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Female Firsts: Karimeh Abbud · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie Anne Smitha.
0:07
Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff never told your production of iHeartRadio.
0:15
Speaker 2: And today it is time for another edition of Female First,
0:18
Speaker 2: which means we are once again joined by the creative,
0:21
Speaker 2: the curious.
0:22
Speaker 3: Eves.
0:23
Speaker 2: Welcome, Eves.
0:24
Speaker 3: Hi, thank you for the introduction.
0:26
Speaker 4: Those are two of my things that I am very
0:29
Speaker 4: happy about being so I appreciate those words.
0:31
Speaker 2: They are words I associate with you, thank you, and
0:34
Speaker 2: I think they're great qualities. I love a good curiosity.
0:37
Speaker 2: That's probably why a.
0:38
Speaker 3: Lot of us do this work. We got away with it.
0:42
Speaker 5: We did.
0:43
Speaker 3: We did as always Eves.
0:45
Speaker 2: We got to check in. How are you doing?
0:48
Speaker 3: What's been going on? Oh my goodness.
0:51
Speaker 4: I get so stumped every time this question comes up,
0:53
Speaker 4: because I'm one of those people who forgets somebody asking
0:55
Speaker 4: what did you do over the weekend, And I'm like.
0:57
Speaker 3: Nope, no clue, no clue, can't tell you. So I
1:01
Speaker 3: really shouldn't, like.
1:02
Speaker 4: Do a little bit more prep when it comes to
1:04
Speaker 4: the most simplest question of all. But I am doing well.
1:09
Speaker 4: It is winter here and it's my first winter living
1:14
Speaker 4: here in Cape Town, and I am really like it's
1:19
Speaker 4: very chill, it's so mild, so that's actually been pretty nice.
1:25
Speaker 4: Not a lot of seasonal depression kicking in because there
1:29
Speaker 4: is like you know, sunlight here and there, and whether
1:33
Speaker 4: I don't mind going out in So yeah, it's been nice.
1:38
Speaker 2: That does sound nice. I know we've discussed this before.
1:42
Speaker 2: I prefer cooler weather, and I've become the person that
1:46
Speaker 2: actually like dreads somewhere in it. And then that he
1:50
Speaker 2: is already already here and it's been here. Samantha and
1:54
Speaker 2: I were complaining about recording in our closets and how
1:58
Speaker 2: hot it gets. Yeah, yes, also Samantha is coming from
2:05
Speaker 2: a new location, a new creepy looking closet my opinion, temporarily.
2:10
Speaker 3: But yeah, temporarily.
2:11
Speaker 1: Yes, I've got my phone as my light in here.
2:15
Speaker 1: If not, I would be even darker. And so all
2:18
Speaker 1: the shadows on the wall is making any very jumpy?
2:21
Speaker 2: Yes at this point, yes, of course, as always so
2:28
Speaker 2: for this question that I have for you to you
2:31
Speaker 2: both today, I was thinking about especially given the morning
2:34
Speaker 2: we've had, because we've had a lot of technical difficulties
2:38
Speaker 2: listeners this morning. This has not been going well for us.
2:42
Speaker 2: I think it would be we've been doing this for
2:44
Speaker 2: a while, but no, so is there any technology you
2:48
Speaker 2: look back on that you had a really hard time
2:51
Speaker 2: adjusting to, or one that you're worried about in the
2:54
Speaker 2: future you're gonna have really hard time adjusting too, or
2:58
Speaker 2: one that you missed that got.
3:01
Speaker 4: Oh that is ooh oh, that is a really good question.
3:05
Speaker 4: I feel like this could be a whole episode on
3:07
Speaker 4: his own one because I feel like I'm kind of
3:10
Speaker 4: a self professed ledite, like there are a lot of
3:12
Speaker 4: things I could do without. I could and I would
3:16
Speaker 4: be okay with living without. And I've always been a
3:19
Speaker 4: person who never jumped on new technology. So when all
3:24
Speaker 4: the social medias came out, when it came to my Space,
3:26
Speaker 4: when it came to Facebook, and everybody else was talking
3:28
Speaker 4: about them, I was always the person they were like,
3:31
Speaker 4: maybe I've told you this, but just briefly, if I
3:33
Speaker 4: have for everybody who didn't hear me say it last
3:36
Speaker 4: time that when I people were like, Eve's get in
3:40
Speaker 4: on this thing. You gotta do it, and I'm like no,
3:43
Speaker 4: and they're like get in on this thing, you gotta
3:44
Speaker 4: do it. I'm like no, and then they're like get
3:47
Speaker 4: in on this thing, and I'm like fine, dragging my feet,
3:49
Speaker 4: kicking and screaming a little bit, and then I did
3:51
Speaker 4: end up hating it. So yeah, I would say that
3:55
Speaker 4: there was a gaming system like a you plug it
3:58
Speaker 4: into the TV. I don't remember what it was called,
4:01
Speaker 4: but there was some sort of man, I don't remember
4:05
Speaker 4: what it was, but it was some sort of like
4:07
Speaker 4: gaming platform where you would hook it up to the television.
4:10
Speaker 3: And I really miss that.
4:12
Speaker 4: That is the first thing that comes to mind for
4:14
Speaker 4: me for technology, So that's something that I wish would
4:16
Speaker 4: come back. But I think that might just be my
4:18
Speaker 4: nostalgia and my specific connection to some of the games
4:21
Speaker 4: that I remember playing on it. And then what I
4:24
Speaker 4: would want to leave behind is like the Internet entirely.
4:30
Speaker 4: No no, no, no, that's not true social media.
