There are more beautiful women than her, but none as beautiful as her.

These words, from Alterman's poem, "I Swear My Eyes," describe the State of Israel through my eyes, the eyes of someone who loves to travel, to photograph, to feel.

The military parade

I was born on 106 Iyar XNUMX, just before the bat mitzvah celebrations for the young state. To a certain extent, I feel that Independence Day is my holiday. That year, the military parade took place in Haifa and the "Tanin" submarine was displayed for the first time, the air show included Vutor and Super Mister aircraft, a luxury made in France. The infantry forces boasted of XNUMX mm recoilless rifles (TRG) mounted on jeeps, and anti-tank missile batteries were also displayed for the first time. The army in all its glory.

A land of contrasts

Quite a few years have passed, the country that was established as a home for the Jewish people after the great trauma of the Holocaust has moved from trauma to trauma, from Yom Kippur to October 7th, through quite a few crises alongside great successes in all areas of life. I don't know if there is another place on Earth that contains so many contrasts in a small, dense, dusty space, that dresses itself in a dress of concrete and mortar and fences itself off to suffocate, and yet loves this country.

A trauma that lasted 50 years

I understand that we are in a process where the trauma of the Yom Kippur War, which lasted fifty years, is being replaced by the trauma of the October 7th. In the background, the trauma of the Holocaust, which replaced smaller traumas – the pogroms and events in the Jewish community and in the Diaspora – is being absorbed into the overall history of the Jewish people. But everything is resurfacing and resurfacing these days, in the sequence of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Remembrance Day and Independence Day. The sequence, which is not easy every year, has become seven times more difficult in the last two years.

I hope it will be possible to overcome the current trauma as well. I want to believe that:

• I have another country.
• It has to be, because it can't be otherwise.
• I have another country.
• A beautiful land with Carmel and Kinneret
• Arbel and Yarkon, Tabor and Kishon
• Negev and Judea, Tzin and Shephelah
• I have another country.
• A sane country, a wonderful country
• A country whose chosen ones understand that they are its servants
• A country whose citizens feel like they are its children
• A land where there are no uplifted people
• A country where equality is a supreme value for everyone
• I have another country.
• Maybe she was elusive.
• Maybe she's hiding.
• But I have the same country.
• It has to be, I can't live otherwise.

My view of Israel

I chose to incorporate my perspective on Israel into this article through images that are not the most beautiful, because as the title says, there are more beautiful than her. The images are also not the best from a technical perspective in order to represent the mythological Sabra figure – the one who does things “right” the first time and does not strive for perfection, the one that is achieved through hard work and grueling training. As mentioned, this is my Israel – the one that has more beautiful than her, but none as beautiful as her.

Beyond the general trauma, some of us, probably most of us, carry personal traumas that are intertwined in one way or another with the difficult life in this complex country. These too are expressed in the images.

Jonathan Geffen once wrote:

I have a wife.
And I have a child.
And my father works at the port.
Going to bed at exactly ten o'clock
Because you don't want to waste electricity

Haifa, Haifa
A city with a bottom
oh oh oh
Haifa, Haifa
A city with a future
oh oh oh
Haifa, Haifa
A real city
oh oh oh

My father also worked at the port, and a few years ago I arrived at the port at sunrise.