Calm before the Storm – The story behind the pictures

A guest blog by Photographer Stephen Trutwin

A good photograph, or any other form of art is made all the more meaningful by the story behind it and so I would like to tell you the story behind the photographs I took in Jerusalem and the occupied territory of the West Bank in the first week of October last year, and which I’ve chosen to show at my exhibition entitled “Calm before the Storm”.

My dilemmas are that firstly the story is almost 4000 years long, and secondly much of it isn’t true! The story begins in the form of mythology, superstition, parables, traditions, legends, visions and the naivety of a god-fearing people who couldn’t read or write, let alone search for truth. It was initially passed down the generations by word of mouth and there is no archeological evidence for much of what happened in the beginning, but which created a very long, winding, bloody, story of the images I am showing. The story can’t be told without lots of “maybes”, “probablies” and “possiblies”.

My own story likely began in school, when I studied Ancient History in year 12 and was taught by an inspirational teacher, a Christian Brother, who brought to life the warriors of Sparta, the battles between the Greeks and Persians, the perversions of the mad Roman emperor Caligula and the Marathon run of Pheidippides. He was also the school athletics coach so little wonder I joined the cross-country team at that time and have continued running right up until now.

I’ve continued to read history and in particular that of Western and Central Asia (What Europeans refer to as the Middle East…because it’s East of Europe!) which to me holds greater significance and romance than the European or English history that most white Australians are more familiar with. The conquests of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, the empires of the Persians, Romans, Byzantines & Ottomans, the characters of Antony & Cleopatra, Samson & Delilah, Laurence of Arabia, David & Goliath, Herod, Richard the Lionheart, Saladin, Suleiman the Magnificent, Jesus & Muhammad, just to name a few.

The monotheistic religions of Christianity, Islam and Judaism, and many others, all developed in this part of the world, along with paper, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, art, sculpture and language. It’s hard to imagine a region of the world that has had as big an influence on human civilization.

In September and October last year I did a solo trip to Istanbul and Jerusalem, Istanbul the site of the relocation by Constantine from Rome in 300 CE and the establishment of the Byzantine Empire which endured for 1100 years, before being conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.

I stayed 2 weeks in Istanbul, one in Europe, one in Asia, on either side of the Bosphorus. I visited some of the most awe-inspiring buildings I’ve seen including the Hagia Sofia Mosque, built in 537 originally as a Christian orthodox church by the emperor at the time, Justinian. Apparently when the church was inaugurated, Justinian said: “Glory to God who has deemed me worthy of such a work. Oh Solomon, I have vanquished thee”, referring to the great temple of Solomon, destroyed 1000 years earlier by Nebuchadnezzer in Jerusalem…where I was heading next. Jerusalem at this time was part of the Byzantine empire, ruled from Istanbul.

My flight to Tel Aviv from Istanbul was delayed which I realized with the 45 minute drive from the airport would get me to Jerusalem in the dark on the Jewish Sabbath. For those who aren’t familiar, the Old City of Jerusalem is approximately 1km square, surrounded by castle-like defensive walls built by the Ottomans under Suleiman the Magnificent in the 1500’s…so quite recent! Greater Jerusalem has now expanded around it but I was keen to stay in the Old City, close to the important sites. But I was nervous to enter through Herod’s Gate in the dark which led down narrow cobbled alleys of the Muslim quarter of the Old City. My instructions from the owner of my AirBnB were to follow along until I saw the Dome of the Rock (the first Muslim Mosque), and turn left through a black doorway. In hindsight, arriving at night was a blessing because the golden Dome of the Rock was illuminated and my first glimpse of it poking up over the rooftops ahead of me has left an indelible memory. So, I turned left through the doorway, found my way up some narrow staircases and through another solid door that opened on to the terrace of my accommodation. The view from there was surely one of the most awesome in Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock, Temple Mount, Mount of Olives, the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene, the city ramparts, minarets and rooftops all laid out before me. I took photographs of the view immediately.

