Innocence

Military service is compulsory for all Israelis. From mother’s knee, the imaginations and everyday life of the future recruits are decked out with the symbols of militarism. But what about those whose conscience rejects that forced patriotic duty? “Innocence” weaves those voices, damned forever to silence by overpowering social pressure, into a melancholy essay on the irrevocable loss of freedom and innocence. With avowals captured in journals, letters, and pictures, the fate of individuals combines into a chorus of those unwilling or unable to submit to unconditional obedience. Their words are full of shame and alienation, resignation and loneliness. They provide a grim existential patina for images that show the stages of growing up in a country marked by a sense of omnipresent threat. The bulwark is meant to be provided by the diligently cultivated bodies of citizens, well-drilled and ready to be misused as weapons.