June 24, 2026 • 42 mins
Yves frames up the story of the first professional woman Palestinian photographer, Karimeh Abbud.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie Anne Smitha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm welcome to stuff never told your production of iHeartRadio.
And today it is time for another edition of Female First,
which means we are once again joined by the creative,
the curious.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Eves.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome, Eves.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hi, thank you for the introduction.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Those are two of my things that I am very
happy about being so I appreciate those words.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
They are words I associate with you, thank you, and
I think they're great qualities. I love a good curiosity.
That's probably why a.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Lot of us do this work. We got away with it.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
We did.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
We did as always Eves.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We got to check in. How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
What's been going on? Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
I get so stumped every time this question comes up,
because I'm one of those people who forgets somebody asking
what did you do over the weekend, And I'm like.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Nope, no clue, no clue, can't tell you. So I
really shouldn't, like.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Do a little bit more prep when it comes to
the most simplest question of all. But I am doing well.
It is winter here and it's my first winter living
here in Cape Town, and I am really like it's
very chill, it's so mild, so that's actually been pretty nice.
(01:25):
Not a lot of seasonal depression kicking in because there
is like you know, sunlight here and there, and whether
I don't mind going out in So yeah, it's been nice.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
That does sound nice. I know we've discussed this before.
I prefer cooler weather, and I've become the person that
actually like dreads somewhere in it. And then that he
is already already here and it's been here. Samantha and
I were complaining about recording in our closets and how
hot it gets. Yeah, yes, also Samantha is coming from
(02:05):
a new location, a new creepy looking closet my opinion, temporarily.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
But yeah, temporarily.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yes, I've got my phone as my light in here.
If not, I would be even darker. And so all
the shadows on the wall is making any very jumpy?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yes at this point, yes, of course, as always so
for this question that I have for you to you
both today, I was thinking about especially given the morning
we've had, because we've had a lot of technical difficulties
listeners this morning. This has not been going well for us.
(02:42):
I think it would be we've been doing this for
a while, but no, so is there any technology you
look back on that you had a really hard time
adjusting to, or one that you're worried about in the
future you're gonna have really hard time adjusting too, or
one that you missed that got.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Oh that is ooh oh, that is a really good question.
I feel like this could be a whole episode on
his own one because I feel like I'm kind of
a self professed ledite, like there are a lot of
things I could do without. I could and I would
be okay with living without. And I've always been a
person who never jumped on new technology. So when all
(03:24):
the social medias came out, when it came to my Space,
when it came to Facebook, and everybody else was talking
about them, I was always the person they were like,
maybe I've told you this, but just briefly, if I
have for everybody who didn't hear me say it last
time that when I people were like, Eve's get in
on this thing. You gotta do it, and I'm like no,
and they're like get in on this thing, you gotta
(03:44):
do it. I'm like no, and then they're like get
in on this thing, and I'm like fine, dragging my feet,
kicking and screaming a little bit, and then I did
end up hating it. So yeah, I would say that
there was a gaming system like a you plug it
into the TV. I don't remember what it was called,
but there was some sort of man, I don't remember
(04:05):
what it was, but it was some sort of like
gaming platform where you would hook it up to the television.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And I really miss that.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
That is the first thing that comes to mind for
me for technology, So that's something that I wish would
come back. But I think that might just be my
nostalgia and my specific connection to some of the games
that I remember playing on it. And then what I
would want to leave behind is like the Internet entirely.
No no, no, no, that's not true social media.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
No, yeah, I think I agree with you. I feel
like I was always behind because when you grow up
in like LJ, Georgia, where you were renting VCRs in
the eighties, and that's where I was at, and that
happened like the weekends only with your yet with your vhs,
so I didn't have that. We didn't get the internet
when I left for college. My home did not have
(04:54):
the Internet at that point because it would not reach
through there. So like being a part of that generation
of seeing how fast things grew, like cable wasn't accessible
growing up, you know, stuff like that. I was definitely
way behind, and with that I was a little hesitant.
Of course, it was nice to not have to bring
it encyclopedia upon encyclopedia and like dictate with my bad handwriting.
(05:18):
So it was nice to be able to go to
the Internet and find things. But let's be honest, I
think our listeners know I'm a little behind now on all.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
The things, and I don't.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
The Internet is like, okay, what is this slash technology?
I was like, I don't know what this does. So
I am that person everything I buy is always like
three or four years behind because I'm a little wary.
But then like I see things like flock cameras and such,
and I'm like, I am anti that type of surveillance.
I have gone on and on about all that, so
(05:49):
we won't go into that dark hole. But like stuff
like that, I really wish it we could go back
when we understood the severity of a surveillance state and
how deeply we would be under that and how quickly
our information would be sold pushed out. All of that
without any kind of oversight. They want to pretend like
there's oversight, but they know way too much about us
(06:11):
not to be conspiratorial, but it's obviously they are. So
I could not say I'm a ludite, but I could
say that, yeah, this has gone way too far, and
I'm this kind of the nineties eighties when we were
first discovering things and it seemed like this is cool
to being like, oh my god, what just happened type
of thing. But yeah, in social media, man, I hate it.
(06:33):
I love hate it.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, what about you? Annie?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I think that when I was pondering this question earlier,
part of the reason I wanted to discuss it is
that often it's kind of a running joke, like you
go visit your your parents and there as a person
who grew up with technology, they have like fifteen, can
you please help me set this up?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Things? Yes? Okay, yes, sure, okay, it's true. It's true.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Every time I go home I have to help my
mom set up the Wi Fi, and I'm like, why
is it different?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Every time? I don't understand this. How did this happen?
I don't I just don't understand.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I was trying to think if for our generation
it'll be different because we did grow up with technology,
or if there's just gonna be things we aren't even
going to be able to adapt to. Either, Like, I
don't know how far that conversation will change, because I
am like I can remember several periods in my life
where it's usually the changing of like I have to
(07:37):
use an iPhone and I've always used an Android or
something are I have to learn Adobe and I've always
used final cut, like the short cuts and all of
that stuff. That does take me really long time. And
sometimes I'll just be like, I know there's a quicker
way to do this, but this long way is the
way I know, And that's just how it is. So
just that I guess it's.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Been on my mind. One day I'll be the person
that can't figure anything.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
It's wild because I was just talking about this exact
topic with someone the other day, just because one thing
that I think is that we are used to the
exponential pace of progress and technology a little bit better
than the generation before us. Generations before us are because
there was like, because we were on that edge of
(08:23):
the internet and that this specific kind of globalized connection
that and just like increase in the pace of technology
progressing that we are more adaptable when it comes to
online related like this really super high tech technology. So
(08:43):
I think that we just might be more adaptable and
that are the way that we struggle with and have
to get used to technology when we're the age of
the people we're helping currently, you know, try to keep
up that we might be a little better at it.
And I don't think I'm just saying that out of
pure hope, because honestly, I don't hope to be great
(09:04):
with it, Like I would be fine not knowing anything
about what's going on. The reality is, though, you know,
sometimes we need these things to like get like how
integral is the phone in someone's life at this point
and useful like it can help us when we have
medical alerts and things like that. So the reality is
(09:25):
we might need that technology as much as I don't
care about being you know ingested into whatever the new
system is at that point.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
That's my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I agree, because I think we at least have a
base foundation, whereas maybe our parents generation doesn't have that.
