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Cast out of your Tomb,
Jumana Manna
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Blessed shall you be when you arrive and blessed shall you be when you depart
-an ancient rabbinic academy’s inscription
On a hill overlooking the sea in the Ajami neighbourhood of Jaffa lies the Al Kazakhani
graveyard. Dating back to the 19th century Ottoman Empire, the name Kazakhani takes its
origin from the previous usage of the site as a location for the sales of gas (Kaz).
With the exception of a few recent graves belonging to families in the neighbourhood, the
graves belong mostly to ancestors of refugees whose families were exiled in 1948. Due to
corrosion from the sea, and negligent maintenance by local authorities, the names and
forms of the tombstones are no longer recognisable, thus abstracting the symbols of death
and honour into a constant state of deterioration.
The one grave which is in exceptionally good form is that of Ibrahim Abu Lughud who was an
intellectual, political activitist and Palestinian leader born in Jaffa in the British Mandate era.
He left Jaffa on the last evacuation boat in 1948. After a successful academic career in the US,
he returned to the West Bank where he became vice president of Birzeit University. Before his
death in Ramallah in 2001, he had requested to be buried in Jaffa. Despite attempts by the
Israeli authorities to prevent it, he was buried in the Kazakhani cemetery, thus becoming one
of the few Palestinians who have fulfilled the ‘Right of Return’ if only, paradoxically, in death.
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Material : Mixed media ,installation.
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Location : Ramallah.
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Date of work : 2010
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