4:33
Speaker 1: No, yeah, I think I agree with you. I feel
4:35
Speaker 1: like I was always behind because when you grow up
4:37
Speaker 1: in like LJ, Georgia, where you were renting VCRs in
4:41
Speaker 1: the eighties, and that's where I was at, and that
4:43
Speaker 1: happened like the weekends only with your yet with your vhs,
4:48
Speaker 1: so I didn't have that. We didn't get the internet
4:51
Speaker 1: when I left for college. My home did not have
4:54
Speaker 1: the Internet at that point because it would not reach
4:57
Speaker 1: through there. So like being a part of that generation
5:00
Speaker 1: of seeing how fast things grew, like cable wasn't accessible
5:05
Speaker 1: growing up, you know, stuff like that. I was definitely
5:08
Speaker 1: way behind, and with that I was a little hesitant.
5:10
Speaker 1: Of course, it was nice to not have to bring
5:13
Speaker 1: it encyclopedia upon encyclopedia and like dictate with my bad handwriting.
5:18
Speaker 1: So it was nice to be able to go to
5:19
Speaker 1: the Internet and find things. But let's be honest, I
5:22
Speaker 1: think our listeners know I'm a little behind now on all.
5:26
Speaker 3: The things, and I don't.
5:28
Speaker 1: The Internet is like, okay, what is this slash technology?
5:32
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't know what this does. So
5:35
Speaker 1: I am that person everything I buy is always like
5:38
Speaker 1: three or four years behind because I'm a little wary.
5:41
Speaker 1: But then like I see things like flock cameras and such,
5:43
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I am anti that type of surveillance.
5:47
Speaker 1: I have gone on and on about all that, so
5:49
Speaker 1: we won't go into that dark hole. But like stuff
5:51
Speaker 1: like that, I really wish it we could go back
5:53
Speaker 1: when we understood the severity of a surveillance state and
5:58
Speaker 1: how deeply we would be under that and how quickly
6:01
Speaker 1: our information would be sold pushed out. All of that
6:04
Speaker 1: without any kind of oversight. They want to pretend like
6:08
Speaker 1: there's oversight, but they know way too much about us
6:11
Speaker 1: not to be conspiratorial, but it's obviously they are. So
6:14
Speaker 1: I could not say I'm a ludite, but I could
6:18
Speaker 1: say that, yeah, this has gone way too far, and
6:20
Speaker 1: I'm this kind of the nineties eighties when we were
6:23
Speaker 1: first discovering things and it seemed like this is cool
6:26
Speaker 1: to being like, oh my god, what just happened type
6:28
Speaker 1: of thing. But yeah, in social media, man, I hate it.
6:33
Speaker 1: I love hate it.
6:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, what about you? Annie?
6:37
Speaker 2: I think that when I was pondering this question earlier,
6:42
Speaker 2: part of the reason I wanted to discuss it is
6:44
Speaker 2: that often it's kind of a running joke, like you
6:48
Speaker 2: go visit your your parents and there as a person
6:51
Speaker 2: who grew up with technology, they have like fifteen, can
6:55
Speaker 2: you please help me set this up?
6:57
Speaker 3: Things? Yes? Okay, yes, sure, okay, it's true. It's true.
7:03
Speaker 2: Every time I go home I have to help my
7:05
Speaker 2: mom set up the Wi Fi, and I'm like, why
7:06
Speaker 2: is it different?
7:07
Speaker 3: Every time? I don't understand this. How did this happen?
7:11
Speaker 3: I don't I just don't understand.
7:14
Speaker 2: So I was trying to think if for our generation
7:16
Speaker 2: it'll be different because we did grow up with technology,
7:21
Speaker 2: or if there's just gonna be things we aren't even
7:23
Speaker 2: going to be able to adapt to. Either, Like, I
7:26
Speaker 2: don't know how far that conversation will change, because I
7:30
Speaker 2: am like I can remember several periods in my life
7:33
Speaker 2: where it's usually the changing of like I have to
7:37
Speaker 2: use an iPhone and I've always used an Android or
7:39
Speaker 2: something are I have to learn Adobe and I've always
7:43
Speaker 2: used final cut, like the short cuts and all of
7:46
Speaker 2: that stuff. That does take me really long time. And
7:48
Speaker 2: sometimes I'll just be like, I know there's a quicker
7:50
Speaker 2: way to do this, but this long way is the
7:52
Speaker 2: way I know, And that's just how it is. So
7:55
Speaker 2: just that I guess it's.
7:57
Speaker 3: Been on my mind. One day I'll be the person
7:59
Speaker 3: that can't figure anything.
8:02
Speaker 4: It's wild because I was just talking about this exact
8:05
Speaker 4: topic with someone the other day, just because one thing
8:08
Speaker 4: that I think is that we are used to the
8:12
Speaker 4: exponential pace of progress and technology a little bit better
8:16
Speaker 4: than the generation before us. Generations before us are because
8:20
Speaker 4: there was like, because we were on that edge of
8:23
Speaker 4: the internet and that this specific kind of globalized connection
8:29
Speaker 4: that and just like increase in the pace of technology
8:33
Speaker 4: progressing that we are more adaptable when it comes to
8:37
Speaker 4: online related like this really super high tech technology. So
8:43
Speaker 4: I think that we just might be more adaptable and
8:46
Speaker 4: that are the way that we struggle with and have
8:50
Speaker 4: to get used to technology when we're the age of
8:53
Speaker 4: the people we're helping currently, you know, try to keep
8:57
Speaker 4: up that we might be a little better at it.
9:00
Speaker 4: And I don't think I'm just saying that out of
9:01
Speaker 4: pure hope, because honestly, I don't hope to be great
9:04
Speaker 4: with it, Like I would be fine not knowing anything
9:08
Speaker 4: about what's going on. The reality is, though, you know,
9:11
Speaker 4: sometimes we need these things to like get like how
9:15
Speaker 4: integral is the phone in someone's life at this point
9:18
Speaker 4: and useful like it can help us when we have
9:21
Speaker 4: medical alerts and things like that. So the reality is
9:25
Speaker 4: we might need that technology as much as I don't
9:27
Speaker 4: care about being you know ingested into whatever the new
9:31
Speaker 4: system is at that point.
