
Photography: Nathan Dvir / Polaris Images
Local Testimony 2021
Gallery
2021
Photo of the Year | Series of the Year | News | Society and Community | Religion and faith | Nature and Environment | Sport | Urbanism and Culture | Long Exposure | Video
An adapting society
Dana Wohlfeiler-Lalkin, Founder and Director of Local Testimony
Since 2003 the annual exhibition of documentary photography and photo-journalism Local Testimony has been shown alongside the international photography exhibition World Press Photo.
Local Testimony expresses the cultural and historical qualities of local documentary photography and manifests its caliber: professional photography conveying a complex aspect of human existence which does not receive full
exposure via the established media. Beyond the images appears a social-cultural document pointing to local changes that can be identified and understood thanks to investigative journalism that transcends editorial considerations and rating.
The variety of areas of life represented in Local Testimony 2021 reveals a society adapting swiftly to change: the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us, dictating guidelines and behavioral patterns which not long ago we had trouble believing would become acceptable; the COVID images that only last year were exciting breaking news items, became documentations of daily routine.
The year’s most central and significant event was the transfer of government. Benjamin Netanyahu’s twelve years in power came to an end following the social protests, many images of which appeared in Local Testimony 2020. At the same time the red lines of violence that were crossed in unprecedented fashion in the Jewish and Arab riots in mixed cities, and the extreme escalation in the tense relations between the two peoples, expose another dimension of explosive adaptation.
Thanks are due to the photographers, who are committed to their mission of documenting and reporting, and to the hard-working jury who selected the photographs appearing in the exhibition from thousands of submissions.
An opportunity for contemplation
Galia Gur Zeev, Curator of Local Testimony 2021
This year, thousands of photos were submitted to the Local Testimony photography contest, now in its 18th year. The judging process is anonymous and consists of several stages, in which the jury members each select their chosen photos. At each stage the number of photos is narrowed down, until the final selection of those appearing in the
exhibition. The contest and the exhibition are organized according to categories, with the objective of including a wide range of topics reflecting the events of the past year.
Logging on to the website where the photos are uploaded for the contest is a moving experience. Looking at the photos triggers a process of sorting, cataloging, and checking out the photographers’ techniques and their fresh viewpoints on everyday sights as they attempt to capture a new and original image. As we look at the photos we think about the passion of the photographers who hurry to the location of an event and tell a news story via photography.
For example, in the Photo of the Year Faina and Yitzhak Helmaizer are shown in their home after it sustained damage in a rocket strike on Ashkelon during Operation Guardian of the Walls. The two of them are standing up, side by side, wearing masks. Their restrained presence in the frame, and their facial expressions visible from the edge of the masks and above, tell us about existential dread in the face of the fragility of life.
The exhibition gives us an opportunity for contemplation; to walk back to the events through the photos and to examine them from another, concrete, angle. The photos submitted to the contest by categories unwind in the space and recombine as we think about the subjects pictured in them, the visual connections and routes for circulating
through the exhibition. Local Testimony creates a mental and curatorial process of encounters between the photos and shapes them into an integrated whole.
Circulating through the exhibition space and moving between Local Testimony and the international photography exhibition World Press Photo reveal a topic they have in common: the COVID-19 crisis. The two exhibitions enable us to compare the COVID images from Israel and from abroad – the human gestures, life alongside the pandemic,
and death. The global distribution creates a sensation of shared destiny.
Photo of the year
Polaris Images
NATAN DVIR
Yitzhak (84) and Faina Helmaizer (82) in their home after a rocket strike. Ashkelon was one of the most targeted cities during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
Ashkelon
13 May 2021
Series of the Year
OREN ZIV
for Local Call
Protests at the Evyatar outpost and the nearby Palestinian town Beita.
13 May 2021
Ashkelon
News
1st prize
Series
News
ALEX KOLOMOISKY
Yedioth Ahronoth
After two years that saw four turbulent Knesset election campaigns, the Likud’s 12 years in power under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership came to an end. A government led by Prime Minister Naftali Bennet and Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid was confirmed with a single-vote majority.
Jerusalem
13-14 June 2021
2nd prize
Series
News
AFP
AHMAD GHARABLI
Conflicts erupted in East Jerusalem following the evacuation of Arab residents from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. At the same time riots broke out at the Al Aqsa mosque prior to the Flag March on Jerusalem Day. Subsequently rockets were fired from Gaza and Israel initiated Operation Guardian of the Walls.
Jerusalem
May - June, 2021
3rd prize
Series
News
RINA CASTELNUOVO
Naomi Perlman, a 90-year-old widowed Holocaust survivor who lived in Ashkelon with Soumya Santosh from India, her 32-year-old nurse and caregiver. Their house was struck by a rocket fired from Gaza during Operation Guardian of the Walls. Soumya was killed on the spot. Naomi was rescued from the ruins,
but she was severely injured, and the doctors had to amputate both her legs.
Ashkelon, Shamir Medical Center (Assaf Harofeh)
May - July, 2021
Single
News
REUVEN KASTRO
Walla!
Sa‘id Musa, a resident of Ramla, is dragged from his car and badly beaten by Jewish rioters after he was identified as an Arab. Passers-by attempted to protect him until he was evacuated to hospital with extensive
severe injuries. The incident took place during Operation Guardian of the Walls, which deepened the rift between Arabs and Jews.
