Do You Know My Name?

Behind the stories

Sometimes a day can change everything.

On the last day of June 2016 my world was disrupted by what I have come to term ‘the dangerous image’. As I casually scrolled throgh my Facebook newsfeed, a stark military photograph of a child’s bedroom confronted me; the bedsheets and floor soaked in the recent blood of its 13-year-old occupant, Hallel Yaffa Ariel. As she had lain sleeping a 17-year-old Palestinian terrorist had climbed in her window and murdered her. The motive?. She was Jewish.

In the days that followed I could not shake what I had seen from my thoughts. I had recently uncovered my family history, discovering multiple members of my family had perished during the Holocaust. Now, today, this evil had been perpetrated in my generation, on our watch.

I wrote to Rina and Ariel, Hallel’s parents, a simple letter to let them know I grieved with them, but felt compelled to do more.  After learning that the death of Hallel was by no means an isolated incident; indeed there were ‘no shortage of terror victims in Israel’, I determined to create a photographic record to bring these little known stories to a wider audience, where there is so little unbiased coverage of these frequent, horrific attacks.

Included in this project are nine such stories, yet they represent thousands of Jewish people in Israel who have been murdered or maimed. The portraits are simple, and often there is nothing evident in individuals faces to indicate the depths of horror they have endured. In fact, in place of terror I found beauty; a desire to give and to reach out to others in their loved one’s name. This I believe, is due to the value Jewish people place on choosing life. It is a choice and one not always easily made. I encourage you to look into their eyes and listen to their voices. Their courage and dignity is unforgettable, their sorrow unimaginable.

Thank you for taking the time to learn their names.

Jennie Milne 2020