Artists: Tali Blumenau, Lihie Gendler Talmor, Ruti Singer, Noa Sheizaf, Yael Toren

The Jabarin family house rests in the shade of the stone mountainside. It sits in the longstanding Al-Midan neighborhood, formerly the city center and home of the central marketplace, and today the most congested neighborhood in Umm el-Fahem. In the lovely courtyard stands the family home, which the paterfamilias, Mahmoud, a construction worker, and his wife, Afaf, a homemaker, built with their own hands. The courtyard bustles with birds and abounds with vegetables and flowers that Amir, the Jabarins’ only son, tends. Amir studies mechanical engineering at the Technion; he’s also a guide for the Ramat Gan Safari and the Green Tapestry Wadi ‘Ara Tourism Association. Next to the family residence is the home of Amir’s grandfather, Mahmoud’s father—an authentic Palestinian house that’s one of the last still standing in Umm el-Fahem. Its façade is built in the form of a dovecote; doves do make their homes there.

The Jabarins have a complex family history. The house, packed with artifacts, invites visitors to contemplate buildings and structures that preserve memory and to deal with the traces of memory that persist in the material and in the many collections of father and son.