Oh you go to file and then it will have
these general options on it that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
It's literacy.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It's literacy, and we we had that literacy from the beginning,
whereas just like I'm like, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Started thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
And if you think like it can feel kind of
I want to use the word magic, because there's a lot.
There's a language, there's a body language that is somatic,
like there are things like that that go along with it,
because it's like okay, three fingers, zoom out, you know
what I mean, Like this is scroll up right, yeah,
double click the thing, right click the thing like that,
(10:16):
those gestures, the body language, all those different it's multi
lingual and for some reason, we learned all those languages.
Not for some reason, we did learn all those languages
from a very early age. And I think similar to
a spoken language or a written language, knowing that from
our early age, it's easier to learn multiple languages at
(10:37):
that point in time and that be a part of
the rest of our life versus trying to pick that
up later in life.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yes, well said. And also it doesn't help that it's
not necessarily standardized, Like my personal laptop and my work
laptop have different have those different somatic but you kind
of generally know it's somewhere in this in this area. Well,
one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this
(11:03):
too is because I was thinking back when I used
to do a lot of video. Photography changed all the time.
The cameras who use changed all the time, the ways
you edited those, the photos they changed, that changed too,
Like it, there was just a lot of technical changes
that I had to adjust to you as somebody who
(11:25):
was used to take a picture and you just press
the button, and now I'm adjusting for like light and
like all of this stuff. And so when you get
when you narrow in on the changes within specific industries too,
or specific even just hobbies, and you can see that
and how technology impacts technology changes impacts that. So I
(11:48):
was just thinking about that because I'm very excited. We
always love talking about photography over there, and I know
what we're talking about today.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
I know it's kind of starting to seem like I'm
a little biased. I'm that proy. We are talking about
a photographer today, So yeah, I am excited too quick
aside before we get into our topic today, just because
it pissed me off a little bit thinking about it
when you just reminded me about proprietary cables. That is
(12:17):
one thing I do not miss. I do not miss
having a specific cable for every single other thing. I'm
glad that we have standardized that a little bit. I
just had to get the help of my chest.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Okay, yes today legitimate.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Well, thank you, thank you for validating that. Kids, if
we don't know about that, be grateful.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
If you're too young to know about proprietary cables for
every single little device. And we had a lot of
devices back in the day because we were trying to
all source of stuff. Okay, yeah, be grateful. Add it
to your prayer list.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Okay, you just have a box of like cables.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I had to go through some boxes today to try
to find some cables to do some things, and I
was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yes, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
I could go in for a long time about that
because my mom was a collector of cables. My mom
worked at radio shack back in the day. And so
we still have all those cables, Yes, we do.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
They exist. So if anybody needs one, reach out to you.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Hey, look it were today because I had to have
one of those validated my partner's father in this moment,
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, So there are some pros and cons on both sides.
For the older generation's emperor, they have some things that
they can give us and we have some things that
we can give them. Absolutely lesson learned, all right, I
feel like we need a lesson of the day sonic
logo here, but yes, So on that note, we were
(14:03):
talking about Kareema Aboot today, who was considered the first
professional female photographer in Palestine.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
She may have been.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
The first Arab woman photographer, the first Arab and Palestinian photographer,
but we're going with first professional female photographer in Palestine today.
The point is she was a pioneer in that field,
in that era and that time and in that place.
And there were other women photographers, other Ara photographers, like
(14:33):
the historian of photography Isam Nasaar mentions to other women
photographers in an essay he wrote, call early local photography
in Palestine the legacy of Karama Aboud. And those were
Najla Rod and that was Khalil Rod's niece who she
helped her husband hand color photos that he took. And
then there was also Margo Abdu, who ran her brother's.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Photo studio when he was away.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
So Nasa mentions those two people in his essay but
he said that neither of them owned a studio. Are
practiced on their own the way Kareema did, and we'll
talk about that a little later in her story, the
way her practice looked, but we'll start with where her
life began, which was in Bethlehem on November thirteenth, eighteen
ninety three. She grew up during the end of Ottoman
(15:20):
rule in Palestine and lived some of her younger years
during that transition into British colonial rule. Her family was
from southern Lebanon. They were middle class. Kareema's grandfather was
Salem A Aboud and he studied pharmacy and he later
became a senior pharmacist at the Nazare of English Hospital.
(15:43):
Kareima's mother was a Barbara batter or baider. She was
a teacher and her father was Sayid Aboud and after
her father, Sayid A Boos, after his father died, his
mother sent him to the Seer orphanage in Jerusalem as
a child, and said Kareema's father he was raised in Palestine,
(16:07):
so he was a Protestant minister who was a preacher
from eighteen ninety one to eighteen ninety nine and then
later became a pastor in the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.
And Kareema herself had three brothers, Najeeb, Kareem, and Mansour,
and she had two sisters, Katerina and Lydia. And her
(16:28):
father traveled through Palestinian cities with her as part of
his work when she was a child. Apparently he was
also interested in poetry, like there was. There were already
artistic leanings with the parents too, her sisters, and I
believe she well, one of her sisters played the guitar
and another played the piano, but I believe maybe they
(16:48):
all played the piano. And she was fluent in Arabic,
English and German. And so Kareema went to a mission
school in Bethlehem where her mother was teaching, and so
her parents' generation they might have had more of this
connection to the missionaries because they had a different relationship
(17:08):
with them.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
The times were changing a lot.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
There was this big transition at the time from the
Ottoman rule to the British rule. So there were a
lot of socio political and socioeconomic changes happening at the time.
But Kareema herself had encountered this mindset that some people
had that Arabs were more primitive. There were ideas going
(17:33):
around that people should look at Arabs as if they
were less than that there were some inferior status, and
Karima didn't seem to be aligned with that, and that
sentiment grew under the British mandate.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Later, so Karima and her.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Cousins they went to the Schmidt Girls School in Jerusalem
and eventually Karima was gifted a camera for her birthday
and she began taking photos in nineteen thirteen. She started
by developing and taking pictures of her family, her friends,
the environment around her, and later she went to the
(18:13):
American University of Beirut and she got a degree in
Arabic literature. When she was a student there, she traveled
and she photographed archaeological sites and Karima was among the
first women in Palestine apparently to get a driver's license
and buy a car, and this afforded her access to
be able to go to different places and work in
(18:34):
different places, which was a pretty big deal. That was
very helpful in her career. But anyway, she went back
to Palestine. After studying in Beirut, she started working as
a teacher at the Syrian orphanage in Jerusalem, and just
for a little bit of the context speaking of all
(18:55):
the changes that happened around photography. I mean, the mid
eighteen hundreds, photography started popping off. A lot of the
European photographers were going to Palestine and other places in
the region to take photos of them. They were taking
photos of biblical sites and they were selling these photos
back in Europe or they were selling them to tourists
(19:17):
and to pilgrims, so they were commercially benefiting off of
these sites by going to these places.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
So we've talked about photography before.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
In these episodes of Female First, we know a lot
about the viewpoints and the gazes that can show up
and what it means to be a woman working in
a field that was so often male dominated. It was
no different here in this region at the time. So
you have all these people collapsing in on this place
(19:50):
with all these sites that are so important to so
many different people because they are religious sites, so they
have so much resonance for people in that regard. People
know that and they're going to capitalize off of that.