9:33
Speaker 3: That's my thoughts.
9:34
Speaker 2: I agree, because I think we at least have a
9:37
Speaker 2: base foundation, whereas maybe our parents generation doesn't have that.
9:43
Speaker 2: Oh you go to file and then it will have
9:45
Speaker 2: these general options on it that kind of stuff.
9:47
Speaker 3: It's literacy.
9:48
Speaker 4: It's literacy, and we we had that literacy from the beginning,
9:52
Speaker 4: whereas just like I'm like, oh yeah, I.
9:54
Speaker 3: Started thinking about it.
9:55
Speaker 4: And if you think like it can feel kind of
9:58
Speaker 4: I want to use the word magic, because there's a lot.
10:02
Speaker 4: There's a language, there's a body language that is somatic,
10:05
Speaker 4: like there are things like that that go along with it,
10:07
Speaker 4: because it's like okay, three fingers, zoom out, you know
10:10
Speaker 4: what I mean, Like this is scroll up right, yeah,
10:13
Speaker 4: double click the thing, right click the thing like that,
10:16
Speaker 4: those gestures, the body language, all those different it's multi
10:21
Speaker 4: lingual and for some reason, we learned all those languages.
10:24
Speaker 4: Not for some reason, we did learn all those languages
10:27
Speaker 4: from a very early age. And I think similar to
10:30
Speaker 4: a spoken language or a written language, knowing that from
10:34
Speaker 4: our early age, it's easier to learn multiple languages at
10:37
Speaker 4: that point in time and that be a part of
10:40
Speaker 4: the rest of our life versus trying to pick that
10:41
Speaker 4: up later in life.
10:43
Speaker 2: Yes, well said. And also it doesn't help that it's
10:46
Speaker 2: not necessarily standardized, Like my personal laptop and my work
10:51
Speaker 2: laptop have different have those different somatic but you kind
10:55
Speaker 2: of generally know it's somewhere in this in this area. Well,
11:00
Speaker 2: one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this
11:03
Speaker 2: too is because I was thinking back when I used
11:06
Speaker 2: to do a lot of video. Photography changed all the time.
11:10
Speaker 2: The cameras who use changed all the time, the ways
11:13
Speaker 2: you edited those, the photos they changed, that changed too,
11:17
Speaker 2: Like it, there was just a lot of technical changes
11:22
Speaker 2: that I had to adjust to you as somebody who
11:25
Speaker 2: was used to take a picture and you just press
11:28
Speaker 2: the button, and now I'm adjusting for like light and
11:31
Speaker 2: like all of this stuff. And so when you get
11:35
Speaker 2: when you narrow in on the changes within specific industries too,
11:40
Speaker 2: or specific even just hobbies, and you can see that
11:43
Speaker 2: and how technology impacts technology changes impacts that. So I
11:48
Speaker 2: was just thinking about that because I'm very excited. We
11:50
Speaker 2: always love talking about photography over there, and I know
11:54
Speaker 2: what we're talking about today.
11:55
Speaker 4: I know it's kind of starting to seem like I'm
11:58
Speaker 4: a little biased. I'm that proy. We are talking about
12:01
Speaker 4: a photographer today, So yeah, I am excited too quick
12:05
Speaker 4: aside before we get into our topic today, just because
12:10
Speaker 4: it pissed me off a little bit thinking about it
12:13
Speaker 4: when you just reminded me about proprietary cables. That is
12:17
Speaker 4: one thing I do not miss. I do not miss
12:20
Speaker 4: having a specific cable for every single other thing. I'm
12:25
Speaker 4: glad that we have standardized that a little bit. I
12:27
Speaker 4: just had to get the help of my chest.
12:29
Speaker 1: Okay, yes today legitimate.
12:32
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, thank you for validating that. Kids, if
12:36
Speaker 3: we don't know about that, be grateful.
12:38
Speaker 4: If you're too young to know about proprietary cables for
12:41
Speaker 4: every single little device. And we had a lot of
12:44
Speaker 4: devices back in the day because we were trying to
12:45
Speaker 4: all source of stuff. Okay, yeah, be grateful. Add it
12:49
Speaker 4: to your prayer list.
12:51
Speaker 3: Okay, you just have a box of like cables.
12:54
Speaker 1: I had to go through some boxes today to try
12:56
Speaker 1: to find some cables to do some things, and I
12:58
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god.
12:59
Speaker 3: Yes, oh my god.
13:00
Speaker 4: I could go in for a long time about that
13:01
Speaker 4: because my mom was a collector of cables. My mom
13:03
Speaker 4: worked at radio shack back in the day. And so
13:06
Speaker 4: we still have all those cables, Yes, we do.
13:08
Speaker 3: They exist. So if anybody needs one, reach out to you.
13:13
Speaker 5: Hey, look it were today because I had to have
13:16
Speaker 5: one of those validated my partner's father in this moment,
13:24
Speaker 5: So that's great.
13:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, So there are some pros and cons on both sides.
13:28
Speaker 4: For the older generation's emperor, they have some things that
13:31
Speaker 4: they can give us and we have some things that
13:33
Speaker 4: we can give them. Absolutely lesson learned, all right, I
13:37
Speaker 4: feel like we need a lesson of the day sonic
13:41
Speaker 4: logo here, but yes, So on that note, we were
14:03
Speaker 4: talking about Kareema Aboot today, who was considered the first
14:07
Speaker 4: professional female photographer in Palestine.
14:09
Speaker 3: She may have been.
14:10
Speaker 4: The first Arab woman photographer, the first Arab and Palestinian photographer,
14:16
Speaker 4: but we're going with first professional female photographer in Palestine today.
14:21
Speaker 4: The point is she was a pioneer in that field,
14:24
Speaker 4: in that era and that time and in that place.
