Moments of Normal
Travel Stories: Jenni Kolsky struggles to make sense of the photographs she took at a peaceful beach in war-torn Israel
03.28.04 | 9:42 PM ET
This past summer in Israel, I found myself bouncing between two disjointed realities. On one side there was the affirmation of life: a sun-drenched Mediterranean beach crowded with families. On the other side there was the prospect of death: the escalating threat of Palestinian suicide bombings at any turn.
As a photojournalist, I have been documenting life in Israel for more than a decade. Fear had never influenced my work before. I choose to take photographs that focus on hope and not on terror, on peace and not on war. But this time my visit was suffused with unease.
My photographs are visual diaries of my experiences, as well as a way of personally understanding contemporary issues in Israel. Over the years, I have photographed the Dead Sea, a peaceful setting physically and economically uniting Israel and Jordan. I have photographed the kibbutz to celebrate Israel’s 50 years of existence and to question the utopian myth I had been raised on. I have photographed the Golan Heights to understand its strategic significance and the way the land lingers between war and peace. Each body of work offers a contrast to the media’s persistent focus on the violent struggle between Jews and Arabs.
This brings me to my most recent journey to Israel, in the summer of 2003. I was invited by “The Artist Residence” in Herzliya, just North of Tel Aviv. I also received funding and support from the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity. My proposed assignment was to photograph the streets of Tel Aviv, its architecture, its people and its energy. Yet, as I walked beside rebuilt cafes, recurrently terrorist-targeted bus routes, and too many memorials to the dead, I couldn’t see beyond my fear. With suicide bombings still occurring intermittently and indiscriminately, I was afraid that I might die.
I believe that my repeated visits to Israel are inspired by the passion of its people: a zest for life, a strong bond with family and friends, fervor for its religions, politics, history, and biblical lands. I am enticed by the heat, the chaos, the spices, the utmost faith and arrogance in each belief. Yet in the past, these extremes were tempered by hope for peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs, between Israelis and Palestinians. I loved being a part of that energy, that important history. Now, it appears that neither government nor security presence can offer either optimism or protection. And those passions have born hatred.
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