So these others, these foreigners who were coming in taking
these photos, they were capitalizing off of it. But local
photographers were too. They began taking photos to photography studios
(20:15):
started popping up in in Istanbul, Beirut, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and
all of the people who were creating these photography establishments
were men. So you had people like Khalil rod who
I mentioned earlier at the top of this episode, Garabd Krekorian,
who I think was one of the first people to
(20:36):
open up a photographery studio in the area, the Abdullah
brothers who were Armenian and other people, and those people
were men. And this was the this was the world
that Karima grew up in. She likely grew up seeing photographers,
but they were men. So there were apparently a couple
of photographers who took photos at the Lutheran church that
(20:58):
her father was a pastor at. But even considering all
the very real barriers that were probably known to her,
that were pretty obvious.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I mean, if all the people you're seeing who were carrying.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Or not caring, but who have the cameras, they're not
looking anything around at that time, per se. But all
the people you know who have these big cameras are men.
You know, That's what she was seeing. But she still
decided that that was what she wanted to go into
as a profession, so she started working as a photographer
(21:30):
after World War One around nineteen eighteen, somewhere between there
in nineteen twenty. It's not really clear how she got
into photography, who helped her kind of get into this world,
who taught her the beginnings of photography. She might have
met with Armenian or other Arab photographers who were in
Palestine at the time. But in the early nineteen twenties
(21:53):
she opened her own studio in Bethlehem, and she was
taking pictures largely of women, children, weddings and other ceremonies.
And at the same time she was taking photos of
scenes in places like Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Tiberius. And there
(22:13):
is one quote from the newspaper Al Carmel in nineteen
twenty four, and it said the only local woman photographer
in Palestine, referring to her. She learned this fine art
from a well known photographer and has specialized in work
for women and families with reasonable prices and extra professionalism.
Requests accepted from women who prefer to be photographed in
(22:35):
their own homes any day except Sunday. So that shows
you that she had that specialization with women and with families.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Also, she was doing this too.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
This was a profession for her, so she was it
was clear that there was competition, and all that competition
was men basically, so there had to be a way
for her to stand out amongst that competition.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
So that was prices. That was the types of job
she was doing.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
The professionalism she had that helped, and that probably meant
a lot because her subjects were women, families, and children,
so that was probably important to the people that she
was going to see. And then you had the religious
aspect of it, and I'm sure she needed a day
r rest. She was probably hard work into but no Sundays,
(23:27):
so she was going into people's homes and taking these photos.
She would instead of having people come to her studio,
she would often go to their homes to take their portraits.
She would go sometimes into homes that might be more conservative,
and this would potentially give her a leg up over
(23:49):
any men who wanted to take pictures, so would probably
make the photography the portrait subjects a little bit more comfortable.
She was a woman, they didn't have to leave their house,
you know. She was also self professed professional. Obviously, I
wasn't in the room, but I would take her at
her word.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
So she went to villages and she took photos, and
other people, especially not other women photographers, they weren't going
to these places. She was taking photos of everyday life,
and she didn't have that same gaze that some of
the other foreigners had when they came to take photos there.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
We've spoken before.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
About photographers and what it meant for them to take
photos of everyday life from their perspective. I mean, it
allows the people who have these photos afterwards, who see
these photos later, especially to witness what life was like
at the time, to have insight into what life was
like at the time. There's so much to be learned
(24:55):
from that sort of documentation. And Kareema a who made
that possible. The photos that other people were taking in
the region, could have had that orientalist gaze. There was
the sentiment that these images were showing a land that
would forever be ancient, like never unchanged. It was idealic,
(25:18):
it was simple, you know, the way that people were
interacting with their environment and the animals around that it
was a little bit desolate or barren and uncivilized or
lacked progress in certain ways, and this was the kind
of things that were expressed through the artistic elements of
(25:42):
the photography, the framing, the composition, what subjects were present,
what was in the foreground, what was in the background,
Where was your eye?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Where's your eye drawn when you look at the photo.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
So these are all ideas that run in this undercurrent,
this subtext, in some times, this overt text in these photos.
And this was the landscape of photography that Karreema Boot
was up against. She though, although she did take photos
of historic sites, of biblical sites, she took photos of
(26:15):
places as well that were important to locals, like community
gathering places, and she was she got her printing paper,
she developed the photos in her own dark room. She
used a lot of sidelighting in her portrait photography, and
she advertised herself as a national photographer. And she also
(26:40):
took photos of holy sites and put them on postcards too,
selling them in these souvenir packs to visitors who were
coming on pilgrimages. And she put a stamp on some
of her prints that said Kareema Aboot lady photographer, which
is fun and some were stamped to miss Karima Abud photographer.
(27:04):
Nazareth and then some of her photos were signed in Arabic,
and so yeah, I like the Lady Photographer stamp because
it's like she just had to make sure that people
knew so they wouldn't be confused that this was a
woman who had photographed this, because imagine you're getting a
postcard as it keeps sake or to send to somebody else,
(27:28):
So if somebody misses that context.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
They must know.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
So it's a way of like a person's own self
preservation in the one the way that they want to
preserve their legacy. And I think that that small detail
is just pretty cool. So she even hand painted some
of her prints at it would make some of the
photos that would, let's say, go on the postcards that
at first appeared remarkable, it would make them have a
(27:54):
little bit more of a striking quality, like the colors
are these saturated colors, their vibrant color, and so it
added a different quality to them. And she also handpainted
some of her studio portraits too, But these postcards, I
just personally I love a femera. And she also had
(28:17):
to participate in this commercial endeavor that was selling her postcards.
So obviously when you're selling something of course there's going
to be an element of like having to know who's
on the other side of that, who is the customer
who's buying these and what do I have to do
to sell this to them? What are they looking for
in order to make ap proachase when they come here?
(28:39):
And then what do I need to do? How do
I need to present my work in order to get
that person to buy it? Because in the end, if
you're you know, you're putting things on postcards, that is
a transactional relationship that you have with somebody that comes
through their money. So that's going to affect the art
as well. And this is something that a scholar named
(29:03):
Mary Pelatier or Mary Pelletier talks about how she was
a local photographer working within a colonial structure, which I
do think is something that's important to note just that
was a context that she was working in, and Mary
Pelletier talks about how that is complicated even further because
(29:28):
she was a middle class woman and she had this
like westernized education, and so she had these postcards, but
she was working in a way where a lot of
these postcards, like people came to in a way, sometimes
affirm these ideas that they had about the place that
they were going through, these biblical sites, the types of
(29:50):
people who lived there, the simple lifestyles that they might
have lived that might be the same similar, if not
the same, as what they would have been like in
biblical times. And she likely had this awareness, this self
awareness about that and how she presented her prints in
(30:12):
her postcards. But in nineteen forty one she wrote letters
(30:36):
to her cousins saying that she wanted to make a
printed album of her work. She had multiple studios and
she was able to work out of these different places
like Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem because.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
She had access to the car to get from place
to place.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And she is not clear, but she may have been
involved in the Palestinian struggle against occupation, against the British mandate,
and against Sionist settlement. But she it's not clear whether
she was or where she wasn't, but she must have
at least been aware of it. Her father did organize
(31:15):
gatherings starting in the nineteen thirties to discuss religious and
political topics, and he encouraged Christians to become involved in
the Palestinian struggle against the Zionists, claims to Palestine. So
what her photos did do was provide this insight into
Palestinian life before the Nakba. So like we said, like,
(31:39):
you have these photos that are documentations of people in
specific time, in a specific place, and we got to
see we get to see their fashion, you know what
they were influenced by what they were doing on a
daily basis because of these photos. And they also served
this larger they made a larger point or counterpoint against
(32:06):
the propagandistic Zionist photos that aim to show Palestine as
this like empty place without people, without progress until the
Jewish people brought it along with them. So I think
this is a that is a valuable that's a valuable
way to look at it. However, I must say that
(32:28):
it also touches a nerve for me and knowing that
this is a thing that black people also had to do,
Like you think about how in a way of respectability
or just like punching back against the people who thought
that black people were uncivilized, or that they were uncouth,
that they were dirty. You know, you had all of
(32:50):
these things that people were saying about black people. And
so I'm conflicted about these photos serving as a counterpoint
against photos, because it's like, in a way, it's like
we're feeling in this case me, I'm thinking about black people,
we were feeling like we had to prove our humanity.
