Exhibitions since 19982004

Sophie Calle
Jerusalem Eruv
©Mahj / ©ADAGP

The law forbidding all work on the Sabbath includes moving an object outside of one’s home. However, as a village or town surrounded by a wall with doors is considered a private area and therefore an extension of the home, it is possible to take objects out of the house into the street and vice-versa…

Few towns and cities today are surrounded by walls, but the Torah states that if an eruvim, a wall of string or rope, is strung around a perimeter, the space within becomes private. Sophie Calle asked Israeli and Palestinian inhabitants of Jerusalem to take her to a public place they consider private.