Nancy in Jerusalem: Soundscapes of a City

1 Introduction

I began investigating the soundscape of Jerusalem in 2021. I was curious to examine the political implications of the city’s auditory landscape. In doing so, I had to overcome three major obstacles: First, the fluidity and dynamic essence of sound, and how it affects and varies the city’s urban environment. If an area is loud and vibrant at a certain moment, for example, it does not necessarily mean the following moment will have the same intensity. Second, not everyone in Jerusalem has the same access (due to regulations or informal recommendations) to all areas in the city. There are neighbourhoods populated by minority groups, such as the Jewish orthodox neighbourhood “Mea Shearim,” which imply limitations on whomever wishes to pass by it (certain dress and behaviour codes, no car entry on Shabath, etc.). Another example is Temple Mount in the Old City to which non-Muslims have very limited access.^[1] This implies that these rules also limit the number of places where one can experience the soundscape of the city. Third, there is the issue of our perception of place and the subjectivity of listening, as suggested by Jean Luc Nancy.^[2] According to Nancy listening is subjective, and therefore, even if we are both listening to the same sonic event at the same time, we may interpret it differently. Consequently, listeners’ experience of the city’s soundscape may differ depending on their backgrounds (nationality, gender, religion, age, etc.) and level of familiarity with the place (history, politics, etc.). This suggests that Jerusalem has as many soundscapes as there are listeners.

Being a sound artist and a curator, I situated part of my research under the academic umbrella of research creation, which meant that the fieldwork was formulated both through extensive theoretical and philosophical discussion and through artistic knowledge and activity. Inviting a group of Palestinian and Israeli artists to work with me on this project, I was hoping to capture the multiple soundscapes this city offers to its residents, visitors, and passers-by. In this essay, I examine two of the group’s projects: “Listening Walks in Jerusalem,” an online sonic archive open for anyone to listen to and download; and “Scores for Social Acoustics in Jerusalem,” an anthology of suggested listening paths in the city.^[3] I suggest that while the Archive succeeded in capturing a range of sonic experiences of Jerusalem, the Scores anthology may even have gone beyond Nancy’s words by composing a listening experience to the city, providing a tangible method for hearing a sound event in (almost) a similar manner.

2 Jean Luc Nancy and the Subjectivity of Listening

In Listening (2002), Jean Luc Nancy uses the two French verbs entendre (“to hear”) and écouter (“to listen”) to explicate that hearing is to understand the sonic situation immediately; listening, on the other hand, is to strain towards a possible meaning, and consequently one that is not immediately accessible. It follows that the agency of questioning is inherent in listening and is what differentiates it from hearing. This is why for Nancy to be listening is always to be “on the edge of meaning.”^[4] But, he stresses, the one cannot do without the other. We cannot listen to a sonic event without also hearing it (while we can hear without listening). Or as Brian Kane writes, the look-out for meaning is structured by Nancy as a struggle between écouter and entendre, between what we listen to and what we hear (2012). Or to use Nancy’s own words, a struggle between “a sense (that one listens to) and a truth (that one understands).”^[5]

Furthermore, for Nancy, listening is always in “a relation to self.”^[6] To provide further context for the relationship between subjectivity and listening, Nancy adds another French term, renvoi (“referral”), and states that meaning and sound share the space of referral. Meaning refers to a sign, a thing, a quality, a subject, or to itself – all simultaneously – akin to the way sound spreads and resonates in space, where it resounds while still resounding in the listener. This is why, for him, listening is a kind of straining towards or an approach to one’s self. Not “self” as in relation to “me,” or “self of the other,” but rather “the relationship in self…as it forms a ‘self’.”^[7] Or to put it another way, when I hear a sonic event, I listen to the “self” resonant within me in searching for meaning: “to be listening is to be inclined toward the opening of meaning,” he writes.^[8]

Kane notes that Nancy placed écouter at the heart of his interrogation of listening because of his sensitivity to the etymology and implications of entendre – which means listening as intention. Entendre holds the structure of a “Cartesian epistemology,” Kane explains. “[A] subject, possessing the capacity for attention, who wills its direction; and an intentional object towards which this attention is directed, and from which it attains its meaning.”^[9] Kane notes that Nancy is critical of this epistemology and quotes an earlier work by the philosopher, where he interprets the will-to-truth as the production of meaning and the sufficiency of the reasonable and the understandable. Or, as Nancy writes: the subject, as the agent of this will-to-truth, is “capable of presenting the concept and the intuition together, that is, the one through the other.”^[10]

