Out of Boulders

A book of photographs about life in Shamir, Kibbutz Sefer in the Galilee, in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1960, Eilat joined Kibbutz Shamir as a member of the Nahal group of Hashomer Hatzair. That's when he began his career in art and at the same time worked as a shepherd and in other jobs.

When his first son was born, he purchased a camera with the aim of documenting family life, but it quickly became a tool for his creativity, in addition to painting. The type of photography he created on the kibbutz has two faces: documenting life on the kibbutz in its various manifestations, and documenting art installations he made in the surrounding nature and in the kibbutz courtyard.

The book contains a wide variety of photographs from kibbutz life: landscapes, works of art from Eilat, children, portraits of kibbutz members, people at work, holidays and social life, and scenes related to security. Until the Six Day War (1967), Kibbutz Shamir was on the border.

The border with Syria stretches about 700 meters from the kibbutz, and like many kibbutzim in the Hula Valley, it suffered from shelling and shooting for no apparent reason, which made life there full of tension and unrest. Staying in shelters and digging to build more shelters were always a part of life.

Even after the war, security tensions in the Galilee region did not ease. In 1974, Kibbutz Shamir experienced a terrorist attack in which three women were murdered. The incident ended before the army arrived, following a brief battle between kibbutz members and the terrorists.
I was armed with my camera that morning, and so the book features several photographs from the event and the victims' funeral, published for the first time.

The book was self-published in 2022.