Walking Through the Twilight is a photographic exploration of contemporary American Jewish activism in solidarity with Palestinians against the Israeli military occupation. Shot by Harvard Divinity School Religion, Conflict, and Peace Initiative (RCPI) Fellow Mati Milstein, an American Jewish photojournalist and documentary photographer, this project explores the interplay between Judaism and activism, discussing issues of identity, community, faith, and action. 

A new generation of American Jewish activists is subverting their community’s long-presumed ties with the Israeli state and the Zionist movement. An emerging recognition of the structural violence the U.S. and Israel similarly impose in order to maintain their respective hierarchical status quos is undermining the Zionist narrative in which the American Jewish community has been steeped for generations. 

American Jews are redrawing personal, political, racial, religious, and communal borders - demonstrating direct solidarity with Palestinians - shaping a non-Zionist self-identity rooted to varying degrees in a Jewish approach to social justice struggles and resistance to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine.

This project employs documentary photography and interviews to chronicle this phenomenon, creating the potential for it to become a more widely recognized chapter of the communal Diaspora Jewish historic narrative and - potentially - disrupting the Israel/Diaspora paradigm long considered set in immovable stone. 

All images in this exhibition were created with the knowledge of the depicted individuals and appear here with their consent.