“Bathroom Mirror”, 2012
a scuffle that involved rocks being hurled at journalists. “That was probably the scariest thing I have ever been through as a photographer,” recounted Goldstein. “By the end, we were all so thirsty. Somebody from Palestinian television gave us some water. An Israeli soldier was there too, and we were all drinking from the same water.
that Goldstein would have been the only artist in the show—which ultimately became an all-male lineup of nine artists whose work was similarly inspired by toys—to have ever visited Gaza. National news coverage for the CICA exhibition, including a detailed recap of her abrupt cancellation on The CJN’s daily news website, only managed to sidetrack Goldstein for a few days. She’s been busy with several concurrent projects, which include
“I was thinking, if we could all just sit down and drink from the same water, this thing could be resolved.” After that frightening moment, the trip to the Middle East evolved into a portrait series that proved more interesting to Goldstein than what she saw on the battleground. It’s a series that covers everyday life in the region: children laughing, girls in a classroom, a young boy selling candy apples on the street and a man riding in a donkey-drawn cart, among other images. “I was always interested in the Palestinian people and what life was like for them there. I wanted to know who these people are, and what I discovered is that most people are very nice and welcom-
being part of a summer exhib- ition in Stöckelkeller, Germany, a television show based on another of her photographic series, Fallen Princesses , and a book project chronicling the first 30 years of her career. It was at the Jewish Western Bulletin (now the Jewish Independ- ent ) where Goldstein started her career in the early 1990s, captur- ing the community for black-and- white newspaper pages. Later that decade, as Canadian print media still had significant travel budgets, she picked up assignments for The Globe and Mail and Saturday Night . One of those journeys involved
Goldstein’s photos from Gaza and West Bank, 1999
ing. I think because I am friendly and approachable that people invited me into their homes,” says Goldstein, who also went to the Jabalia refugee camp created by the United Nations in 1948—that was a target for Israel during the war of 2024.
photographing life in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, during which she spent a week-and-a-half in the Palestinian areas, including a stay at the storied Windmill Hotel in Gaza City. On her first day in Gaza, she went directly to Rafah, and found herself in the middle of
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