What I didn’t realise when I booked my trip months earlier was that the exact week that I had arranged to stay in Jerusalem was the week-long holiday period of Sukkot. It is said in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Torah or Hebrew bible, that when Moses led the Israelites from slavery in Egypt back to Canaan (this was maybe 1400 BCE), during the journey and for 40 years wandering in the desert, they lived in temporary dwellings called Sukkahs, which means “booth”. When God spoke to Moses at Mt Sinai at this time and gave him the 10 Commandments, they were kept in a tabernacle or Sukkah. Sukkot commemorates the Exodus of the Israelites and Jews now celebrate this by making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and constructing temporary Sukkahs with palmed roofs in the streets, where they eat and sleep. These can be seen in the Girl and the Cat street photograph.

Each day of Sukkot it is a Jewish commandment to perform a waving ceremony with the “4 species” – a palm frond, branches of myrtle and willow, and a citron (which can be seen by worshipping Orthodox Jews in some of my pictures) – I won’t describe the significance of each of these here.

The next morning, I met a professional photographer, Simon, from Tel Aviv who I had booked to do a 4-5 hour photo tour of the Old City and the nearby Orthodox Jewish suburb of Mea Shearim. We quickly developed a good relationship as we wandered around the Old City capturing all the eccentricities of Sukkot and the religious and historical sites. We had a big bowl of the best hummus I’ve tasted for lunch (the chick peas were ground in a mortar and pestle in front of me) and we ended up spending 7 hours together. Some of the pictures seen in this exhibition were taken whilst with him.

Later that night I left a glowing review on TripAdvisor for him and he messaged me with thanks and to ask if I wanted to meet for coffee a few days later when he was returning to Jerusalem. I agreed, but on the morning we were to meet he messaged again to say that his mother had had a stroke. She died a few days after I returned to Australia. 

The next day, I wandered around by myself in the Old City, revisiting some of the important sites 2 or 3 times. Everything is very close with synagogues, chapels and mosques, interspersed with restaurants, stations of the cross, money changing booths, tourist shops and homes, with narrow doorways and alleys in all directions. It’s a real maze and I often got lost, but was always able to find my way out. 90% of my time in Jerusalem I spent in the Old City apart from a walk to the garden of Gethsemane outside the walls and up to the Mt. of Olives, which looks back across the olive tree-studded Kidron Valley to the Old City and is covered with the headstones of those waiting for Judgement Day, the day they believe the Messiah will return for them to be resurrected and ascend to heaven. 

Each night I’d set up my tripod and photograph the Dome of the Rock from my terrace and take in the awesome view and ponder the ancient history I was looking at. Maybe 400 years before Moses, in maybe 1800BCE, the book of Genesis tells us that Abraham, at the age of 75 (his father died at the age of 200!), walked 700 miles from Mesopotamia in modern-day Iraq to this very spot.

God had promised him and his descendants the land of Canaan, modern-day Israel, and tested his faith by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac on Mt Moriah. He tied his son to an altar but just as he was about to kill him an angel appeared and stopped him. Instead, a ram with it’s horns caught in a nearby thicket was sacrificed, but Abraham had passed his test and he and his descendants became God’s chosen people.

This is the premise for why Jewish Zionists today believe that Israel, “The Land of Milk & Honey”, “The Promised Land”, belongs to them. Around 1000 BCE King Solomon, son of David (of David & Goliath fame), built a temple on Mt. Moriah where Isaac’s binding had taken place to house the Ark of the Covenant containing the tablets of the 10 Commandments brought to Jerusalem from Mt. Sinai 400 years earlier. Destroyed by the Babylonians in 586BCE (dates become clearer), it was rebuilt by Herod around the turn of the millennium and again destroyed, this time by the Romans in 70CE. The story of the 4-year siege and destruction of Jerusalem and the 2nd temple is a harrowing tale. It is estimated 600 000 Jerusalemites were killed with 500 people per day being crucified on the Mount of Olives and surrounding hills – with “scarcely room for more, or trees to make them” (Josephus)…so, it’s been going on for a while!

In 621 CE, Muslims believe Muhammad took his night journey on his winged horse Buraq from Mecca in modern-day Saudi Arabia, to the temple Mount in Jerusalem, before ascending to heaven. 70 years later the Dome of the Rock, the first Islamic mosque, was built to commemorate the site, Jerusalem then being under Arab control. Non-muslims are now not allowed to enter the Dome of the Rock, however the interior photographs I’ve seen are amazing…the central part of the floor is one big rock, no carpet but the original bedrock of Mt Moriah, where Abraham first attempted to sacrifice Isaac, the foundation stone for 2 temples and the Holy of Holies, the room where the Ark of the Covenant and 10 Commandments were stored…now enclosed by an Islamic Mosque.

