Reminders of the Holocaust

I spent last week continuing my work in Hebron, a city under terrible violence. I will release more photographs of my latest experience in this city later on but I thought for this post I would show a more haunting series of images. 

I entered the Jewish only neighborhood late Saturday morning and was completely alone. All of the streets were abandoned of even the Jewish residents because of Shabbat and the only thing I could hear was the chirping of mourning birds and the roar of F-16 jets flying overhead to patrol and bomb the Gaza Strip which is only a few kilometers away. Eventually I ran into another person who happened to be an orthodox settler giving a tour to his two friends. He was white with a full red beard, two curls hanging from his head, a yamika, belt tassels, talit and a fully equipped M-16 assault rifle. 

As we passed each other he stopped me and asked what I was doing here. I told him I was going to the Abraham mosque which I new was up the street. “Are you Jewish?” he asked. Realizing I was all alone in a Jewish only neighborhood and they had assault rifles I told them that I was Jewish by blood but was never raised as one which was why I came to Israel to figure out my roots. 

“Well remember that you are always with us. You are a Jew. You are never with THEM (pointing to the Arab cemetery across the street). You are always with us no matter what happens. The whole world hates you because you are a Jew and this is the only place you belong”.

I tried to smile and force a laugh out of my lungs when I said OK and walked away. I can’t even imagine how someone can live like that; in constant hate and fear that the world is out to kill you and to tell your children that everyone wants you dead because your a Jew. It was later on when I was walking through the neighborhood that I started to document the Jewish graffiti on the old Palestinian houses that only reminded me of the Nazi swastika markings on the Jewish doors in Germany.

These are just a few photographs of the door markings in the old Palestinian neighborhood.