imagine: 2018 - Israeli Winners: Graffiti

Graffiti Shahar Amitay, Holon

12:45 PM, Monday, Summer. It is 30 degrees Celsius in the shade, as usual in Tel Aviv on a day like this. The normal Tel Aviv traffic together with the holiday traffic does not ease the feeling of the heavy heat. Down the street a new Jewish-Arab school is being built. Just over the past two days they finished building the new playground and many kids are playing excitedly.

The neighbor from the first floor is feeding the street cats downstairs with the leftovers of Friday night dinner. In the building across the street lives Miriam Giron, my school principal. She turns the radio on at exactly 1:00 PM and the whole street can listen to her old music.

On the first floor lives Yael from my class. I just saw her leaving the building and meeting her new boyfriend, Iad; his family just moved in across the street. Although I love her, I'm glad at least she is with someone she loves. I keep following Yael and Iad with my eyes, and all of a sudden I notice it from the corner of my eye. It does not suit our situation. It never did, and today, after the peace treaties were signed, we live here together, and it is still up here on the wall. So conspicuous, in the middle of Tel Aviv: "A good Arab is a dead Arab".

3:00 PM. I found a few other graffiti signs on the nearby streets: "Kahane was right", "Death for all Arabs" and others…

The paint is ready. I open the can, put in the paintbrush and started painting. Lucky I'm tall. I would prefer not being alone.

Halfway through the first graffiti I heard familiar voices. "Amit, what are you doing?" I look around and see Tom and Eyal. I tell them about my idea; I think they agree with me.

5:00 PM. Tom and Eyal brought some more of our classroom friends. We already finished painting over several graffiti signs over the neighborhood, I didn't count exactly how many.

I think there are people here who don't understand why it is so important to cover these sentences, but the important thing is that they're helping, donating their time.

These graffiti signs reflected what the circumstances used to be like, before the peace agreements. I think that as long as they are still on the walls they put our future at risk. Even Miriam Giron, my principal, joins the painting.

7:00 PM. There is only one sign left. It is the first one I saw, between the grocery store and the clothing store, sticking out in the middle of Tel Aviv.

When I was little I told my Dad I wanted to color all the evilness in white and then everything would be better. With every letter being erased now I can hear my father's voice again. I haven't heard his voice in years.

We finish painting over the last word: "dead".

We decide to continue with the next town tomorrow.