Moreover, Nancy argues that since listening accrues in tandem with the auditory event, it opens up a sonorous space within me. That space is structured as a non-linear present.^[11] And, while I listen to an auditory event (hearing my “self” resonant within me, echoing all that I am from all directions), the sonorous space is manifested in waves, coming and going, passing through or looping inside of me. This also implies that at the same time the sonorous space expands and reshapes the “self” within me, the “self” is manifesting the sonorous space as I listen to the sounds around me. This is why, for Nancy, subjectivity and signification are entwined, as both are formulated one through the other.^[12]

Thus, Nancy views listening as a simultaneous process that occurs both inside and outside the listener’s body. He writes: “To be listening is to be at the same time outside and inside, to be open from without and from within.”^[13] In light of the possibility that listening mindfully would compel me to confront my inner “self,” I propose that Nancy values listening as a means of accessing the “self.” Providing me space for observing what I listen to and what I hear. This is why Nancy’s ontology on listening and subjectivity is central to my auditory investigation of Jerusalem’s soundscape. Because it structures the correlation between the soundscape of the city and the identities of its listeners while forming a method for self-observation, placing my “self” in relation to the sounds of the city.

3 Mapping the Soundscapes of Jerusalem

Following the insight that diverse listeners have different sonic experiences of the city, I decided to compile an archive of listening walks in Jerusalem recorded by multiple listeners. I assumed that a given listener’s background and knowledge of the city might form a different “self” and thus affect their sonic sensibilities of the city. My goal was to gather a collection of audio recordings of listening walks that would provide insight into Jerusalem’s various soundscapes.

For recording the archive I invited a group of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Israeli and Palestinian artists, of a range of ages and genders. Some of the artists live in the city and some visit it regularly for work or prayer. I reached out to artists engaging sound in their practice believing they’ll be more sensitive to the auditory landscape of the city. Together, we created “Listening Walks in Jerusalem,” an online sonic archive open for anyone to listen to and download. This project is still in progress and features listening walks that have been recorded by poets, sound artists, composers, and performers.^[14] Some artists were more accustomed to the city and had their regular routes and paths, while others were new to it and explored it in wonder.

While recording, I asked them to imagine they are taking someone blindfolded on a stroll, showing them the city through sound only. I also instructed them to adhere to these basic guidelines:

1. Use a smartphone to record the sound while walking in the city. We used our smartphones for recording because they lower the background sounds and amplify the sounds near the device. As I was interested in the different experiences we each have of the city, I thought it would make sense to hear the sounds that are closer to whomever is recording. I was wondering if a certain route will sound different if recorded by various artists due to the different sounds that we get closer to – of other people, animals, and events that we feel comfortable getting closer to. This also applies to sounds of people, animals, and events that feel comfortable to come near us.

2. Only sound recording (no video). We did not use video while recording in order to eliminate as much as possible any sense of surveillance. People having personal conversations often passed us and thus were recorded. Without the imagery, these conversations stayed anonymous and couldn’t be traced back to the strangers we met along the way.

3. Each recorded listening walk should be approximately 30 min, non-edited. I was interested to listen to it all. Not just to the “interesting” events that took place along the way. At times “nothing happened” but it was then that the sounds of whomever was recording came to the foreground: their footsteps, their hand rubbing against their coat, and sometimes, their breath. A few times, during their stroll, an artist hid their phone in their pocket, signalling that they felt unsafe or uncomfortable walking with their phone in the open.

4. The path is of your choosing. I asked the artists recording to choose their own paths in order to create an authentic situation as much as possible.

5. Mark your path on a map. We used a fitness app to record the exact route of the listening walks. This made it easier later to specify the exact route the listening walk took place on, in order to listen to it elsewhere.

6. Take pictures of the signage you come across along the way, in any language. Sound can be visual. When I pass by a sign written in languages I’m familiar with, it’s almost impossible for me not to read it. I therefore suggest that while reading it silently in my head, these words add to what Nancy calls the sonorous space within me, which in turn, can reshape my “self.” I was therefore interested to learn which languages are dominant in which areas of the city.