(33:10):
And this is kind of how I see this as well,
where it's like, okay, yes, it served as that, you know,
for people who didn't believe that, But it's also kind
of a dark place to be in to think that
anybody has to convince anybody of their humanity and you
have to kind of sell that humanity to outsiders. But
(33:34):
on her personal life, she got married in nineteen thirty
two a Lebanese man and they went to Brazil, but
it was very brief. That's where her only son, Samir
was born. They pretty soon went back to Palestine, but
unfortunately Kareema Bood she died pretty young on April twenty seven,
(33:55):
nineteen forty, and she was buried in the cemetery at
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Many of her photos
were taken by Zionist militias during the Nakpa. Her work
in her biography began gaining more widespread recognition in the
two thousands, and the historian Isam Nasser that I mentioned earlier,
(34:20):
also mentioned her in his book from two thousand and five,
Different Snapshots Early Local Photography in Palestine eighteen fifteen to
nineteen forty eight. And then Amat Morowatt published an article
about her in two thousand and six, and then I
mean after that, there's so many other things that came
out about her work, documentaries about her, there were solo
(34:45):
exhibitions of her work. In twenty eleven, doctormitary Raja, theologian
and pastor in Bethlehem used church document to confirm the
family history and then he published what he found out
and a book that was in the Arabic language that
was called Karma Boo Pioneer female Photographer of Palestine. In
(35:08):
twenty nineteen, poet novelist Ibrahim Noceralla wrote a novel about
her called The Biography of an Eye. And then an
Israeli collector, Bouki bo As sorry if I'm mispronouncing that name,
but has one of the largest one of the largest
collections of her work, and her work has been shared since.
(35:31):
And there have also been scholarly disagreements over the focus
of her work, with some people saying that it was
mostly about landscapes, and sits important to Christianity, and others
saying that it was more so about the daily life
of Palestinians. But this is I feel like, just an
important reminder to consider the author when we were consuming
(35:54):
biographical information. Just a good reminder this for female first,
in general, there's an author who's writing these biographies a
lot of the time.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
And then sometimes these.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Biographies they were written, researched, brought back to the forefront.
All this happened after the person already died. Sometimes it's
not even through conversations that happened with the person directly themselves.
We're also our own unreliable narrators all of these things.
And then obviously there's so much socio political complexity around
(36:28):
the issue of Palestine as well, and will that affects
how people view the artwork. In this case, it's such
documentation of the people in the sites themselves, so versus
something that might be more painted abstraction, where there's a
(36:49):
little less of a touch point, a little bit more
of a remove from the people.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
This is directly dealing with the people.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
In the land and the site, and so that is
evident in the way that people are interpreting her legacy
and the work that she did. But her history certainly
is important and it is fascinating, and I am glad
that she was able to work and share her photos
(37:19):
with everyone and that they still exist, and that they
still exist because with the raids, with destruction, with everything
that's happened since she died, I mean, they could have
been gone, but her family preserved a lot of it,
and then other people had her work, and because of
the ephemerality of the way that her she disseminated her
(37:40):
postcards and it was able to reach so many people.
Then it's postcards and people's collections and postcards that people.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Could buy and all these things. So that is a.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Fortunate outcome of her story. Yes, absolutely, I was very
happy when I was looking into this before we started
recording that there was a lot written about her and
that you could still find her photos, because that's always
really tragic. And we do one of these and it's lost, Yes,
and it could easily have been. Yeah, every time we
(38:13):
do one of these two, I've been like, I needed
to go write my diary, I need to give somebody
some more information.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
But yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I love her story and I love how she seemed
like someone, as you said, she saw that this was
dominated by men photography was and didn't seem to care
and like, on top of that, capitalized on it or
like knew this is a way I can stand out,
this is a good way. She just seemed very aware
(38:45):
of all of the nuances and complexities you laid out
eves of like how to make yourself stand out, how
to make money and how yeah, like having the postcards
with those different stamps. She just seemed very aware of
all of the forces around her and like how to
(39:05):
make her business work.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
The pastor that I mentioned, doctor Mittri Rahebb, wrote an
essay about her, and he talks about her as an entrepreneur,
because that was that's what she was.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
I mean, she was clearly very.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Business minded, because I will, I for one, would be
intimidated by an industry that was so heavily male dominated.
And to be able to make a name for myself,
not only that, open multiple studios, work out of multiple cities,
that seems intimidating to me. So I think that's very admirable.
(39:44):
It's uh aspirational, Yeah, and clearly it resonated.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I mean that's the thing that always gets me is
I'm like, yeah, and you bring in different viewpoints and
they do see, Oh what if we take a photo
in this way and it's different from what people have
seen stands out? So yeah, I'm just very glad that
she found success and that her work has been discussed
(40:12):
and preserved.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Yes, And for the people who can speak Arabic, there's
a wealth of more information that is available to you
that is available to me as a solo English solely
English speaker that I'm sure that y'all if you're interested
in her story and didn't know.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
About it, that y'all should definitely go digging into.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yes. Well, thank you as always Eves for coming on.
We love having you, We love hearing these stories. Where
can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Y'all can go directly to my website which is Eve's
Jeffcoat dot com that is spelled y.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
V ees j E F F C A T dot com.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Or you can go to my Instagram which is not apologizing,
and you can go to my bio there and you
can get to my you can get to my link
to my website from there, and also you can find
me on many other episodes of stuff Mom Never Told
You on female first, talking about women in history and
their accomplishments.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yes, I think we've been doing this since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
We've been doing it.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
For a while, yeah, if not before.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I think we had some before the pandemic and we
kind of took a break, yes, yeah, but then we
came back because that was when we had like our
fiftieth was after the pandemic was over and we can't
come into the office.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
So we've been doing this quite a while. Many we
can't do that right now.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
When you get back, we need to do a cheesecake
and champagne die.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yes. Yes, we do.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Something to look forward to. Well, thank you again, Eve's listeners.
If you would like to contact us that you can.
You can email us at Hello at Stuffhenever Told You
dot com. You can find us a blue sky at
mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Never Told You for awsome on YouTube. We have
some merchandise accomt Bureau, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
(42:12):
to our super producers Channler, Casey and Rima and our
executive producer May App and thanks to you for listening,
Stuff Will Never Told You is production by heart Radio.
For more podcast from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
Hey, this is Annie Anne Smitha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm welcome to stuff never told your production of iHeartRadio.
And today it is time for another edition of Female First,
which means we are once again joined by the creative,
the curious.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Eves.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome, Eves.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hi, thank you for the introduction.