14:27
Speaker 4: And there were other women photographers, other Ara photographers, like
14:33
Speaker 4: the historian of photography Isam Nasaar mentions to other women
14:38
Speaker 4: photographers in an essay he wrote, call early local photography
14:41
Speaker 4: in Palestine the legacy of Karama Aboud. And those were
14:45
Speaker 4: Najla Rod and that was Khalil Rod's niece who she
14:49
Speaker 4: helped her husband hand color photos that he took. And
14:53
Speaker 4: then there was also Margo Abdu, who ran her brother's.
14:56
Speaker 3: Photo studio when he was away.
14:58
Speaker 4: So Nasa mentions those two people in his essay but
15:02
Speaker 4: he said that neither of them owned a studio. Are
15:04
Speaker 4: practiced on their own the way Kareema did, and we'll
15:06
Speaker 4: talk about that a little later in her story, the
15:09
Speaker 4: way her practice looked, but we'll start with where her
15:12
Speaker 4: life began, which was in Bethlehem on November thirteenth, eighteen
15:17
Speaker 4: ninety three. She grew up during the end of Ottoman
15:20
Speaker 4: rule in Palestine and lived some of her younger years
15:25
Speaker 4: during that transition into British colonial rule. Her family was
15:29
Speaker 4: from southern Lebanon. They were middle class. Kareema's grandfather was
15:34
Speaker 4: Salem A Aboud and he studied pharmacy and he later
15:39
Speaker 4: became a senior pharmacist at the Nazare of English Hospital.
15:43
Speaker 4: Kareima's mother was a Barbara batter or baider. She was
15:49
Speaker 4: a teacher and her father was Sayid Aboud and after
15:54
Speaker 4: her father, Sayid A Boos, after his father died, his
15:58
Speaker 4: mother sent him to the Seer orphanage in Jerusalem as
16:02
Speaker 4: a child, and said Kareema's father he was raised in Palestine,
16:07
Speaker 4: so he was a Protestant minister who was a preacher
16:12
Speaker 4: from eighteen ninety one to eighteen ninety nine and then
16:15
Speaker 4: later became a pastor in the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem.
16:19
Speaker 4: And Kareema herself had three brothers, Najeeb, Kareem, and Mansour,
16:23
Speaker 4: and she had two sisters, Katerina and Lydia. And her
16:28
Speaker 4: father traveled through Palestinian cities with her as part of
16:32
Speaker 4: his work when she was a child. Apparently he was
16:35
Speaker 4: also interested in poetry, like there was. There were already
16:38
Speaker 4: artistic leanings with the parents too, her sisters, and I
16:42
Speaker 4: believe she well, one of her sisters played the guitar
16:45
Speaker 4: and another played the piano, but I believe maybe they
16:48
Speaker 4: all played the piano. And she was fluent in Arabic,
16:52
Speaker 4: English and German. And so Kareema went to a mission
16:57
Speaker 4: school in Bethlehem where her mother was teaching, and so
17:02
Speaker 4: her parents' generation they might have had more of this
17:05
Speaker 4: connection to the missionaries because they had a different relationship
17:08
Speaker 4: with them.
17:09
Speaker 3: The times were changing a lot.
17:11
Speaker 4: There was this big transition at the time from the
17:14
Speaker 4: Ottoman rule to the British rule. So there were a
17:18
Speaker 4: lot of socio political and socioeconomic changes happening at the time.
17:24
Speaker 4: But Kareema herself had encountered this mindset that some people
17:29
Speaker 4: had that Arabs were more primitive. There were ideas going
17:33
Speaker 4: around that people should look at Arabs as if they
17:39
Speaker 4: were less than that there were some inferior status, and
17:43
Speaker 4: Karima didn't seem to be aligned with that, and that
17:48
Speaker 4: sentiment grew under the British mandate.
17:50
Speaker 3: Later, so Karima and her.
17:52
Speaker 4: Cousins they went to the Schmidt Girls School in Jerusalem
17:56
Speaker 4: and eventually Karima was gifted a camera for her birthday
18:00
Speaker 4: and she began taking photos in nineteen thirteen. She started
18:04
Speaker 4: by developing and taking pictures of her family, her friends,
18:09
Speaker 4: the environment around her, and later she went to the
18:13
Speaker 4: American University of Beirut and she got a degree in
18:16
Speaker 4: Arabic literature. When she was a student there, she traveled
18:19
Speaker 4: and she photographed archaeological sites and Karima was among the
18:25
Speaker 4: first women in Palestine apparently to get a driver's license
18:30
Speaker 4: and buy a car, and this afforded her access to
18:33
Speaker 4: be able to go to different places and work in
18:34
Speaker 4: different places, which was a pretty big deal. That was
18:39
Speaker 4: very helpful in her career. But anyway, she went back
18:41
Speaker 4: to Palestine. After studying in Beirut, she started working as
18:46
Speaker 4: a teacher at the Syrian orphanage in Jerusalem, and just
18:52
Speaker 4: for a little bit of the context speaking of all
18:55
Speaker 4: the changes that happened around photography. I mean, the mid
19:00
Speaker 4: eighteen hundreds, photography started popping off. A lot of the
19:03
Speaker 4: European photographers were going to Palestine and other places in
19:07
Speaker 4: the region to take photos of them. They were taking
19:09
Speaker 4: photos of biblical sites and they were selling these photos
19:13
Speaker 4: back in Europe or they were selling them to tourists
19:17
Speaker 4: and to pilgrims, so they were commercially benefiting off of
19:21
Speaker 4: these sites by going to these places.
19:23
Speaker 3: So we've talked about photography before.
19:26
Speaker 4: In these episodes of Female First, we know a lot
19:30
Speaker 4: about the viewpoints and the gazes that can show up
19:34
Speaker 4: and what it means to be a woman working in
19:38
Speaker 4: a field that was so often male dominated. It was
19:42
Speaker 4: no different here in this region at the time. So
19:45
Speaker 4: you have all these people collapsing in on this place
19:50
Speaker 4: with all these sites that are so important to so
19:53
Speaker 4: many different people because they are religious sites, so they
19:56
Speaker 4: have so much resonance for people in that regard. People
20:00
Speaker 4: know that and they're going to capitalize off of that.
