The Musrara neighborhood is the birthplace of the "Black Panthers" movement. In this exhibition we go back in time to the childhood years of the generation from which this powerful group emerged and started a social protest. Going back to schooldays and the treatment of the establishment, to home and the family, to the street and the games, the heaven and hell of growing up in a no man's land.

The participants are people who grew up or live in Musrara, alongside artists who were asked to create works from the materials collected in the research. The artworks vary from artistic to personal, from being a historical archive to interpreting the stories and documents of the past.

Exhibition opening: 08.12.2011

closing: 16.02.2012

Opening: 20^th March 2014

The Musrara Collection project is an alternative visual archive of Musrara neighborhood. It aims to document the unique diversity, history and the culture of the neighborhood. The project focuses on the period following the establishment of the state - days of massive immigration of newcomers, mainly from North Africa, into the neighborhood, until the70's, with the eruption of social protest, led by the "Black Panthers" movement.

In our process we collect personal stories, testimonies, recordings and photographs, alongside official documents of the period. This confrontation of narratives provides a vibrant portrait of the neighborhood: customs, memories of long journeys, the pains of settling in a new ground, development and maturity in the shade of the political situation and social hardships. The archive does not suffice in collecting and presenting materials, but insists on approaching the archive with an artistic adaptation.

Curator: Avi Dabach  |  Producer: Keren Rosenberg

The exhibition "Childhood in a No Man's Land" was opened on 8.12.2011 in the Social Gallery in Musrara. Dozens of guests arrived to the opening, most of them residents of the neighborhood. The Piyyut Ensemble of the Ben Zvi institute performed, singing piyyutim from the Jewish tradition of Morocco. The exhibition received a lot of attention from the media. In these pages you will find photographs from the opening night and various articles about the exhibition.

The exhibition presented photographs by Eli Even (Abu): "Musrara (Hinanit) Photographs 1974-1979" alongside photographs by Asaf Elbocher: "Second Chance, 2012" Curator: Eyal Ben Dov. Eli Abu grew up in the neighborhood of Musrara and photographed it during the 1970s when he was a graphic design student (1974-79). The photos reflect a personal look on the neighborhood, observing the people of the neighborhood and the children playing in its alleys. It seems to be a simple realistic look at the reality in Jerusalem in the 1970s, but a dark side is exposed here, pointing to hardships, distress and pain. Asaf Elbocher, a young photographer and a Musrara graduate, joined Eli in his search for his "lost" friends and photographed them again with a more contemporary and fresh gaze. Opening: 29.3.12 at 19:00 Closing: 14.5.12

Micha Bar Am in the Social Gallery. An exhibition documenting the Black Panthers from within, from an insider's point of view. The exhibition presented for the first time color prints from the period, including many persons that are no longer with us.These characters tell the historical and personal story of the Black Panthers from the Musrara neighborhood as well as the personal encounter of the photographer who arrived to support this important social protest in the reality of Israel of the 1970s. The exhibition emphasized the story of the Musrara neighborhood, on the borderline, between Jaffa gate and Damascus gate, between the neighborhoods of Mamila, Mea Shearim and Sheik Jarah to the east and Rehavia and cafe Taamon to the west. A symbol of torn Jerusalem, with its gates and fences, like a stitch on a wound that opens up again and again. Micha Bar Am, one of the oldest and most important photographers in Israel, member of the legendary Magnum photography agency, winner of the Israel award for visual arts in the year 2000. He photographed all of the wars of Israel and participated in the establishing events of the Israeli state. Curator: Eyal Ben Dov. The exhibition was part of the MusraraMix #11 festival in May, 2011.

In this gallery talk many Musrara residents in the past and present were brought together. Parole officers, social workers and youth welfare workers who worked in the neighborhood in the 1970s. The meeting took place during the exhibition 'Childhood in a No Man's Land'. In the gallery talk stories were told about teenagers who grew up in the neighborhood, and the social workers who worked with them in the days of the Black Panthers protest. A big part of the meeting revolved around Zadok Lavan (RIP), a devoted social worker who worked in the neighborhood and around Jerusalem