Speaker 4 (00:26):
Those are two of my things that I am very
happy about being so I appreciate those words.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
They are words I associate with you, thank you, and
I think they're great qualities. I love a good curiosity.
That's probably why a.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Lot of us do this work. We got away with it.
Speaker 5 (00:42):
We did.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
We did as always Eves.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
We got to check in. How are you doing?
Speaker 3 (00:48):
What's been going on? Oh my goodness.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
I get so stumped every time this question comes up,
because I'm one of those people who forgets somebody asking
what did you do over the weekend, And I'm like.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Nope, no clue, no clue, can't tell you. So I
really shouldn't, like.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Do a little bit more prep when it comes to
the most simplest question of all. But I am doing well.
It is winter here and it's my first winter living
here in Cape Town, and I am really like it's
very chill, it's so mild, so that's actually been pretty nice.
(01:25):
Not a lot of seasonal depression kicking in because there
is like you know, sunlight here and there, and whether
I don't mind going out in So yeah, it's been nice.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
That does sound nice. I know we've discussed this before.
I prefer cooler weather, and I've become the person that
actually like dreads somewhere in it. And then that he
is already already here and it's been here. Samantha and
I were complaining about recording in our closets and how
hot it gets. Yeah, yes, also Samantha is coming from
(02:05):
a new location, a new creepy looking closet my opinion, temporarily.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
But yeah, temporarily.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yes, I've got my phone as my light in here.
If not, I would be even darker. And so all
the shadows on the wall is making any very jumpy?
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yes at this point, yes, of course, as always so
for this question that I have for you to you
both today, I was thinking about especially given the morning
we've had, because we've had a lot of technical difficulties
listeners this morning. This has not been going well for us.
(02:42):
I think it would be we've been doing this for
a while, but no, so is there any technology you
look back on that you had a really hard time
adjusting to, or one that you're worried about in the
future you're gonna have really hard time adjusting too, or
one that you missed that got.
Speaker 4 (03:01):
Oh that is ooh oh, that is a really good question.
I feel like this could be a whole episode on
his own one because I feel like I'm kind of
a self professed ledite, like there are a lot of
things I could do without. I could and I would
be okay with living without. And I've always been a
person who never jumped on new technology. So when all
(03:24):
the social medias came out, when it came to my Space,
when it came to Facebook, and everybody else was talking
about them, I was always the person they were like,
maybe I've told you this, but just briefly, if I
have for everybody who didn't hear me say it last
time that when I people were like, Eve's get in
on this thing. You gotta do it, and I'm like no,
and they're like get in on this thing, you gotta
(03:44):
do it. I'm like no, and then they're like get
in on this thing, and I'm like fine, dragging my feet,
kicking and screaming a little bit, and then I did
end up hating it. So yeah, I would say that
there was a gaming system like a you plug it
into the TV. I don't remember what it was called,
but there was some sort of man, I don't remember
(04:05):
what it was, but it was some sort of like
gaming platform where you would hook it up to the television.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And I really miss that.
Speaker 4 (04:12):
That is the first thing that comes to mind for
me for technology, So that's something that I wish would
come back. But I think that might just be my
nostalgia and my specific connection to some of the games
that I remember playing on it. And then what I
would want to leave behind is like the Internet entirely.
No no, no, no, that's not true social media.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
No, yeah, I think I agree with you. I feel
like I was always behind because when you grow up
in like LJ, Georgia, where you were renting VCRs in
the eighties, and that's where I was at, and that
happened like the weekends only with your yet with your vhs,
so I didn't have that. We didn't get the internet
when I left for college. My home did not have
(04:54):
the Internet at that point because it would not reach
through there. So like being a part of that generation
of seeing how fast things grew, like cable wasn't accessible
growing up, you know, stuff like that. I was definitely
way behind, and with that I was a little hesitant.
Of course, it was nice to not have to bring
it encyclopedia upon encyclopedia and like dictate with my bad handwriting.
(05:18):
So it was nice to be able to go to
the Internet and find things. But let's be honest, I
think our listeners know I'm a little behind now on all.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
The things, and I don't.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
The Internet is like, okay, what is this slash technology?
I was like, I don't know what this does. So
I am that person everything I buy is always like
three or four years behind because I'm a little wary.
But then like I see things like flock cameras and such,
and I'm like, I am anti that type of surveillance.
I have gone on and on about all that, so
(05:49):
we won't go into that dark hole. But like stuff
like that, I really wish it we could go back
when we understood the severity of a surveillance state and
how deeply we would be under that and how quickly
our information would be sold pushed out. All of that
without any kind of oversight. They want to pretend like
there's oversight, but they know way too much about us
(06:11):
not to be conspiratorial, but it's obviously they are. So
I could not say I'm a ludite, but I could
say that, yeah, this has gone way too far, and
I'm this kind of the nineties eighties when we were
first discovering things and it seemed like this is cool
to being like, oh my god, what just happened type
of thing. But yeah, in social media, man, I hate it.
(06:33):
I love hate it.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, what about you? Annie?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I think that when I was pondering this question earlier,
part of the reason I wanted to discuss it is
that often it's kind of a running joke, like you
go visit your your parents and there as a person
who grew up with technology, they have like fifteen, can
you please help me set this up?
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Things? Yes? Okay, yes, sure, okay, it's true. It's true.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Every time I go home I have to help my
mom set up the Wi Fi, and I'm like, why
is it different?
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Every time? I don't understand this. How did this happen?
I don't I just don't understand.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
So I was trying to think if for our generation
it'll be different because we did grow up with technology,
or if there's just gonna be things we aren't even
going to be able to adapt to. Either, Like, I
don't know how far that conversation will change, because I
am like I can remember several periods in my life
where it's usually the changing of like I have to
(07:37):
use an iPhone and I've always used an Android or
something are I have to learn Adobe and I've always
used final cut, like the short cuts and all of
that stuff. That does take me really long time. And
sometimes I'll just be like, I know there's a quicker
way to do this, but this long way is the
way I know, And that's just how it is. So
just that I guess it's.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
Been on my mind. One day I'll be the person
that can't figure anything.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
It's wild because I was just talking about this exact
topic with someone the other day, just because one thing
that I think is that we are used to the
exponential pace of progress and technology a little bit better
than the generation before us. Generations before us are because
there was like, because we were on that edge of
(08:23):
the internet and that this specific kind of globalized connection
that and just like increase in the pace of technology
progressing that we are more adaptable when it comes to
online related like this really super high tech technology. So
(08:43):
I think that we just might be more adaptable and
that are the way that we struggle with and have
to get used to technology when we're the age of
the people we're helping currently, you know, try to keep
up that we might be a little better at it.
And I don't think I'm just saying that out of
pure hope, because honestly, I don't hope to be great
(09:04):
with it, Like I would be fine not knowing anything
about what's going on. The reality is, though, you know,
sometimes we need these things to like get like how
integral is the phone in someone's life at this point
and useful like it can help us when we have
medical alerts and things like that. So the reality is
(09:25):
we might need that technology as much as I don't
care about being you know ingested into whatever the new
system is at that point.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
That's my thoughts.
Speaker 2 (09:34):
I agree, because I think we at least have a
base foundation, whereas maybe our parents generation doesn't have that.
Oh you go to file and then it will have
these general options on it that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
It's literacy.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
It's literacy, and we we had that literacy from the beginning,
whereas just like I'm like, oh yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Started thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
And if you think like it can feel kind of
I want to use the word magic, because there's a lot.