The online archive is open for everyone to listen to, use, and explore.^[15] It provides access to Jerusalem through sound and imagination. Interestingly, it extends an invitation to listeners to experience different sonic experiences of the same place in the city. This was most evident when artists went to record the same area at the same time. As happened on 4 February 2022 at around 16:00, just before Shabbat, when two artists went to record a listening walk in the orthodox neighbourhood, Mea Shearim. As stated in the instructions, both artists independently decided to record in the area for different reasons. The result is two very different recordings, capturing totally different soundtracks. This is the result of the path each artist chose to walk in, the way they held their phone, the sounds of the people who they came close to, and the sounds that captured their attention, making them stay longer in a certain place.

One of these recording artists is Hannes Lingens, a German musician who recently moved to the city. Being new to Jerusalem, Lingens recorded quite a few listening walks for the archive as part of his exploration of the city. His recording from February 4th is a beautiful soundtrack of the holy city getting prepared for Shabbat. Birds singing, some cars passing by, a few people walking and talking, some laughter, a kid crying from afar. The atmosphere is peaceful. After 28 min, the loud sound of a drone coming from the compressor of a supermarket or corner store takes over, and then, all of a sudden, Hasidic music starts playing from a rooftop of a nearby synagogue. The music seemed to grab the attention of Lingens, who starts walking towards its source. As the Hasidic music gets loaded by proximity, it surrounds and dominates the recorded experience of the neighbourhood. Now, while I am listening to Lingens’ walk, I cannot hear anything else. When the music stops, Lingens and I (as his silent companion) are prompted by that cessation of sound to leave the area, passing by the same compressor drone on our way out of Mea Shearim.

The second artist who recorded a listening walk that same afternoon in Mea Shearim was Holeket ∼ Uri Karin. Holeket is a poet and a drag performer, who asks that we use both male and female pronouns when writing or talking about her. Holeket’s recording starts almost at the beginning with sirens announcing that Shabbat is close, signalling that everyone must hurry and finish their errands. Almost immediately after the distant sound of Hasidic music begins to be heard Holeket decides to place his phone in her pocket, perhaps feeling uncomfortable about walking around with a visible phone. That changed the quality of the sound but also clearly recorded her movement. It also allows Holeket to go deep into the neighbourhood. Many people pass by him: A young child crying, calling for his mother. Then some people talking in Yiddish. At some point, someone approaches the artist and asks if she needs help looking for something or someone. I couldn’t hear Holeket’s answer, so I guess he signalled with a bodily gesture that she was alright. Halfway through the recording, the situation becomes hectic. A man approaches shouting “Shabes, Shabes,” signalling once again that people must hurry and finish their errands before Shabbat. Holeket continues to walk towards the shouting man, as more and more people join in, creating a loud a cappella chorus. “SHABES! SHABES!” The shouting voices are almost threatening. Holeket follows them and the atmosphere becomes intense. It is then that the artist approaches a group of young men and asks in Hebrew if he can ask them something. “It’s not Shabbat yet,” they reply immediately, “you don’t need to worry. Don’t pay attention to this guy, we still have ten more minutes.” Holeket greets them and continues from there, surrounded by sounds of people walking and talking.

Holeket and Lingens recorded two listening walks that demonstrate different sonic experiences of Mea Shearim. The images that the two artists photographed are also very different. Lingens captured signs placed by the municipality of Jerusalem to provide direction in Hebrew, Arabic, and English (Figures 1 and 2). Holeket photographed graffiti in Hebrew stating “a path to Zioninst and dogs,” and “Zionism = Amalek,” along with pashkevilim^[16] stating that one can pass by the neighbourhood only if wearing modest clothing (Figures 3–5). These signs, pashkevilim, and graffiti spread throughout the neighbourhood are only accessible to those who are familiar with the language and context in which they are written. As I indicated before, reading them aloud in my thoughts gives the “sonorous space” inside me a sonic layer of my inner voice that changes and moulds my perception of a place.

Figure 1

Hannes Lingens, “Mea Shearim,” 2022.

Figure 2

Hannes Lingens, “Geula,” 2022.

Figure 3

Holeket ∼ Uri Karin, “Please do not pass by our neighbourhood in immodest clothing,” 2022.

Figure 4

Holeket ∼ Uri Karin, “Zionism = Amalek,” 2022.

Figure 5

Holeket ∼ Uri Karin, “A path for dogs and dam Zionists,” 2022.