Bat Yam promenade
12 May 2021
Single
News
Getty Images
AMIR LEVY
Personal belongings gathered after 45 men and boys were crushed to death and 102 people injured in a bottleneck at the annual Lag Ba‘Omer festivities at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai on Mt. Meron. The Meron disaster was the worst civilian catastrophe in Israel’s history.
Mt. Meron
30 April 2021
Single
News
Oren Ziv
Palestinians, including some who had been evicted from their homes and some threatened by eviction, sit down together to the Iftar meal that breaks the daily fast during Ramadan, facing the settlers now living in the homes of those evicted.
Sheikh Jarrah, East Jerusalem
7 May 2021
Society and Community
1st prize
Series
Society and community
MEGED GOZANI
74 residents were left homeless after one of the IDF’s most extensive demolition operations. Residential tents, cisterns, toilets, and barns for livestock were totally destroyed. The community has been living on the site for decades and has suffered from repeated eviction operations since the area was declared a firing zone and they were classified as illegal squatters.
Khirbet Humsa, Jordan Valley
6 November 2020
Religion and Faith
Single
Religion and faith
MUKI SCHWARTZ
Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day ceremony at the Armenian Church of St. James. After Joe Biden became the first US president to recognize the Armenian Genocide, representatives of the Armenian community in Israel called for a corresponding recognition on the part of the Israeli government.
Old City of Jerusalem
24 April 2021
Nature and Environment
2nd prize
Single
Nature and environment
Oren Ziv
for Local Call
The body of an adult whale, around 17 meters long and weighing 25 tons, washed up on the beach. Although
an autopsy revealed substances originating from oil pollution, it is impossible to determine conclusively
whether the whale’s death was caused by the oil-spill which had recently occurred in our region, causing an environmental disaster.
Nitzanim Beach
Nitzanim Beach
3rd prize
Single
Nature and environment
ANNA REZNIKOV
In mid-February 2021 flotsam and jetsam consisting of tar from a crude oil spill were washed up on beaches
in Israel, causing an environmental disaster. The restoration and cleaning operations lasted several weeks. In the picture, sacks full of tar gathered by volunteer helpers.
Neve Yam beach
20 March 2021
Single
Nature and environment
Kobi Wolf
for The Washington Post
Palestinian children cavorting in the flowing water at Ein Ujja, which is also used for watering their flocks and
orchards. Supplying water to Israeli settlements has caused the springs to dry up earlier year by year.
Ein Ujja, Jordan Valley
9 September 2020
Sport
Single
sport
NIMROD GLUCKMAN
Hapoel Haifa’s Premier League home game against Beitar Jerusalem was the first match refereed by Israel’s first transgender soccer referee Sapir Berman after she announced that she was in the process of gender transition. In the picture, Beitar Jerusalem captain Idan Vered is taking a close look at Berman’s varnished nails.
Sammy Ofer Stadium, Haifa
3 May 2021
DEMOCRACY PRIZE, “SHOMRIM” - THE CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY
Urbanism and Culture
Single
Urbanism and culture
ANAT OFRI
The COVID-19 lockdowns burst the dreams of many business owners. Many cities were left with moribund
cavities and weeping voids, like a mouth with teeth falling out one by one; each one the remains of what
was once someone’s life work.
Tel Aviv
August 2020 - February 2021
Long Exposure
Video
CLAUDIO STEINBERG
The Dream.
The filmmaker’s struggles with his identity as man and father as reflected in a dream he dreamed after both his sons came out of the closet.
Tel Aviv
2021
Editor: Shlomo Hazan
Producer: David Fisher
Produced with support from the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts - Cinema Project
VARDENA (DENA) SIMONYAN
Table for Five.
Thirty years of relationships, little loves, disappointments, generation gaps and cultural differences. Aliya, the life left behind, humor, vodka, dinners, little dreams and little passions.
Ashdod, Israel, and Kiev, Ukraine
January 2021
Supervisors: Nir Evron and Daniel Meir
Project produced within the Department of Photography, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
RONI BAHIR
Suplex.
Second-generation immigrant youths from the former Soviet Union, training at the Greco-Roman wrestling club in Lod. A subtle tension is present between the trainees’ daily existence and a wrestler’s physical, spatial, and self-image requirements.
Lod
May - June 2021
Soundtrack editing and color: Yuval Katz
Project produced within the Department of Visual Communications, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem
CHEN LEOPOLD
Inauguration of the Government.
Large crowds gathered outside the Knesset building on the day of the vote on the replacement of the government. The anxious looks following the live broadcast from the plenum and the prevailing tension at the scene recalled the crowds listening to the historic UN vote on the partition plan of November 29th, 1947. At the end of the suspenseful vote, with its succession of surprises, after a year full of demonstrations, the time for happiness and celebration finally arrived.
Jerusalem
June 2021
YOCHAI SHALOM HADAD
The Water Mark.
Two incidents that attracted the filmmaker’s attention are documented by a camera drone: a truck belonging to Temple Mount activists stuck in a sinkhole while gathering stones with which to build an altar on the Temple Mount for the Passover sacrifice, and a Palestinian workers’ shed that caught fire.
North of the Dead Sea
April 2020
Editor: Yoni Zetz
Narration editor:Guy Biran
Soundtrack editor: Rotem Dror
Art director: Noit Geva
Production with support from the New Foundation for Cinema and Television as part of the Moments in Isolation project
CREATION PRIZE, SHOMRIM - THE CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY




















































