So, from my terrace I felt like I was looking at a giant X-marks-the-spot, the centre of the universe and one of the most important and disputed sites in all human civilization…still to this day. I have 3 photographs of this amazing building in my exhibition, there were even more to choose from, and the predominance of photographs of this one subject is mirrored by the importance it has in Jerusalem and the world, and also how it dominates the Old City skyline…I could always find my way out of a dark alley by looking for the golden dome to get my bearings.

The Dome of the Rock sits atop the Temple Mount or Haram Al Sharif in Arabic, the western wall of which retains the 15 HA compound. The Western Wall is as close as Jews can get to the place where the Holy of Holies was within the 1st and 2nd temples. The Temple Mount is now administered by Jordan and Jews are not allowed to pray or wear religious clothing there and can only enter through one of the 11 gates, which are guarded by Israeli soldiers. I saw soldiers escorting a Jewish family, obviously visiting Jerusalem during Sukkot, site-seeing on the Temple Mount and having family photographs taken in front of the Islamic Dome of the Rock…go figure! The photograph of the two female Israeli soldiers is one of my favourites and is taken at a gate to the Temple Mount that leads from the old Cotton Merchants market. I see glamour, intimidation, tension and contradiction when I look at their made-up faces. 

On my 3rd day, in the afternoon, I left most of my gear in my apartment in Jerusalem and caught the bus to Bethlehem in the West Bank, about 8km away. Or more accurately, the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, one of two Palestinian territories, the other being Gaza which is approximately 100km south of Jerusalem. I stayed at the Walled Off Hotel which is part-owned by the pro-Palestinian English street artist Banksy and who has decorated many of the walls in the guest rooms with his original satirical artwork. The hotel is self-named the ‘hotel with the worst view in the world’…from my room window I eye-balled the 10m high, 700km long concrete separation wall, complete with guard tower, built by the Israeli’s “for defence”.

The wall is covered with graffiti on the Palestinian side, and Banksy himself has contributed to it in the vicinity of the hotel. I took a photograph of myself on the bed in my room, pretending to join in the pillow fight with a Palestinian fighter and an Israeli soldier. What I thought was a bit of fun at the time in hindsight really isn’t funny at all and possibly in bad taste, but I figured if it’s ok for Banksy it’s ok for me. It’s now my profile picture on Instagram and the welcoming picture to my exhibition but I still have mixed feelings about it.

Next morning I was collected by my Palestinian taxi driver Abbas (name changed to protect identity), for a day tour around the West Bank. I was interested to see as much as I could in a day and I told Abbas that I was just as interested in photographing the people as the religious sites. I was hoping to get some photographs of old Arabs with long grey beards, kids playing in the street, store-holders plying their trade, as well as the compulsory religious sites of the Church of the Nativity where Jesus was supposedly born, the Dead Sea, Lazarus’s tomb etc. We walked around the main streets of Ramallah and Jericho and Abbas broke the ice in Arabic and helped me set up some portrait shots, one of which is the black & white of the man you see here.

He was also keen to talk with me about the occupation, show me the Israeli settlements, the separation wall and the difficulties of living and moving around in the West Bank. There are more than 100 different types of permits issued by the Israeli military to restrict every aspect of life in the West Bank and it’s one of the ways the Israelis control the people there. Permits are required to receive medical treatment, travel between the West Bank and Gaza, travel in to Israel including to work, cultivate one’s own land, reside in the West Bank, study, build or modify your house, plant trees etc etc.

Permits often only last 3 months and need to be reapplied for and are sometimes only granted if the applicant signs a statement in support of political negotiation or agrees to collaborate with the Israeli security services, Shin Bet. Hundreds of roadblocks and barriers and surveillance systems are in place. Military bases and depots are dotted around the landscape. Forced evictions, demolitions, arbitrary detention, cutting off mains water supply, shooting holes in rainwater tanks, spraying Palestinian farm land with herbicides, the list goes on. I remember thinking that if this is the way the people here are forced to live, then it’s no wonder they resist, emigrate…or rebel! Abbas showed me his permit and let me take a photograph of it with my phone. 

