“The conflict we are dealing with here has more to do with our governments than with the people. Nobody wants war. War is a nightmare to all of us for multiple reasons. When there is peace I have a good income. When there is war there are no tourist, which means I don’t earn anything.”
“How do you deal with that?”
“In Arabic we say: ‘save your white money for the black days.’ So that’s how I handle it.”

– Jerusalem

“I have been in love with her for more than 30 years!”

– Jerusalem

Welcome to Jerusalem where my journey together with Carl and Epiphany from 365docobites starts. This means that for the next two weeks portraits from our journey will be up on Humans of Amsterdam combined with docobites (2-4 minute film portraits.) Combining photography and film is something I always have been very interested in so this was a wonderful opportunity to do so. Feel free to share your feedback. Please remember that the idea of this project is not to make a political statement of any kind or to represent a people or a nation. Our true intention is to simply share the human stories from the people in these areas that we met along the way.

*Also I would like to give out a special shout out to those who got involved by voting or contributing financially to this project.

“As a teenager it wasn’t always easy to combine school and soccer. I was lucky to have Mister Langendijk, my high school mentor who believed I could finish my diploma.”
“What’s the most important lesson Mister Langendijk has taught you?”
“That even though you might be a good player it’s still important to get good grades. He always said: ‘There needs to be a balance. Once you will manage to succeed in school, you’ll succeed on the soccer field’.”

“With all the violence going on in this world, I’m starting to believe democracy is a myth..”