Igor R. Reyner stresses that entendre is understood by Nancy as inherently bound to speech (la parole). This means that even when a non-verbal sound is heard, “it will be heard as somewhat deeply linked to speech; hence, always potentially verbal and meaningful.” Or better, “making sense of sound through language.”^[17] The sirens that envelope the neighbourhood at the beginning of Holeket’s recording are an example of non-verbal sounds that makes sense to us through language. You could assume that there is another round of violent combat going on in the area if you are unfamiliar with the Orthodox custom of loudly blaring sirens to indicate that Shabbat is soon upon us. There is almost no way for one to listen to the sirens and hear them as unfamiliar noises. Even if you are a foreigner who is not familiar with the political climate in the area, the loud sirens create a sense of urgency and hazard, which everyone can feel and understand as “alert” resonating in their body.^[18]

In that sense, the Listening Walks in Jerusalem Sonic archive clearly captures the diversity of soundscapes we can hear while listening to the same place at the same time, as Nancy suggests. But as I was examining the archive carefully, I realized that while listening to these listening walks, recorded by different artists, I still hear my “self” within me, resonating in search of meaning. The similarities in our backgrounds might help me hear or understand what the artists meant to record, but this is not the case for everyone, of course. Lack of knowledge and projection of individual presuppositions applies not only to the sirens mentioned before but also to record conversations in languages one doesn’t understand or to deciphering layers of sound one can’t recognize (such as the supermarket compressor).

Following these realizations, I choose to pair the archive with “Scores for Social Acoustics in Jerusalem,” an anthology of listening suggestions which acts as guided listening tours to the city.

4 Scores for Social Acoustics in Jerusalem

In early 2022, I invited a group of artists to compose scores for social acoustics in Jerusalem,^[19] that is, instructions for performative sound and listening walks in the city. I was hoping for scores that would stimulate what Nancy calls the “sonorous space” within me, which in turn can expand and reshape the “self” I listen to. And accordingly, the way I hear Jerusalem.

“Listening” follows the relationalities that sound enables, and “acoustics” comprises the diverse and complex apparatuses that divide the city into different territories of power. The term “social acoustics” was coined by artist Brandon LaBelle (2021) to recognize sonic acts that are usually performed by what sociologist Les Back calls “sociological listening” (2007) – as a way to create a space for the excluded and the marginal, as well as the injured, and those that do not always have a voice. Sociological listening is therefore the construction of social acoustics, due to its ability to manifest alternative arrangements and conditions which may also shape the soundscape.

I envisioned the anthology as taking the form of a booklet of text scores, for anyone living in or visiting the city, composed by Palestinian and Israeli artists and musicians. The anthology takes its reference from Fluxus text scores, which gained popularity between the late 1950s – early 1960s.^[20] Scores for walking while listening or making sounds were used by artists and musicians to expand their practice across territories as a way of intervening in public spaces and the everyday.^[21] Following an intensive work, “Scores for Social Acoustics in Jerusalem” was published by the Van Leer Research Institute.^[22] The majority of the scores include QR codes offering directions to sounds to listen to, videos to watch, or a location on a map of Jerusalem. All of the scores include words to be read and actions to be performed. Some of the scores are only available in English, Arabic, or Hebrew. Others are available in all three languages. The artists chose language(s) according to whom they addressed their score. If it was directed only to a local audience, then Hebrew and/or Arabic were used. If to a wider audience, English.

The anthology includes seventeen scores. One of them is Political Theology: A Voice Piece Following Carl Schmitt (2022) by Ido Govrin, a score focused on deep listening to a specific area in Jerusalem (Figure 6). It includes a QR code that leads to a location in the woods near Ramot, a Jewish neighbourhood in Jerusalem, where Govrin grew up. The ruins of Lifta, a Palestinian village depopulated and destroyed in the 1948 war, can be seen from this location. Since then, the area has been designated as a national park, frequently hosting sages conversing loudly with God. As the title suggests, “Govrin’s score is an invitation to listen to this spot in the woods and hear what Carl Schmitt recognized as “political theology,” the remnant of theology in modern politics (1927). In his writing, Schmitt challenges the notion that modern politics and theology are separate, arguing that the idea of the modern country is founded on secularized theological concepts. In modern politics, he contends, for example, sovereignty is placed outside the rule of law, and under what he calls “state of emergency.” This is a situation that arises as a result of a disastrous event (natural disaster, armed conflict, civil unrest, etc.) in which a government is given authority to enact policies that it would not normally be permitted to enact (in the name of safety and protection of its citizens). Without following Govrin’s instructions, a walk in the woods would limit our auditory perception to the sounds of the animals in the forest, the nearby Ramot neighbourhood, the main road down into the valley, and possibly even the ecstatic cries to God. But Govrin takes us to a specific location in the woods where we can view the ruins of Lifta – a reminder that Israel has been operating under a state of emergency since its inception in 1948, putting the sovereign outside the rule of law in cases involving Palestinian villages and land, such as Lifta.^[23]