20:03
Speaker 4: So these others, these foreigners who were coming in taking
20:07
Speaker 4: these photos, they were capitalizing off of it. But local
20:09
Speaker 4: photographers were too. They began taking photos to photography studios
20:15
Speaker 4: started popping up in in Istanbul, Beirut, Jerusalem, Jaffa, and
20:20
Speaker 4: all of the people who were creating these photography establishments
20:24
Speaker 4: were men. So you had people like Khalil rod who
20:28
Speaker 4: I mentioned earlier at the top of this episode, Garabd Krekorian,
20:33
Speaker 4: who I think was one of the first people to
20:36
Speaker 4: open up a photographery studio in the area, the Abdullah
20:39
Speaker 4: brothers who were Armenian and other people, and those people
20:44
Speaker 4: were men. And this was the this was the world
20:48
Speaker 4: that Karima grew up in. She likely grew up seeing photographers,
20:53
Speaker 4: but they were men. So there were apparently a couple
20:55
Speaker 4: of photographers who took photos at the Lutheran church that
20:58
Speaker 4: her father was a pastor at. But even considering all
21:02
Speaker 4: the very real barriers that were probably known to her,
21:06
Speaker 4: that were pretty obvious.
21:08
Speaker 3: I mean, if all the people you're seeing who were carrying.
21:10
Speaker 4: Or not caring, but who have the cameras, they're not
21:14
Speaker 4: looking anything around at that time, per se. But all
21:17
Speaker 4: the people you know who have these big cameras are men.
21:21
Speaker 4: You know, That's what she was seeing. But she still
21:23
Speaker 4: decided that that was what she wanted to go into
21:26
Speaker 4: as a profession, so she started working as a photographer
21:30
Speaker 4: after World War One around nineteen eighteen, somewhere between there
21:34
Speaker 4: in nineteen twenty. It's not really clear how she got
21:39
Speaker 4: into photography, who helped her kind of get into this world,
21:42
Speaker 4: who taught her the beginnings of photography. She might have
21:45
Speaker 4: met with Armenian or other Arab photographers who were in
21:48
Speaker 4: Palestine at the time. But in the early nineteen twenties
21:53
Speaker 4: she opened her own studio in Bethlehem, and she was
21:57
Speaker 4: taking pictures largely of women, children, weddings and other ceremonies.
22:04
Speaker 4: And at the same time she was taking photos of
22:07
Speaker 4: scenes in places like Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Tiberius. And there
22:13
Speaker 4: is one quote from the newspaper Al Carmel in nineteen
22:16
Speaker 4: twenty four, and it said the only local woman photographer
22:21
Speaker 4: in Palestine, referring to her. She learned this fine art
22:25
Speaker 4: from a well known photographer and has specialized in work
22:28
Speaker 4: for women and families with reasonable prices and extra professionalism.
22:32
Speaker 4: Requests accepted from women who prefer to be photographed in
22:35
Speaker 4: their own homes any day except Sunday. So that shows
22:40
Speaker 4: you that she had that specialization with women and with families.
22:47
Speaker 3: Also, she was doing this too.
22:50
Speaker 4: This was a profession for her, so she was it
22:54
Speaker 4: was clear that there was competition, and all that competition
22:57
Speaker 4: was men basically, so there had to be a way
23:00
Speaker 4: for her to stand out amongst that competition.
23:03
Speaker 3: So that was prices. That was the types of job
23:05
Speaker 3: she was doing.
23:06
Speaker 4: The professionalism she had that helped, and that probably meant
23:09
Speaker 4: a lot because her subjects were women, families, and children,
23:15
Speaker 4: so that was probably important to the people that she
23:17
Speaker 4: was going to see. And then you had the religious
23:20
Speaker 4: aspect of it, and I'm sure she needed a day
23:23
Speaker 4: r rest. She was probably hard work into but no Sundays,
23:27
Speaker 4: so she was going into people's homes and taking these photos.
23:34
Speaker 4: She would instead of having people come to her studio,
23:37
Speaker 4: she would often go to their homes to take their portraits.
23:40
Speaker 4: She would go sometimes into homes that might be more conservative,
23:45
Speaker 4: and this would potentially give her a leg up over
23:49
Speaker 4: any men who wanted to take pictures, so would probably
23:52
Speaker 4: make the photography the portrait subjects a little bit more comfortable.
23:56
Speaker 4: She was a woman, they didn't have to leave their house,
23:59
Speaker 4: you know. She was also self professed professional. Obviously, I
24:04
Speaker 4: wasn't in the room, but I would take her at
24:07
Speaker 4: her word.
24:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
24:08
Speaker 4: So she went to villages and she took photos, and
24:11
Speaker 4: other people, especially not other women photographers, they weren't going
24:17
Speaker 4: to these places. She was taking photos of everyday life,
24:22
Speaker 4: and she didn't have that same gaze that some of
24:24
Speaker 4: the other foreigners had when they came to take photos there.
24:29
Speaker 3: We've spoken before.
24:33
Speaker 4: About photographers and what it meant for them to take
24:35
Speaker 4: photos of everyday life from their perspective. I mean, it
24:40
Speaker 4: allows the people who have these photos afterwards, who see
24:44
Speaker 4: these photos later, especially to witness what life was like
24:48
Speaker 4: at the time, to have insight into what life was
24:51
Speaker 4: like at the time. There's so much to be learned
24:55
Speaker 4: from that sort of documentation. And Kareema a who made
25:00
Speaker 4: that possible. The photos that other people were taking in
25:04
Speaker 4: the region, could have had that orientalist gaze. There was
25:08
Speaker 4: the sentiment that these images were showing a land that
25:12
Speaker 4: would forever be ancient, like never unchanged. It was idealic,
25:18
Speaker 4: it was simple, you know, the way that people were
25:21
Speaker 4: interacting with their environment and the animals around that it
25:25
Speaker 4: was a little bit desolate or barren and uncivilized or
25:29
Speaker 4: lacked progress in certain ways, and this was the kind
25:34
Speaker 4: of things that were expressed through the artistic elements of
25:42
Speaker 4: the photography, the framing, the composition, what subjects were present,
25:48
Speaker 4: what was in the foreground, what was in the background,
25:51
Speaker 4: Where was your eye?
