Reclaiming Jerusalem’s no-man’s-land

30.10.2011                      02.Cheschwan. 5772                       Sommerzeit endet

Feature:

Reclaiming Jerusalem's no-man's-land

An art project in the capital this week shines a light on a forgotten shadowland.

Everyone knows that the line drawn in green pencil by Moshe Dayan and Abdullah Tal in 1948 divided Jerusalem in two – the western Israeli part and the eastern Arab part. Now we are being reminded that the line divided the city into three: Israeli, Arab and no-man's-land. A group of artists, most of them Jerusalemites, are planning to revive Jerusalem's no-man's-land this week with a series of works and installations, most of them temporary, under the heading "Visit Nomansland." "We are the tourism office of that space," says one of the project's initiators, Guy Briller.

The Jerusalem no-man's-land was best known between the wars, from 1949 to 1967. Between the lines and blighted with landmines and gunfire from Jordanian Legion snipers, a real no-man's-land developed, where people were afraid to go. This period also gave rise to a number of legends, including that of a nun who dropped her false teeth out of the Notre Dame convent, only retrieving them after United Nations intervention….