Figure 6

Ido Govrin, Political Theology: A Voice Piece Following Carl Schmitt, 2022.

Another example is Manar Zuabi’s Return (Auda): Following Edward Said (2022) (Figure 7). It is a voice piece for a single performer or an ensemble, suggesting a way to influence and interfere with the soundscape of Talbiya. Talbiya was once a Palestinian neighbourhood in the centre of West Jerusalem and is today one of the most upscale Jewish neighbourhoods. The QR code in Zuabi’s score leads to an interview with Edward Said, where he discloses that his family formerly resided in Talbiya along with many other Palestinian families. Following Israel’s establishment, and during the 1948 war, most Palestinian residents fled the neighbourhood, only to discover later that they had lost their properties due to Israel’s Absentee Property Law. Also included in Zuabi’s score is a passage from Said’s memoir, a moment his mother calls him to come home after he spent the entire afternoon playing outside. Following Said’s memory, Zuabi invites us to travel back in time and walk through the theorist’s childhood neighbourhood, shouting loudly “Edwaad,” without sounding the letter R, to imitate Said’s mother calling him and requesting him to return home. Visiting Talbiya without Zuabi’s guidelines might leave the visitor only with an appreciation of the beauty of the large-scale houses in the neighbourhood. However, by following Zuabi’s guidelines for a performative sound intervention, those houses may now appear to be narrating the intricate history of Jerusalem. In addition, through these guidelines, the artist asks us to make space in Jerusalem for Palestinian culture and intelligence. To bring it back home.

Figure 7

Manar Zuabi, Return (Auda): Following Edward Said, 2022.

Two more examples are Nuisance: A piece for a car and Jerusalem (2022) by Eitan Haviv, and From Sheikh Jarrah to Talpiot (2022), by Fadi Murad. Both scores are directed to be performed while riding in a car or on public transportation in the city. Haviv instructs us to drive a car along a certain route while listening to the “Voice of Music,” a classical music radio station (Figure 8). The signal breaks up frequently along Haviv’s proposed route, and one can hear Arab stations from Palestinian neighbourhoods in the city or even from neighbouring cities such as Ramallah. Murad’s sonic tour is for a bus and a light rail on a route from Sheikh Jarrah to Talpiot. Both scores include a QR code leading to a recording the artists made while performing their scores. Haviv’s recording features fragments of radio broadcasts in Hebrew and Arabic, a mesmerizing blend of classical and Arab music, and the sound of a broken signal. Murad recorded his piece while taking a bus and a light rail from Damascus Gate in the Old City, nearby where he lives, to Talpiot, a Jewish neighbourhood on the West side of the city where he studies. Being a young Palestinian man taking public transportation in the city, the recording documents what is part of Murad’s daily routine – a police officer asking to see his “teudat zeot,” a document stating he’s an Israeli citizen, ensuring that he does not come from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (and thus considered an illegal alien if he doesn’t have a special permit that allows him to stay in Israel). The image in the score helps us understand that some of the other male passengers lacked the necessary documents and were escorted by the officer off the bus (Figure 9).

Figure 8

Eitan Haviv, Nuisance: A piece for a car and Jerusalem, 2021.

Figure 9

Fadi Murad, From Sheikh Jarrah to Talpiot, 2021.