25:52
Speaker 3: Where's your eye drawn when you look at the photo.
25:55
Speaker 4: So these are all ideas that run in this undercurrent,
25:58
Speaker 4: this subtext, in some times, this overt text in these photos.
26:03
Speaker 4: And this was the landscape of photography that Karreema Boot
26:06
Speaker 4: was up against. She though, although she did take photos
26:12
Speaker 4: of historic sites, of biblical sites, she took photos of
26:15
Speaker 4: places as well that were important to locals, like community
26:19
Speaker 4: gathering places, and she was she got her printing paper,
26:24
Speaker 4: she developed the photos in her own dark room. She
26:28
Speaker 4: used a lot of sidelighting in her portrait photography, and
26:33
Speaker 4: she advertised herself as a national photographer. And she also
26:40
Speaker 4: took photos of holy sites and put them on postcards too,
26:44
Speaker 4: selling them in these souvenir packs to visitors who were
26:49
Speaker 4: coming on pilgrimages. And she put a stamp on some
26:55
Speaker 4: of her prints that said Kareema Aboot lady photographer, which
27:00
Speaker 4: is fun and some were stamped to miss Karima Abud photographer.
27:04
Speaker 4: Nazareth and then some of her photos were signed in Arabic,
27:07
Speaker 4: and so yeah, I like the Lady Photographer stamp because
27:12
Speaker 4: it's like she just had to make sure that people
27:15
Speaker 4: knew so they wouldn't be confused that this was a
27:18
Speaker 4: woman who had photographed this, because imagine you're getting a
27:23
Speaker 4: postcard as it keeps sake or to send to somebody else,
27:28
Speaker 4: So if somebody misses that context.
27:30
Speaker 3: They must know.
27:32
Speaker 4: So it's a way of like a person's own self
27:35
Speaker 4: preservation in the one the way that they want to
27:37
Speaker 4: preserve their legacy. And I think that that small detail
27:40
Speaker 4: is just pretty cool. So she even hand painted some
27:44
Speaker 4: of her prints at it would make some of the
27:47
Speaker 4: photos that would, let's say, go on the postcards that
27:51
Speaker 4: at first appeared remarkable, it would make them have a
27:54
Speaker 4: little bit more of a striking quality, like the colors
27:57
Speaker 4: are these saturated colors, their vibrant color, and so it
28:01
Speaker 4: added a different quality to them. And she also handpainted
28:05
Speaker 4: some of her studio portraits too, But these postcards, I
28:12
Speaker 4: just personally I love a femera. And she also had
28:17
Speaker 4: to participate in this commercial endeavor that was selling her postcards.
28:23
Speaker 4: So obviously when you're selling something of course there's going
28:27
Speaker 4: to be an element of like having to know who's
28:29
Speaker 4: on the other side of that, who is the customer
28:31
Speaker 4: who's buying these and what do I have to do
28:34
Speaker 4: to sell this to them? What are they looking for
28:37
Speaker 4: in order to make ap proachase when they come here?
28:39
Speaker 4: And then what do I need to do? How do
28:42
Speaker 4: I need to present my work in order to get
28:44
Speaker 4: that person to buy it? Because in the end, if
28:47
Speaker 4: you're you know, you're putting things on postcards, that is
28:50
Speaker 4: a transactional relationship that you have with somebody that comes
28:54
Speaker 4: through their money. So that's going to affect the art
28:58
Speaker 4: as well. And this is something that a scholar named
29:03
Speaker 4: Mary Pelatier or Mary Pelletier talks about how she was
29:08
Speaker 4: a local photographer working within a colonial structure, which I
29:14
Speaker 4: do think is something that's important to note just that
29:19
Speaker 4: was a context that she was working in, and Mary
29:23
Speaker 4: Pelletier talks about how that is complicated even further because
29:28
Speaker 4: she was a middle class woman and she had this
29:31
Speaker 4: like westernized education, and so she had these postcards, but
29:40
Speaker 4: she was working in a way where a lot of
29:41
Speaker 4: these postcards, like people came to in a way, sometimes
29:45
Speaker 4: affirm these ideas that they had about the place that
29:48
Speaker 4: they were going through, these biblical sites, the types of
29:50
Speaker 4: people who lived there, the simple lifestyles that they might
29:55
Speaker 4: have lived that might be the same similar, if not
29:58
Speaker 4: the same, as what they would have been like in
30:00
Speaker 4: biblical times. And she likely had this awareness, this self
30:07
Speaker 4: awareness about that and how she presented her prints in
30:12
Speaker 4: her postcards. But in nineteen forty one she wrote letters
30:36
Speaker 4: to her cousins saying that she wanted to make a
30:40
Speaker 4: printed album of her work. She had multiple studios and
30:45
Speaker 4: she was able to work out of these different places
30:48
Speaker 4: like Nazareth, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem because.
30:51
Speaker 3: She had access to the car to get from place
30:54
Speaker 3: to place.
