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A blog flash from the Ben Gurion Airport.
It's been almost 7 weeks that I have been running around my homeland of Israel. I spent a lot of quality time with family and friends, soaked up a lot of sun, and took a lot of pictures.
I interned at an Israeli press photographers' agency called Flash 90, where I learned a lot about the kind of photos an Israeli agency can use and sell, heard a lot of arguments about what makes a photo important, and saw many out-takes of those photos commonly played in North American media when reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's been an interesting and rewarding experience.
Though I had big plans for all the photo stories I would do in my short time here, I quickly realized it was unrealistic, but I am pleased with the one project I did complete (see my next blog post).
I am off now, back to Canada. Two days of resting and packing in Ottawa, then a three-day drive to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where I will spend three months shooting for the Winnipeg Free Press.
I have never left a visit to Israel as happy and excited as I am leaving it now, looking forward to what's next.

a family is a family is a family

I had the rare experience, and surprising pleasure, of meeting for maybe the second time in my life my very very distant family.

It was a Bar Mitzvah party in the old, orthodox, world of Jerusalem. To my relief, it was the celebration after the ceremony that I had been invited to attend. 

I met a lot of distant cousins (I guess I can call them cousins...) and I was the only young female in the room who wasn't married + three small children (going on four).

My ticket to a connection with people, whom I am somewhat related to yet worlds apart, was my camera. 

Next thing I know, I was completely surrounded.

Old City

I spent a whole day in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem looking for features for Flash 90, a Jerusalem-based press photographers' agency I have been interning at.
Here are some of the photos currently on their website.

 May 18, 2011. Photos by Hadas Parush/Flash 90

Women of the Wall

Jerusalem, May 5, 2011-- The Women of the Wall is a movement that has been praying at the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, on the beginning of every Hebrew month for over 25 years. Their stated mission is to achieve the social and legal recognition of their right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud in the women's section at the Western Wall. Photos by Hadas Parush for Flash 90.

 A young woman lays Tefilin, a tradition in Orthodox Judaism reserved for men.

 Anat Hoffman leads prayers at Robinson's Arch, outside the Western Wall.

Jewish Orthodox young girls take a rest outside the entrance to the Western Wall.

Tel Aviv Port Fishermen

May 1, 2011

Tel Aviv, Israel

Photos by Hadas Parush/Flash 90

Big Fish

TEL AVIV, Israel (May 1, 2011)-- Amos Kachlon, posing under the dock of the Tel Aviv sea port, has been fishing at this port since around 1952. Kachlon has lost his two legs after years of smoking caused him blocked arteries. He is the most senior fisherman at the Tel Aviv port and is known by all the other fishermen there. Today he pursues fishing as a hobby and says he can recognize the exact kind of fish underwater based on what it eats as bate. The biggest fish he caught, Kachlon said, was a 180 kg shark.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

 May 2, 2011
At the major intersection of Shenkin and HaCarmel streets in Tel Aviv, people stop in their tracks at the sound of the siren, heard throughout Israel every year at 10 a.m. on the National Holocaust Remembrance Day. The siren lasts about two minutes, during which Israelis all over the country stop whatever they are doing and stand still for the moment of silence in memory of the victims and heroes of the Holocaust.

 And to my amazement, even this dog respected the moment of silence. It stood still from the beginning of the siren and only moved once there were no more echoes to be heard.

Acre (Akko)

April 30, 2011

Acre, in the Western Galilee region in northern Israel

Photos by Hadas Parush/Flash 90