Both Murad’s and Haviv’s recordings can also be listened to as contemporary music. Fluid and dissolving, the manipulative quality of music necessitates the inclusion of memory and imagination in the listening process, leading to its ability to “besiege[e], undermin[e] and displace[s]” space. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty writes, listeners to music are “unaware that the floor is trembling beneath their feet, like a ship’s crew buffeted about on the surface of a tempestuous sea.”^[24] Merleau-Ponty explains that this is because music tells us things “over and above” what our senses can ordinarily do.^[25] This is because artworks as a catalyzer for questioning our surroundings by engaging the senses in producing meaning, taking into account Jacques Rancière’s discussion of the “distribution of the sensible” (2004). As Rancière suggests, a meaningful critical dialogue generated within a work of art can convulse our sensory perception of the world. This in turn defines those regimes that permit the entry of the apparent and the heard into the sonorous space within me, expanding and reshaping the “self,” as well as my experience of the city. Thus, by reading the scores as they listen to these recordings, listeners are able to put themselves in the artists’ place and visualize themselves travelling a certain route in Jerusalem, seeing what they saw, and experiencing (nearly) what they felt.

5 Conclusion

Nancy’s ontology of sound, listening, and subjectivity is at the focal point of my study of Jerusalem’s soundscape because it emphasizes the implications of our various identities on our auditory experience of Jerusalem. Intrigued by the challenge of capturing the different soundscapes we have of the city, I invited a group of Israeli and Palestinian sound artists, poets, performers, and musicians to join me and record an online archive of listening walks we performed in Jerusalem. Listening to the archive I can navigate areas I don’t usually go to or even have access to in my imagination. I can hear sounds – of people, religious practices, places – with whom I don’t ordinarily interact. The archive captures the different sonic experiences of different artists in different places and times. Most importantly, it documents moments when artists recorded the same area at the same time but captured a different soundscape due to the path they decided to take, the sounds that attracted their interest and motivated them to come closer to them, the pace of their walking, the way they held their phone, and so on. But there is a crucial point that distinguishes my listening to the recordings from the listening of the artist who heard and recorded them. While listening to a recorded listening walk, I might hear the sounds the artist heard along the path they chose to follow, but that does not mean that I hear what they heard. Or even what they meant to record for others to listen to. This is due to the fact that, as Nancy argued, I will always hear my “self” resonant within me when trying to make sense of the sounds recorded and that will always intervene in my reception of what I hear.^[26]

I therefore decided to accompany the archive with an anthology of listening suggestions, which acts as composed listening tours to the city. Drawing on Rancière’s work, the anthology proposes ways of inducing a new self-awareness and consciousness of the space we occupy and share in Jerusalem. Either as a practice of articulation and space production, or as a method of ignoring, redefining, and reinventing space. Or, to use Nancy’s words, the scores in the anthology stimulate my sonorous space and in turn, expand and reshape my “self,” offering me a new perception of Jerusalem. Thus, while the sonic archive allowed access to different potential soundscapes in Jerusalem, the anthology brought us closer to the possibility of hearing some paths in the city in (almost) the same way.

In the aftermath of this project, I hope that both of the group’s activities demonstrate how listening with awareness has a potential for reorganizing power relations, and thus may be a method or a technique for social change. This is due to the transformative nature of listening, which is inherent in acoustic ontology and is manifested in the ways sound manipulates, disintegrates, and reconfigures space. And while it draws attention, spatial boundaries made fluid by the reach of sound, which, in turn, promises new ways of thinking socially and politically.^[27]

On that note, I wish to conclude with the score that closes the anthology, AlTayeb Ghanayem’s Epilogue, Remnants of a Future (2022). Ghanayem is a Palestinian poet who writes in Arabic and Hebrew. The QR code in his score leads to him reading a poem by him in Hebrew. Here is a translated excerpt:

[…] Hitherto, the piano’s keyboard avoided playing oriental music. My tongue, as sharp as a rusted knife, has cut itself searching for someone to protect her identity after being betrayed by her own guardian. The dream has not come to an end. The dream has disintegrated. The crises have been duplicated. The duplicate was taken. This theft was commemorated. The morale gone low. The only option left is creativity. The option of poetics […]^[28]

Ghanayem wrote his poem in Hebrew, making sure his words were understood fully by Hebrew readers. Reading it in Hebrew silently in my head, I hear my “self” noting that the option of creativity may seem at dark times as the only option left for resistance – and even for existence. Ghanayem wrote this in 2022, and in 2024, when this article was published, dark times have since gotten much darker. But listening to my “self” reflect on Ghanayem’s words, as well as to the works by other Palestinian and Israeli artists in this project, I hear the inevitable future for Jerusalem. Where Israelis and Palestinians live together in peace. What do you hear?