30:55
Speaker 4: And she is not clear, but she may have been
31:00
Speaker 4: involved in the Palestinian struggle against occupation, against the British mandate,
31:05
Speaker 4: and against Sionist settlement. But she it's not clear whether
31:10
Speaker 4: she was or where she wasn't, but she must have
31:12
Speaker 4: at least been aware of it. Her father did organize
31:15
Speaker 4: gatherings starting in the nineteen thirties to discuss religious and
31:19
Speaker 4: political topics, and he encouraged Christians to become involved in
31:24
Speaker 4: the Palestinian struggle against the Zionists, claims to Palestine. So
31:30
Speaker 4: what her photos did do was provide this insight into
31:35
Speaker 4: Palestinian life before the Nakba. So like we said, like,
31:39
Speaker 4: you have these photos that are documentations of people in
31:42
Speaker 4: specific time, in a specific place, and we got to
31:46
Speaker 4: see we get to see their fashion, you know what
31:49
Speaker 4: they were influenced by what they were doing on a
31:52
Speaker 4: daily basis because of these photos. And they also served
31:59
Speaker 4: this larger they made a larger point or counterpoint against
32:06
Speaker 4: the propagandistic Zionist photos that aim to show Palestine as
32:10
Speaker 4: this like empty place without people, without progress until the
32:16
Speaker 4: Jewish people brought it along with them. So I think
32:21
Speaker 4: this is a that is a valuable that's a valuable
32:26
Speaker 4: way to look at it. However, I must say that
32:28
Speaker 4: it also touches a nerve for me and knowing that
32:32
Speaker 4: this is a thing that black people also had to do,
32:35
Speaker 4: Like you think about how in a way of respectability
32:40
Speaker 4: or just like punching back against the people who thought
32:43
Speaker 4: that black people were uncivilized, or that they were uncouth,
32:48
Speaker 4: that they were dirty. You know, you had all of
32:50
Speaker 4: these things that people were saying about black people. And
32:54
Speaker 4: so I'm conflicted about these photos serving as a counterpoint
33:00
Speaker 4: against photos, because it's like, in a way, it's like
33:02
Speaker 4: we're feeling in this case me, I'm thinking about black people,
33:06
Speaker 4: we were feeling like we had to prove our humanity.
33:10
Speaker 4: And this is kind of how I see this as well,
33:14
Speaker 4: where it's like, okay, yes, it served as that, you know,
33:18
Speaker 4: for people who didn't believe that, But it's also kind
33:22
Speaker 4: of a dark place to be in to think that
33:26
Speaker 4: anybody has to convince anybody of their humanity and you
33:29
Speaker 4: have to kind of sell that humanity to outsiders. But
33:34
Speaker 4: on her personal life, she got married in nineteen thirty
33:38
Speaker 4: two a Lebanese man and they went to Brazil, but
33:41
Speaker 4: it was very brief. That's where her only son, Samir
33:45
Speaker 4: was born. They pretty soon went back to Palestine, but
33:50
Speaker 4: unfortunately Kareema Bood she died pretty young on April twenty seven,
33:55
Speaker 4: nineteen forty, and she was buried in the cemetery at
34:01
Speaker 4: the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bethlehem. Many of her photos
34:05
Speaker 4: were taken by Zionist militias during the Nakpa. Her work
34:09
Speaker 4: in her biography began gaining more widespread recognition in the
34:14
Speaker 4: two thousands, and the historian Isam Nasser that I mentioned earlier,
34:20
Speaker 4: also mentioned her in his book from two thousand and five,
34:23
Speaker 4: Different Snapshots Early Local Photography in Palestine eighteen fifteen to
34:28
Speaker 4: nineteen forty eight. And then Amat Morowatt published an article
34:32
Speaker 4: about her in two thousand and six, and then I
34:36
Speaker 4: mean after that, there's so many other things that came
34:40
Speaker 4: out about her work, documentaries about her, there were solo
34:45
Speaker 4: exhibitions of her work. In twenty eleven, doctormitary Raja, theologian
34:51
Speaker 4: and pastor in Bethlehem used church document to confirm the
34:56
Speaker 4: family history and then he published what he found out
35:00
Speaker 4: and a book that was in the Arabic language that
35:04
Speaker 4: was called Karma Boo Pioneer female Photographer of Palestine. In
35:08
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen, poet novelist Ibrahim Noceralla wrote a novel about
35:13
Speaker 4: her called The Biography of an Eye. And then an
35:16
Speaker 4: Israeli collector, Bouki bo As sorry if I'm mispronouncing that name,
35:21
Speaker 4: but has one of the largest one of the largest
35:24
Speaker 4: collections of her work, and her work has been shared since.
35:31
Speaker 4: And there have also been scholarly disagreements over the focus
35:34
Speaker 4: of her work, with some people saying that it was
35:38
Speaker 4: mostly about landscapes, and sits important to Christianity, and others
35:42
Speaker 4: saying that it was more so about the daily life
35:46
Speaker 4: of Palestinians. But this is I feel like, just an
35:50
Speaker 4: important reminder to consider the author when we were consuming
35:54
Speaker 4: biographical information. Just a good reminder this for female first,
35:59
Speaker 4: in general, there's an author who's writing these biographies a
36:04
Speaker 4: lot of the time.
36:05
Speaker 3: And then sometimes these.
36:06
Speaker 4: Biographies they were written, researched, brought back to the forefront.
36:12
Speaker 4: All this happened after the person already died. Sometimes it's
36:16
Speaker 4: not even through conversations that happened with the person directly themselves.
36:20
Speaker 4: We're also our own unreliable narrators all of these things.
36:23
Speaker 4: And then obviously there's so much socio political complexity around
36:28
Speaker 4: the issue of Palestine as well, and will that affects
36:34
Speaker 4: how people view the artwork. In this case, it's such
36:40
Speaker 4: documentation of the people in the sites themselves, so versus
36:45
Speaker 4: something that might be more painted abstraction, where there's a
36:49
Speaker 4: little less of a touch point, a little bit more
36:52
Speaker 4: of a remove from the people.
36:55
Speaker 3: This is directly dealing with the people.
