2000
Happy new yeah!!
when we visit a performance night in an artschool in some Jerusalem suburbs, we meet Eitan, a good friend of Tal. Eitan did a great project. when we hear of it we feel happy that people over here think and act similar in their hopes to give art a wider effect. he bought these cheap throw-away-cameras and gave them to palästinian and jewish children. the children then took images of their daily life and sent the cameras back to Eitan. then Eitan produced postcards and gave them to the children who did the images. he also gave them then an address from a child on "the other side". the children started to send each other this cards, it worked much better (with much more engagement from the children) than Eitan thought. a great exhibition was also realized, and the artists were all invited...
Teresa comes up with image or question of the BORDER. what does BORDER mean when its on one hand an old, not working concept (the net...) and on the other a painful certainty every day. imagine to live in a land where you can not visit your neighbourlands. Teresa and Tal talk the whole night about this image. they decide to put it on top of our "projectlist". we will work with the BORDER.
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we make a trip to the dead sea. really dead this sea, but funny dead. you go into the water, try to swim and bloooobs you lay on top of the water like a fallen leave. you have to laugh because its against all experience-data in your mind and what can't be is funny when it doesn't scare. we lay a bit in the water, we sit a bit in this strange air (the place is 800 metres below sealevel!) and we take a bath in a sulphur tank, which stinks but feels good. what a strange place. nowhere, a light like too much light, but not bright, salt like dancing in the air. all sounds different, a bit like when snow makes the tones more bassy.
we have to laugh because there is a bay watch. why when you can't go under?
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we drive back northwards towards the Golan heights because Inbal, a friend from Tal invited us to meet her in the Kibbuz Kineret for x-mas night. we are looking so forward too! Kineret! wasn't that the lake where Jesus walked over? we stop. Tal wants us to show a huge panorama painting a soldier made when they had a kind of camp here. did they go because of this bomb?
Kineret!
our night in the Kibbutz is fantastic! Inbal and her sister Reut meet us in front of the huge kitchen where they all (600 live here) eat together. people are friendly, because friends of friends are friends...
its x-mas eve and nobody seems to be interested about, just a quiet evening with good food. Inbal tells us that more and more the Kibbutz structures fall apart. people taking better jobs outside and don't want to share with those who do less inside...
this Kibbutz is a rich one. good houses. and good cars standing around, which you can take if you are a member and got the card for the car-start-slot... where do we go? to the disco! there is a x-mas party in the disco! we arrive to Kinerets main club. its getting crowded, Tom Jones sings Burning down the house with miss Carnegies. Teresa, Inbal and Reut dance allready. Tom would be proud of them! Tal and omi talk and hang around, while the rain is pouring on the discos thin roof. happy x-mas, thanks for this present Tal, its the best place on earth to be now.
Kineret became so wealthy because they have a baptism-station, where buses of pilgrims arrive to be born again. they say its the place at the river Jordan where Jesus got baptised. so they sell all kind of gifts there, holy water and so on...
Inbal wants to come with us the next day when we go up to the Golan Heights to visit Amir, another friend from Tal. Inbal says its maybe the last change to visit the Golan...she also would give it back... but then she can't come, hangover...
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Amir is already awaiting us. its raining and foggy, we don't see the green landscapes all talked about. Teresa talkes an image of us three. military police is passing slowly by when we pose in the fog...
behind us, this little fence is the syrian border. the BORDER. we drive up up up till a UN-checkpoint. a sign says: STOP. we keep on driving. only few seconds later the soldier in the tower comes out with his gun and a military jeep is behind us. without changing speed Tal makes an elegant curve and goes back, the jeep only follows till the sign...lets go eat at a Druse restaurant says Amir. a what? wow! we like it. full of people. an israeli soldier looks like a comicbook soldier. 2 meters high, wide as a closet and trashy uniform like he was thieving before he came here. but he smiles, while putting his old Uzi gun on a chair next to him. it's the first time in our life that we see soldiers with a relaxed eye. would we be soldiers if we would live here? would we want to try so that nobody throws us to nowhere? we remember Ronny who told us about his three years on the south lebanon border. every night fights and stress with the arab fanatics. we hear that Barak wants to give back south Lebanon to make a clear signal to the Syrians...
Ronny was the first soldier we understood. but he also was the first one who toled us more than national-clishes. he doesn't want war, but protection and expanded peace. but how? when all neighbours are pointing their guns at you? the first question in Israel is: do you accept Israel? you think, should this state should be this state? yes, but..but it's not so simple. and fundamentalists who believe in the truth of the eternal word are on both sides blended by their weak way of giving responsibility to a blind ruling god. why respond with your own words when all is written? the BORDER.