Maree Makom

Play
A small number of kids freeze in place with
rocks in their hands. Wahad Tnen Talate Samak
Mumluach (“One Two Three Salt-Fish”). M. excited,
scrupulously oversees the rules. Wahad Tnen
Talate Samak Mumluach. He turns around releasing
the kids’ brisk hand gesture and the body springing
forward, towards the camera. Just outside the
perimeter of that same image lie broken scaf foldings
and the remainders of a barbed wire fence under
piles of sand and gravel; almost visible also are
the white stone monument for the camp’s martyrs,
the bullet-ripped flag hanging on the electricity
pole to the right, and a grey outline of the sewage
funneling down from the roots of all the alleys
winding toward Bethlehem Way. The kids follow
the rules. The rock, between one paralyzing cr y to
the nex t, is picked up, raised and eventually put
down carefully on the pile growing at the center of
the court-yard; here too marking a border, like the
small mounds of stones in the abandoned fields
the blue car has passed along the outskirts of
Hebron/Al-Khalil.
Video Recording Site
An open courtyard in Deheishe, a refugee
camp near Bethlehem, established in 1948 as
temporary housing for 3,000 refugees, and
occupied today by about 12,000 people living
in less than one square kilometer
Video Recording Occasion
1998. Initial production days of a video piece
by L. and R. where dream-texts written by
R. are used as scripts for scenes shot in
Palestine/Israel. The piece is made under the
auspices of G., the owner of an art gallery in
the south of Tel Aviv.
The rules of the game (“Salt Fish”) played and
shot in the courtyard:
One person, the caller, repeatedly turns his/her
back to a group of participants. While his/her
back is turned the players are allowed to move
forward (arriving at the caller’s location is their
goal). Occasionally the caller declares “one,
two, three, salt fish” and turns to face the
group. At that point all movement must freeze.
In the current game version a goal is added:
The players, holding rocks in their hands, aim
to assemble a tall pile of rocks at the caller’s
feet, simulating the icon of a boundary marker
frequently used by Palestinian farmers.
Participants
M. - A Palestinian man residing in Deheishe
who is aiding the two women in the making of
their piece
Several kids from the camp recruited to
participate in the staging and videotaping of
the scene
L. - An Israeli videographer residing in Tel Aviv
R. - An Israeli writer living in Jerusalem