Jaffa Photography Project
Dear Friends,
I have been working in Jaffa for a month on our photography project with Arab and Jewish girls.
Our exhibition opens tomorrow. If you're in the area, please come along. For details of the show
or to view the photographs please follow the link here:
and here:
http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2008/05/free-speech.html
http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2008/04/i-feel-at-home.html
As usual, we love it when you leave us comments on the site - especially the girls, who like to
know their work is seen by others far away.
Leila
Background
The Jaffa Photography Project teaches photography to Arab and Jewish teenagers in Israel so that they can document and communicate their lives. In a state that sees little contact between its Palestinian and Jewish citizens, the project is pioneering. It helps to lay a foundation for future peace by bringing the two communities together.
Walaa Khatib, workshop participant
The project’s aims are:
1. To support and give voice to underprivileged youth in Jaffa – participants come from poor families with few resources, at the margins of Israeli society.
2. To facilitate dialogue between the Arab and Jewish communities – amongst the young people in workshops, and between adults at exhibitions of the work.
We believe that only through this kind of grassroots community building can Israel's diverse population move beyond the conflict. The Arab minority suffers discrimination, loss of culture to the Hebrew majority, and social and economic problems. The photography project gives this group voice within Israel – to communicate with the Jewish majority and, in turn, to build self-confidence and pride. The project is led by Leila Segal, a British writer and photographer, and Israeli photographer Anna Cohen-Yanay, in partnership with Arab-Jewish youth group Sadaka Reut. A respected local NGO, Sadaka Reut has extensive experience of working with the Jaffa community.
Jaffa is one of Israel’s ‘mixed cities’, where Jews and Arabs live side by side. It is plagued by drugs, gang violence, and poverty. It is rare for Jews and Arabs to live together in Israel – most live in discrete communities, and interact little with the other. Their children attend separate Arabic or Hebrew-speaking schools.
Our project cuts across this divide, bringing young people with something in common – Jaffa – together. Cross-cultural groups in Israel tend to be short-term, bringing Jews from privileged liberal homes together with marginalised Palestinians, which leads to resentment by Arab participants, who feel the power balance in the group reflects that of Israel at large. But the Jaffa project has created productive, long-term relationships because participants live and study in the same community: they can become friends, and spend time together every day if they wish.
Whether Palestinian or Jewish, participants come from similar socio-economic backgrounds – Jews from Mizrachi (Oriental Jewish) families, also a marginalised group within in Israel. We also work with the Christian Russian immigrant community, and hope soon to extend to Ethiopian youth in neighbouring Bat-Yam.
Crucifix at Grandma’s house
We are close to, and trusted by the community, thanks to Sadaka Reut. This means that Palestinian families will allow girls to participate. It also means we can go to participants’ homes and get to know them outside workshops, gaining a close understanding of their lives and needs.
Palestinians can feel uncomfortable speaking Arabic in public in Israel, where Hebrew is the majority language. We make sure that Palestinian participants feel that Arabic is legitimate at workshops by working with a Palestinian facilitator. During individual work with Palestinian girls, an Arabic speaker is also present.
Inequality is inherent between Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel. We believe that many dialogue groups assume parity between the two groups and fail, rather than honestly facing the issue, and allowing participants to explore it through the work.
Our work
We began work in summer 2007 – our first exhibition, in August 2007, brought together participants families’, as well as Jewish Israelis from Tel Aviv. You can see it here: http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2007/08/jaffa-photograp.html
In January 2008 we worked intensively for a month, running four workshops: Home, History and Memory, Community and The Other – and organised a second exhibition:
http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2008/01/portrait-in-a-b.html
We will work for a month in April 2008, leading to an exhibition, Portrait of Jaffa. We hope to bring this exhibition to the UK later in the year, touring as an educational resource in schools, and to publish a book of word and image as well.
You can see further examples of our work here: http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2008/02/a-stranger-in-m.html
Photo essays on Sadaka Reut here:
http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2007/09/post.html
http://olahadasha.typepad.com/ola_hadasha/2007/08/summer-in-jaffa.html
A portfolio of work is available upon request.
Leila Segal is a writer and photographer, working on community art projects in London and the Middle East. She is working with Westminster Befriend a Family (photojournalism with refugees) and with Westminster Council (photography and identity project with teenagers excluded from school). She was a facilitator on Change the Picture, a PhotoVoice project with sex workers in London’s East End.
Anna Cohen-Yanay is a photographer and Sadaka Reut youth leader. She teaches art and photography in Jaffa. Anna grew up attending Sadaka Reut
bi-cultural groups, culminating in an intensive year programme in an Arab-Jewish
co-operative group.
Contact: Leila Segal 07976 187581 / leilasegal@gmail.com