I’ve stayed in contact with Abbas but I can tell from his more recent messages that he is being careful with what he says and I suspect he deletes all conversations with me afterwards. I naively suggested to him early on that we do a live cross at my exhibition opening but as a father of 5 kids he declined for fear of being arrested. 

At the end of our day together he dropped me at a checkpoint in the wall and I walked back through in to Jerusalem. The checkpoint, one of 49 along the wall’s length, is like an undercover cattle-yard with lots of CCTV cameras, Israeli soldiers behind bulletproof glass and ceiling-height steel turn-styles. I poked my passport through a letterbox sized opening to a small room of 4 IDF soldiers, one inspected it and passed it to another before inspecting it again and finally posting it back to me. Thousands of Palestinian workers pass through these checkpoints daily along the length of the separation wall on their way to and from jobs in Israel…at least that was the case before October 7th last year.

Since October 7th, Abbas has stopped driving, there are no tourists and local people stay off the street. Schools & universities have closed. Roads are blocked. There are soldiers in the streets. Israeli settlers riot and kill Palestinians while the IDF look the other way. The Walled Off Hotel closed on 12th October, it’s staff now with no work. When I last researched, around 400 people have been killed in the West Bank.

That night, back in the Old City, I did a tour of the tunnels under the Western Wall. Over the centuries most of the Western Wall has been built up against and so is no longer visible. The Israeli’s have excavated under all these buildings to gain access to the part of the wall that has been covered. It wasn’t lost on me that the tunnel extends under and in to the Muslim quarter of the city. 

On my final day in Jerusalem, I met a Russian Christian model who is engaged to an Israeli and lives in Tel Aviv. We wandered around the Old City to some locations I’d scoped out in the days before and we captured some shots with a bit of a fashion/street feel. I love the photograph of her waiting in the doorway of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the light there was beautiful. We talked briefly about the war in Ukraine…she seemed somewhat embarrassed by her government. 

I flew out of Tel Aviv at 3pm on 6th October. I recall reading text across the bottom of the tv screen on the plane, something about rockets being fired at Israel, but I wasn’t sure what I was reading or it’s significance. When I arrived in Sydney I received a WhatsApp message from Simon my photography tour guide in Tel Aviv: “Are you still here?”. I told him I’d landed in Sydney to which he replied “There is a war here. Big time”. It was the last day of Sukkot.

In the coming weeks Simon began to post pro-Israeli propaganda on Instagram which began to activate my FU gland! The reason I use Instagram is to inspire my photography not to read other people’s political views, especially when they don’t align with my own, so I stopped following him. I explained this to him when he questioned why I’d unfollowed him. He replied: “ I have lost hundreds of followers for speaking up against the Nazi attack we witnessed. No need to answer. Goodbye.” We haven’t communicated since.

In its history, Jerusalem has been attacked 52 times, captured 44 times and totally destroyed twice. It’s hard to imagine a city anywhere in the world where so much has happened. What’s happening now, taken in the context of history, is just another ugly chapter, the only difference being that instead of horsemen with swords we have unmanned drones and massively powerful guided, and not-so-well guided, missiles. Enemies don’t look each other in the eye and killing requires less courage…and it’s on Instagram within minutes for the world to react to.

In the weeks and months that followed my trip, with Israel and Gaza in my feeds every day, my photographs took on more meaning and became more important to me. I was in Jerusalem 5 days and the West bank only 26 hours so the majority of the 2200 photographs I took were taken in Jerusalem.

Choosing the images for my exhibition was very difficult. Getting from 2200 to 50 was easy (I take a lot of bad photos!), but from 50 to 30 to the 18 shown was a puzzle! I tried to keep a balance of Jewish, Christian and Muslim subject matter. They also needed to be technically good, tell my story and hopefully be pictures that people want to buy…one of my aims in holding the exhibition is to raise money for medical aid in Gaza through Medecins Sans Frontieres who are on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank doing great work. The pictures I chose also and most importantly needed to please ME. I was only there for 6 days, and if I knew I was going to be holding an exhibition I would have stayed longer, gone to different places, photographed different things and taken even more care! But looking back I can say I was very much “in the zone” of taking photographs, I was really focused on what I was doing and motivated to capture as much as I could of the amazing historical place I was in. I’m proud of what I captured and I love looking at all of them. I hope you do too.

Stephen Trutwin
March 2024