Maree Makom

Archive
H. is standing behind the visiting delegation’s
principal. His features are blurry in the white light
washing-obliterating the crowd huddled within the
room. A tall man, grey, slightly bent, the look in his
eyes, which will stir up and reawaken in the hot air
of the rocky hills to which a few hours later he, R.
and L. will escape, away from the suffocating grief,
is faded and heav y lidded still over the black
mustache. The dim motivation for his action, within
which was tucked a concealed desire for a goal
that would free him from a two year wait for a
house the completion of which cannot be funded,
and for a wife who got up one day af ter bearing
him eleven daughters and only one son, and
returned to her mother’s home, impelled him to
move, tall and promising, from one house-in-need
to the ruins of another, surrounded from all sides
by rings of anxiety and despair, scribbling numbers
on tattered shreds of paper which will pile on
others like them in his of fice in Al-Khalil’s
municipality building: a measurement of a beloved
piece of land destroyed today by a bulldozer, or
the number of uprooted olive trees marked on a
scrap torn from a map.
Video Recording Site
Al-Khalil. A house in mourning
The home-owners’ son has been stabbed to
death by an Israeli settler several days prior to
the recorded visit.
Demolished homes in Al-Khalil surroundings
Video Recording Occasion
1998. Initial production days of the video piece
by L. and R.
Participants
H. - A resident of Al-Khalil and an Al-Khalil
municipality engineer, who is aiding the two
women in the making of their piece
A delegation from Israel consisting of
representatives from various peace
movements
A delegation from Palestine
Family members
L. - An Israeli videographer residing in Tel Aviv
R. - An Israeli writer living in Jerusalem