There's a language, there's a body language that is somatic,
like there are things like that that go along with it,
because it's like okay, three fingers, zoom out, you know
what I mean, Like this is scroll up right, yeah,
double click the thing, right click the thing like that,
(10:16):
those gestures, the body language, all those different it's multi
lingual and for some reason, we learned all those languages.
Not for some reason, we did learn all those languages
from a very early age. And I think similar to
a spoken language or a written language, knowing that from
our early age, it's easier to learn multiple languages at
(10:37):
that point in time and that be a part of
the rest of our life versus trying to pick that
up later in life.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yes, well said. And also it doesn't help that it's
not necessarily standardized, Like my personal laptop and my work
laptop have different have those different somatic but you kind
of generally know it's somewhere in this in this area. Well,
one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this
(11:03):
too is because I was thinking back when I used
to do a lot of video. Photography changed all the time.
The cameras who use changed all the time, the ways
you edited those, the photos they changed, that changed too,
Like it, there was just a lot of technical changes
that I had to adjust to you as somebody who
(11:25):
was used to take a picture and you just press
the button, and now I'm adjusting for like light and
like all of this stuff. And so when you get
when you narrow in on the changes within specific industries too,
or specific even just hobbies, and you can see that
and how technology impacts technology changes impacts that. So I
(11:48):
was just thinking about that because I'm very excited. We
always love talking about photography over there, and I know
what we're talking about today.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
I know it's kind of starting to seem like I'm
a little biased. I'm that proy. We are talking about
a photographer today, So yeah, I am excited too quick
aside before we get into our topic today, just because
it pissed me off a little bit thinking about it
when you just reminded me about proprietary cables. That is
(12:17):
one thing I do not miss. I do not miss
having a specific cable for every single other thing. I'm
glad that we have standardized that a little bit. I
just had to get the help of my chest.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Okay, yes today legitimate.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
Well, thank you, thank you for validating that. Kids, if
we don't know about that, be grateful.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
If you're too young to know about proprietary cables for
every single little device. And we had a lot of
devices back in the day because we were trying to
all source of stuff. Okay, yeah, be grateful. Add it
to your prayer list.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Okay, you just have a box of like cables.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I had to go through some boxes today to try
to find some cables to do some things, and I
was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yes, oh my god.
Speaker 4 (13:00):
I could go in for a long time about that
because my mom was a collector of cables. My mom
worked at radio shack back in the day. And so
we still have all those cables, Yes, we do.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
They exist. So if anybody needs one, reach out to you.
Speaker 5 (13:13):
Hey, look it were today because I had to have
one of those validated my partner's father in this moment,
So that's great.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
Yeah, So there are some pros and cons on both sides.
For the older generation's emperor, they have some things that
they can give us and we have some things that
we can give them. Absolutely lesson learned, all right, I
feel like we need a lesson of the day sonic
logo here, but yes, So on that note, we were
(14:03):
talking about Kareema Aboot today, who was considered the first
professional female photographer in Palestine.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
She may have been.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
The first Arab woman photographer, the first Arab and Palestinian photographer,
but we're going with first professional female photographer in Palestine today.
The point is she was a pioneer in that field,
in that era and that time and in that place.
And there were other women photographers, other Ara photographers, like
(14:33):
the historian of photography Isam Nasaar mentions to other women
photographers in an essay he wrote, call early local photography
in Palestine the legacy of Karama Aboud. And those were
Najla Rod and that was Khalil Rod's niece who she
helped her husband hand color photos that he took. And
then there was also Margo Abdu, who ran her brother's.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Photo studio when he was away.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
So Nasa mentions those two people in his essay but
he said that neither of them owned a studio. Are
practiced on their own the way Kareema did, and we'll
talk about that a little later in her story, the
way her practice looked, but we'll start with where her
life began, which was in Bethlehem on November thirteenth, eighteen
ninety three. She grew up during the end of Ottoman
(15:20):
rule in Palestine and lived some of her younger years
during that transition into British colonial rule. Her family was
from southern Lebanon. They were middle class. Kareema's grandfather was
Salem A Aboud and he studied pharmacy and he later
became a senior pharmacist at the Nazare of English Hospital.
(15:43):
Kareima's mother was a Barbara batter or baider. She was
a teacher and her father was Sayid Aboud and after
her father, Sayid A Boos, after his father died, his
mother sent him to the Seer orphanage in Jerusalem as
a child, and said Kareema's father he was raised in Palestine,
(16:07):
so he was a Protestant minister who was a preacher
from eighteen ninety one to eighteen ninety nine and then
later became a pastor in the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.
And Kareema herself had three brothers, Najeeb, Kareem, and Mansour,
and she had two sisters, Katerina and Lydia. And her
(16:28):
father traveled through Palestinian cities with her as part of
his work when she was a child. Apparently he was
also interested in poetry, like there was. There were already
artistic leanings with the parents too, her sisters, and I
believe she well, one of her sisters played the guitar
and another played the piano, but I believe maybe they
(16:48):
all played the piano. And she was fluent in Arabic,
English and German. And so Kareema went to a mission
school in Bethlehem where her mother was teaching, and so
her parents' generation they might have had more of this
connection to the missionaries because they had a different relationship
(17:08):
with them.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
The times were changing a lot.
Speaker 4 (17:11):
There was this big transition at the time from the
Ottoman rule to the British rule. So there were a
lot of socio political and socioeconomic changes happening at the time.
But Kareema herself had encountered this mindset that some people
had that Arabs were more primitive. There were ideas going
(17:33):
around that people should look at Arabs as if they
were less than that there were some inferior status, and
Karima didn't seem to be aligned with that, and that
sentiment grew under the British mandate.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Later, so Karima and her.
Speaker 4 (17:52):
Cousins they went to the Schmidt Girls School in Jerusalem
and eventually Karima was gifted a camera for her birthday
and she began taking photos in nineteen thirteen. She started
by developing and taking pictures of her family, her friends,
the environment around her, and later she went to the
(18:13):
American University of Beirut and she got a degree in
Arabic literature. When she was a student there, she traveled
and she photographed archaeological sites and Karima was among the
first women in Palestine apparently to get a driver's license
and buy a car, and this afforded her access to
be able to go to different places and work in
(18:34):
different places, which was a pretty big deal. That was
very helpful in her career. But anyway, she went back
to Palestine. After studying in Beirut, she started working as
a teacher at the Syrian orphanage in Jerusalem, and just
for a little bit of the context speaking of all
(18:55):
the changes that happened around photography. I mean, the mid
eighteen hundreds, photography started popping off. A lot of the
European photographers were going to Palestine and other places in
the region to take photos of them. They were taking
photos of biblical sites and they were selling these photos
back in Europe or they were selling them to tourists
(19:17):
and to pilgrims, so they were commercially benefiting off of
these sites by going to these places.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
So we've talked about photography before.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
In these episodes of Female First, we know a lot
about the viewpoints and the gazes that can show up
and what it means to be a woman working in
a field that was so often male dominated. It was
no different here in this region at the time. So
you have all these people collapsing in on this place
(19:50):
with all these sites that are so important to so
many different people because they are religious sites, so they
have so much resonance for people in that regard. People
know that and they're going to capitalize off of that.
