke up and a voice in her head told her not to drive. She ignored it and then had an accident. After that she decided not to ignore the voice inside - and to help other people do the same.’

Lina sleeping  (Jamilah Siksik)

‘I love this picture because Lina looks like an angel when she's asleep. I took this picture because she is beautiful and you can see the intimacy of home and she is calm. But outside there is a whole war - many problems, chaos. When I look at this picture I feel I can resolve all the problems outside.’

Following the home is open for one month, from May 4

To support our work, click on the 'donate' button, right.

Free speech

This image is by Jamilah Siksik, one of the Palestinian participants in the Jaffa Photography Project. She has called it Free speech.

Yael and I went to a demonstration outside the Etzel Museum, where a celebration was taking place for the 60th anniversary of the 'liberation of Jaffa', and we took Jamilah. It was the first time she ever did anything like this. We took her with the camera, and she photographed the demonstration - she's only 14 years old.

The photograph shows a man who has just been arrested by the police, because he ran to the crowd and shouted 'why should the Palestinians pay for the Holocaust?'. Police immediately dragged him away. Jamilah said this: 'I think that everyone has the right to oppose and say what he thinks especially if it's a demonstration. This man only said what he thought and the police took him.'

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.'