"The Burning” (2020)
(In memory of the Dawabsheh family)
100x150cm Burned Baby Coat & Hairpin table legs (Henry P. Glass, USA, 1942),
Wooden cube in a metal frame, paint spray,fire.
The work refers to the Duma village arson attack (2015) in which the Dawabsheh family, including 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, was burned alive in a firebomb attack by Jewish settlers. On 3rd January 2016, 21-year-old Jewish settler Amiram Ben-Uliel along with a Jewish minor was indicted for the murder. Along with two others, they were also both charged on one count of membership to a terrorist organization.
In 2020, Ben-Uliel was convicted of three counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, three counts of arson and of conspiracy to commit a racially motivated crime, as part of a "terrorist act". However, he was acquitted of being a member of a terror organization. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. After the verdict a group of two dozen Israeli rabbis from across the religious Zionist spectrum issued a statement in support of Amiram Ben Uliel, claiming that his confession was extracted via enhanced interrogation techniques and that it was therefore legally inadmissible. Several of the signatories are state employees.
The work’s title was taken from the graffiti that was sprayed on the Dawabsheh family house during the attack. The slogan is related to the Chabad movement - the biggest Orthodox Jewish Hasidic movement which consists of Zionist and non-Zionist supporters. he modern design of the hairpin legs as the base for the work implicitly comments on the modern roots of the Zionist project and its mixing of religious and messianic Jewish elements from its early beginnings until today.