So these others, these foreigners who were coming in taking
these photos, they were capitalizing off of it. But local
photographers were too. They began taking photos to photography studios
(20:15):
started popping up in in Istanbul, Beirut, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and
all of the people who were creating these photography establishments
were men. So you had people like Khalil rod who
I mentioned earlier at the top of this episode, Garabd Krekorian,
who I think was one of the first people to
(20:36):
open up a photographery studio in the area, the Abdullah
brothers who were Armenian and other people, and those people
were men. And this was the this was the world
that Karima grew up in. She likely grew up seeing photographers,
but they were men. So there were apparently a couple
of photographers who took photos at the Lutheran church that
(20:58):
her father was a pastor at. But even considering all
the very real barriers that were probably known to her,
that were pretty obvious.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
I mean, if all the people you're seeing who were carrying.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
Or not caring, but who have the cameras, they're not
looking anything around at that time, per se. But all
the people you know who have these big cameras are men.
You know, That's what she was seeing. But she still
decided that that was what she wanted to go into
as a profession, so she started working as a photographer
(21:30):
after World War One around nineteen eighteen, somewhere between there
in nineteen twenty. It's not really clear how she got
into photography, who helped her kind of get into this world,
who taught her the beginnings of photography. She might have
met with Armenian or other Arab photographers who were in
Palestine at the time. But in the early nineteen twenties
(21:53):
she opened her own studio in Bethlehem, and she was
taking pictures largely of women, children, weddings and other ceremonies.
And at the same time she was taking photos of
scenes in places like Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Tiberius. And there
(22:13):
is one quote from the newspaper Al Carmel in nineteen
twenty four, and it said the only local woman photographer
in Palestine, referring to her. She learned this fine art
from a well known photographer and has specialized in work
for women and families with reasonable prices and extra professionalism.
Requests accepted from women who prefer to be photographed in
(22:35):
their own homes any day except Sunday. So that shows
you that she had that specialization with women and with families.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Also, she was doing this too.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
This was a profession for her, so she was it
was clear that there was competition, and all that competition
was men basically, so there had to be a way
for her to stand out amongst that competition.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
So that was prices. That was the types of job
she was doing.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
The professionalism she had that helped, and that probably meant
a lot because her subjects were women, families, and children,
so that was probably important to the people that she
was going to see. And then you had the religious
aspect of it, and I'm sure she needed a day
r rest. She was probably hard work into but no Sundays,
(23:27):
so she was going into people's homes and taking these photos.
She would instead of having people come to her studio,
she would often go to their homes to take their portraits.
She would go sometimes into homes that might be more conservative,
and this would potentially give her a leg up over
(23:49):
any men who wanted to take pictures, so would probably
make the photography the portrait subjects a little bit more comfortable.
She was a woman, they didn't have to leave their house,
you know. She was also self professed professional. Obviously, I
wasn't in the room, but I would take her at
her word.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:08):
So she went to villages and she took photos, and
other people, especially not other women photographers, they weren't going
to these places. She was taking photos of everyday life,
and she didn't have that same gaze that some of
the other foreigners had when they came to take photos there.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
We've spoken before.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
About photographers and what it meant for them to take
photos of everyday life from their perspective. I mean, it
allows the people who have these photos afterwards, who see
these photos later, especially to witness what life was like
at the time, to have insight into what life was
like at the time. There's so much to be learned
(24:55):
from that sort of documentation. And Kareema a who made
that possible. The photos that other people were taking in
the region, could have had that orientalist gaze. There was
the sentiment that these images were showing a land that
would forever be ancient, like never unchanged. It was idealic,
(25:18):
it was simple, you know, the way that people were
interacting with their environment and the animals around that it
was a little bit desolate or barren and uncivilized or
lacked progress in certain ways, and this was the kind
of things that were expressed through the artistic elements of
(25:42):
the photography, the framing, the composition, what subjects were present,
what was in the foreground, what was in the background,
Where was your eye?
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Where's your eye drawn when you look at the photo.
Speaker 4 (25:55):
So these are all ideas that run in this undercurrent,
this subtext, in some times, this overt text in these photos.
And this was the landscape of photography that Karreema Boot
was up against. She though, although she did take photos
of historic sites, of biblical sites, she took photos of
(26:15):
places as well that were important to locals, like community
gathering places, and she was she got her printing paper,
she developed the photos in her own dark room. She
used a lot of sidelighting in her portrait photography, and
she advertised herself as a national photographer. And she also
(26:40):
took photos of holy sites and put them on postcards too,
selling them in these souvenir packs to visitors who were
coming on pilgrimages. And she put a stamp on some
of her prints that said Kareema Aboot lady photographer, which
is fun and some were stamped to miss Karima Abud photographer.
(27:04):
Nazareth and then some of her photos were signed in Arabic,
and so yeah, I like the Lady Photographer stamp because
it's like she just had to make sure that people
knew so they wouldn't be confused that this was a
woman who had photographed this, because imagine you're getting a
postcard as it keeps sake or to send to somebody else,
(27:28):
So if somebody misses that context.
Speaker 3 (27:30):
They must know.
Speaker 4 (27:32):
So it's a way of like a person's own self
preservation in the one the way that they want to
preserve their legacy. And I think that that small detail
is just pretty cool. So she even hand painted some
of her prints at it would make some of the
photos that would, let's say, go on the postcards that
at first appeared remarkable, it would make them have a
(27:54):
little bit more of a striking quality, like the colors
are these saturated colors, their vibrant color, and so it
added a different quality to them. And she also handpainted
some of her studio portraits too, But these postcards, I
just personally I love a femera. And she also had
(28:17):
to participate in this commercial endeavor that was selling her postcards.
So obviously when you're selling something of course there's going
to be an element of like having to know who's
on the other side of that, who is the customer
who's buying these and what do I have to do
to sell this to them? What are they looking for
in order to make ap proachase when they come here?
(28:39):
And then what do I need to do? How do
I need to present my work in order to get
that person to buy it? Because in the end, if
you're you know, you're putting things on postcards, that is
a transactional relationship that you have with somebody that comes
through their money. So that's going to affect the art
as well. And this is something that a scholar named
(29:03):
Mary Pelatier or Mary Pelletier talks about how she was
a local photographer working within a colonial structure, which I
do think is something that's important to note just that
was a context that she was working in, and Mary
Pelletier talks about how that is complicated even further because
(29:28):
she was a middle class woman and she had this
like westernized education, and so she had these postcards, but
she was working in a way where a lot of
these postcards, like people came to in a way, sometimes
affirm these ideas that they had about the place that
they were going through, these biblical sites, the types of
(29:50):
people who lived there, the simple lifestyles that they might
have lived that might be the same similar, if not
the same, as what they would have been like in
biblical times. And she likely had this awareness, this self
awareness about that and how she presented her prints in
(30:12):
her postcards. But in nineteen forty one she wrote letters
(30:36):
to her cousins saying that she wanted to make a
printed album of her work. She had multiple studios and
she was able to work out of these different places
like Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem because.