36:57
Speaker 4: In the land and the site, and so that is
37:02
Speaker 4: evident in the way that people are interpreting her legacy
37:06
Speaker 4: and the work that she did. But her history certainly
37:10
Speaker 4: is important and it is fascinating, and I am glad
37:14
Speaker 4: that she was able to work and share her photos
37:19
Speaker 4: with everyone and that they still exist, and that they
37:22
Speaker 4: still exist because with the raids, with destruction, with everything
37:28
Speaker 4: that's happened since she died, I mean, they could have
37:31
Speaker 4: been gone, but her family preserved a lot of it,
37:34
Speaker 4: and then other people had her work, and because of
37:37
Speaker 4: the ephemerality of the way that her she disseminated her
37:40
Speaker 4: postcards and it was able to reach so many people.
37:43
Speaker 4: Then it's postcards and people's collections and postcards that people.
37:47
Speaker 3: Could buy and all these things. So that is a.
37:50
Speaker 2: Fortunate outcome of her story. Yes, absolutely, I was very
37:55
Speaker 2: happy when I was looking into this before we started
37:58
Speaker 2: recording that there was a lot written about her and
38:02
Speaker 2: that you could still find her photos, because that's always
38:05
Speaker 2: really tragic. And we do one of these and it's lost, Yes,
38:09
Speaker 2: and it could easily have been. Yeah, every time we
38:13
Speaker 2: do one of these two, I've been like, I needed
38:14
Speaker 2: to go write my diary, I need to give somebody
38:19
Speaker 2: some more information.
38:21
Speaker 3: But yeah, I do.
38:23
Speaker 2: I love her story and I love how she seemed
38:27
Speaker 2: like someone, as you said, she saw that this was
38:31
Speaker 2: dominated by men photography was and didn't seem to care
38:35
Speaker 2: and like, on top of that, capitalized on it or
38:38
Speaker 2: like knew this is a way I can stand out,
38:41
Speaker 2: this is a good way. She just seemed very aware
38:45
Speaker 2: of all of the nuances and complexities you laid out
38:49
Speaker 2: eves of like how to make yourself stand out, how
38:52
Speaker 2: to make money and how yeah, like having the postcards
38:57
Speaker 2: with those different stamps. She just seemed very aware of
39:02
Speaker 2: all of the forces around her and like how to
39:05
Speaker 2: make her business work.
39:08
Speaker 3: Yeah.
39:08
Speaker 4: The pastor that I mentioned, doctor Mittri Rahebb, wrote an
39:13
Speaker 4: essay about her, and he talks about her as an entrepreneur,
39:18
Speaker 4: because that was that's what she was.
39:20
Speaker 3: I mean, she was clearly very.
39:21
Speaker 4: Business minded, because I will, I for one, would be
39:25
Speaker 4: intimidated by an industry that was so heavily male dominated.
39:31
Speaker 4: And to be able to make a name for myself,
39:34
Speaker 4: not only that, open multiple studios, work out of multiple cities,
39:38
Speaker 4: that seems intimidating to me. So I think that's very admirable.
39:44
Speaker 4: It's uh aspirational, Yeah, and clearly it resonated.
39:48
Speaker 2: I mean that's the thing that always gets me is
39:50
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, and you bring in different viewpoints and
39:54
Speaker 2: they do see, Oh what if we take a photo
39:58
Speaker 2: in this way and it's different from what people have
40:01
Speaker 2: seen stands out? So yeah, I'm just very glad that
40:06
Speaker 2: she found success and that her work has been discussed
40:12
Speaker 2: and preserved.
40:13
Speaker 3: Yes.
40:14
Speaker 4: Yes, And for the people who can speak Arabic, there's
40:18
Speaker 4: a wealth of more information that is available to you
40:21
Speaker 4: that is available to me as a solo English solely
40:24
Speaker 4: English speaker that I'm sure that y'all if you're interested
40:28
Speaker 4: in her story and didn't know.
40:30
Speaker 3: About it, that y'all should definitely go digging into.
40:32
Speaker 2: Yes. Well, thank you as always Eves for coming on.
40:38
Speaker 2: We love having you, We love hearing these stories. Where
40:41
Speaker 2: can the good listeners find you?
40:43
Speaker 4: Y'all can go directly to my website which is Eve's
40:47
Speaker 4: Jeffcoat dot com that is spelled y.
40:50
Speaker 3: V ees j E F F C A T dot com.
40:57
Speaker 4: Or you can go to my Instagram which is not apologizing,
41:02
Speaker 4: and you can go to my bio there and you
41:04
Speaker 4: can get to my you can get to my link
41:06
Speaker 4: to my website from there, and also you can find
41:08
Speaker 4: me on many other episodes of stuff Mom Never Told
41:11
Speaker 4: You on female first, talking about women in history and
41:16
Speaker 4: their accomplishments.
41:18
Speaker 2: Yes, I think we've been doing this since twenty twenty one.
41:23
Speaker 3: We've been doing it.
41:23
Speaker 4: For a while, yeah, if not before.
41:26
Speaker 2: I think we had some before the pandemic and we
41:29
Speaker 2: kind of took a break, yes, yeah, but then we
41:32
Speaker 2: came back because that was when we had like our
41:33
Speaker 2: fiftieth was after the pandemic was over and we can't
41:36
Speaker 2: come into the office.
41:39
Speaker 1: Yep.
41:39
Speaker 3: So we've been doing this quite a while. Many we
41:42
Speaker 3: can't do that right now.
41:43
Speaker 1: When you get back, we need to do a cheesecake
41:45
Speaker 1: and champagne die.
41:47
Speaker 3: Yes. Yes, we do.
41:51
Speaker 2: Something to look forward to. Well, thank you again, Eve's listeners.
41:57
Speaker 2: If you would like to contact us that you can.
42:00
Speaker 2: You can email us at Hello at Stuffhenever Told You
42:02
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42:04
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42:06
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42:10
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42:12
Speaker 2: to our super producers Channler, Casey and Rima and our
42:16
Speaker 2: executive producer May App and thanks to you for listening,
42:18
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