Speaker 3 (30:51):
She had access to the car to get from place
to place.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
And she is not clear, but she may have been
involved in the Palestinian struggle against occupation, against the British mandate,
and against Sionist settlement. But she it's not clear whether
she was or where she wasn't, but she must have
at least been aware of it. Her father did organize
(31:15):
gatherings starting in the nineteen thirties to discuss religious and
political topics, and he encouraged Christians to become involved in
the Palestinian struggle against the Zionists, claims to Palestine. So
what her photos did do was provide this insight into
Palestinian life before the Nakba. So like we said, like,
(31:39):
you have these photos that are documentations of people in
specific time, in a specific place, and we got to
see we get to see their fashion, you know what
they were influenced by what they were doing on a
daily basis because of these photos. And they also served
this larger they made a larger point or counterpoint against
(32:06):
the propagandistic Zionist photos that aim to show Palestine as
this like empty place without people, without progress until the
Jewish people brought it along with them. So I think
this is a that is a valuable that's a valuable
way to look at it. However, I must say that
(32:28):
it also touches a nerve for me and knowing that
this is a thing that black people also had to do,
Like you think about how in a way of respectability
or just like punching back against the people who thought
that black people were uncivilized, or that they were uncouth,
that they were dirty. You know, you had all of
(32:50):
these things that people were saying about black people. And
so I'm conflicted about these photos serving as a counterpoint
against photos, because it's like, in a way, it's like
we're feeling in this case me, I'm thinking about black people,
we were feeling like we had to prove our humanity.
(33:10):
And this is kind of how I see this as well,
where it's like, okay, yes, it served as that, you know,
for people who didn't believe that, But it's also kind
of a dark place to be in to think that
anybody has to convince anybody of their humanity and you
have to kind of sell that humanity to outsiders. But
(33:34):
on her personal life, she got married in nineteen thirty
two a Lebanese man and they went to Brazil, but
it was very brief. That's where her only son, Samir
was born. They pretty soon went back to Palestine, but
unfortunately Kareema Bood she died pretty young on April twenty seven,
(33:55):
nineteen forty, and she was buried in the cemetery at
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Many of her photos
were taken by Zionist militias during the Nakpa. Her work
in her biography began gaining more widespread recognition in the
two thousands, and the historian Isam Nasser that I mentioned earlier,
(34:20):
also mentioned her in his book from two thousand and five,
Different Snapshots Early Local Photography in Palestine eighteen fifteen to
nineteen forty eight. And then Amat Morowatt published an article
about her in two thousand and six, and then I
mean after that, there's so many other things that came
out about her work, documentaries about her, there were solo
(34:45):
exhibitions of her work. In twenty eleven, doctormitary Raja, theologian
and pastor in Bethlehem used church document to confirm the
family history and then he published what he found out
and a book that was in the Arabic language that
was called Karma Boo Pioneer female Photographer of Palestine. In
(35:08):
twenty nineteen, poet novelist Ibrahim Noceralla wrote a novel about
her called The Biography of an Eye. And then an
Israeli collector, Bouki bo As sorry if I'm mispronouncing that name,
but has one of the largest one of the largest
collections of her work, and her work has been shared since.
(35:31):
And there have also been scholarly disagreements over the focus
of her work, with some people saying that it was
mostly about landscapes, and sits important to Christianity, and others
saying that it was more so about the daily life
of Palestinians. But this is I feel like, just an
important reminder to consider the author when we were consuming
(35:54):
biographical information. Just a good reminder this for female first,
in general, there's an author who's writing these biographies a
lot of the time.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
And then sometimes these.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Biographies they were written, researched, brought back to the forefront.
All this happened after the person already died. Sometimes it's
not even through conversations that happened with the person directly themselves.
We're also our own unreliable narrators all of these things.
And then obviously there's so much socio political complexity around
(36:28):
the issue of Palestine as well, and will that affects
how people view the artwork. In this case, it's such
documentation of the people in the sites themselves, so versus
something that might be more painted abstraction, where there's a
(36:49):
little less of a touch point, a little bit more
of a remove from the people.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
This is directly dealing with the people.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
In the land and the site, and so that is
evident in the way that people are interpreting her legacy
and the work that she did. But her history certainly
is important and it is fascinating, and I am glad
that she was able to work and share her photos
(37:19):
with everyone and that they still exist, and that they
still exist because with the raids, with destruction, with everything
that's happened since she died, I mean, they could have
been gone, but her family preserved a lot of it,
and then other people had her work, and because of
the ephemerality of the way that her she disseminated her
(37:40):
postcards and it was able to reach so many people.
Then it's postcards and people's collections and postcards that people.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Could buy and all these things. So that is a.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Fortunate outcome of her story. Yes, absolutely, I was very
happy when I was looking into this before we started
recording that there was a lot written about her and
that you could still find her photos, because that's always
really tragic. And we do one of these and it's lost, Yes,
and it could easily have been. Yeah, every time we
(38:13):
do one of these two, I've been like, I needed
to go write my diary, I need to give somebody
some more information.
Speaker 3 (38:21):
But yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
I love her story and I love how she seemed
like someone, as you said, she saw that this was
dominated by men photography was and didn't seem to care
and like, on top of that, capitalized on it or
like knew this is a way I can stand out,
this is a good way. She just seemed very aware
(38:45):
of all of the nuances and complexities you laid out
eves of like how to make yourself stand out, how
to make money and how yeah, like having the postcards
with those different stamps. She just seemed very aware of
all of the forces around her and like how to
(39:05):
make her business work.
Speaker 3 (39:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:08):
The pastor that I mentioned, doctor Mittri Rahebb, wrote an
essay about her, and he talks about her as an entrepreneur,
because that was that's what she was.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
I mean, she was clearly very.
Speaker 4 (39:21):
Business minded, because I will, I for one, would be
intimidated by an industry that was so heavily male dominated.
And to be able to make a name for myself,
not only that, open multiple studios, work out of multiple cities,
that seems intimidating to me. So I think that's very admirable.
(39:44):
It's uh aspirational, Yeah, and clearly it resonated.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I mean that's the thing that always gets me is
I'm like, yeah, and you bring in different viewpoints and
they do see, Oh what if we take a photo
in this way and it's different from what people have
seen stands out? So yeah, I'm just very glad that
she found success and that her work has been discussed
(40:12):
and preserved.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Yes, And for the people who can speak Arabic, there's
a wealth of more information that is available to you
that is available to me as a solo English solely
English speaker that I'm sure that y'all if you're interested
in her story and didn't know.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
About it, that y'all should definitely go digging into.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yes. Well, thank you as always Eves for coming on.
We love having you, We love hearing these stories. Where
can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Y'all can go directly to my website which is Eve's
Jeffcoat dot com that is spelled y.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
V ees j E F F C A T dot com.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Or you can go to my Instagram which is not apologizing,
and you can go to my bio there and you
can get to my you can get to my link
to my website from there, and also you can find
me on many other episodes of stuff Mom Never Told
You on female first, talking about women in history and
their accomplishments.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yes, I think we've been doing this since twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
We've been doing it.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
For a while, yeah, if not before.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
I think we had some before the pandemic and we
kind of took a break, yes, yeah, but then we
came back because that was when we had like our
fiftieth was after the pandemic was over and we can't
come into the office.
Speaker 1 (41:39):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (41:39):
So we've been doing this quite a while. Many we
can't do that right now.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
When you get back, we need to do a cheesecake
and champagne die.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
Yes. Yes, we do.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Something to look forward to. Well, thank you again, Eve's listeners.
If you would like to contact us that you can.
You can email us at Hello at Stuffhenever Told You
dot com. You can find us a blue sky at
mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff
I Never Told You for awsome on YouTube. We have
some merchandise accomt Bureau, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks as always
(42:12):
to our super producers Channler, Casey and Rima and our
executive producer May App and thanks to you for listening,
Stuff Will Never Told You is production by heart Radio.
For more podcast from my heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
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