In collaboration with arch’ Laila Bubrovich
The documentary Sea Mirror Sea centers around the Dead Sea, a place in a constant and visibly dramatic state of transformation, changing significantly day by day. The footage in the film was captured over one year, focusing closely on the layers of earth and vegetation. The film explores the shifting landscape, moving between states of solid and liquid, heavy and light, dense and airy. Amidst this destructive process of change, the diverse manifestations of nature’s fundamental elements are revealed in all their variety. An additional layer of the film features audio interviews with visitors, environmental activists, and political and economic figures connected to the Dead Sea.
The Dead Sea provides a lens through which to examine the relationship between the authorities and the state, particularly in how they manage a resource that is not directly tied to essential needs or settlement. Despite its unique, iconic nature, and status as a symbol, the issue of the Dead Sea's desiccation remains secondary in the Israeli collective consciousness. This prompts the film to question the relationships between Israel, Jordan, and Palestine regarding this shared natural resource, and to consider the possibility of a unified, cross-border effort to protect the Dead Sea
“A dry place… open landscapes… mountains surrounding you from all directions.
It is painted in shades of pink, blue, light blue, and at different times of day, it appears in different colors.
Heat, excessive heat, and... cool water—a wonderful combination.
Some of us sometimes call it the Mirror Sea, or the Crystal Sea, because on certain days it reflects the sky.
It feels like everywhere you look, everything around seems unusual.
It’s a place that is incredibly beautiful on the outside but tough when you get there and touch it.
It’s as if someone created a world where they overdid it with salt, as if they took salt and went completely overboard with it, and this is what came out.
It’s hot, and I don’t like the salt in the sea.
There are various things people say about it, like how the amount of salt releases 'boron' into the atmosphere, a chemical that causes people to relax. It has some kind of magical effect in a very tangible way.
Sticky, heavy, deep, sulfuric mud...
There are many types of mud here; the mud in the pool is very, very soft, with lighter and darker areas, but it’s so soft that you can sink into it up to your chin and not even feel it’s mud. Then there's the mud with black, white, and gray layers, which are harder, and each layer has its own texture.
Imagine a long block of water that lies right inside the belly of the earth. Because it’s so low, it feels like water that came out of the earth’s belly and is supported on both sides by mountains, very beautiful and strange mountain ranges. If you go far enough, high up, it’s as if you could try to connect these parts together like a puzzle, and in the center of this puzzle, at the connecting line, lies the Dead Sea.
Its significance is also very practical: it is a site for tourism and a pilgrimage destination for unique therapeutic tourism. It has a historical, religious aspect tied to the past of the region. Its history is mesmerizing. If we look at the history of the sects that were along the Dead Sea, like the Essenes and the Qumran caves, this is an area rich in history, and you can feel it. You can wander in the mountains near the Dead Sea and imagine what it was like to live in this region during that time. And immediately, you also see the other side, the other side beyond the border, in this case, Jordan or the Palestinian territories in the northern part of the Dead Sea. There is something about its nature that crosses borders. Because as you look, you see the areas it borders, and you can imagine who the people are living on the other side of this sea, who lives in the north, and what lies behind the mountains that you can see so closely but still separate.
I’ve seen changes in the sea; it’s very easy to notice these changes. It’s like I experience it every day, and then suddenly, from time to time, I look and go, wow... it’s really drying up.
Why is it disappearing?... Because they take the salt, right?
Because the streams are no longer flowing into it, and the Dead Sea Works are drying it up, and that’s it—it’s disappearing.
They dry it up on one side, and on the other side, they don’t provide enough water.
It needs to be replenished from another water source, and what used to fill it was the Sea of Galilee. The Jordan River would flow into it. From the moment we began exploiting the Sea of Galilee for drinking water and built the Degania Dam, we stopped the flow, and the Dead Sea was left without a water source. There’s also the Dead Sea Works, which pump water from the northern part to the southern part near the Dead Sea hotels. They have evaporation pools there, and it’s like taking two glasses of water from the southern part and returning only one.
Both the Palestinian Authority, Jordan, and Israel have diverted streams that once flowed and fed the Dead Sea. Additionally, much responsibility lies with the Jordanian and Israeli Dead Sea Works. So, it’s not just one thing. For example, some say the rivers and streams are the main cause of the drop in water levels; some say it's a combination, and some blame the industrial plants. I believe it's very complicated, a combination of all these factors. Also, because of the limited access Palestinians have, they focus more on diverting water flows for agriculture before it reaches the Dead Sea because they have less direct access to it. So I think they are less concerned about the dropping water levels because their need for water, as well as Jordan’s and Palestine’s, is much more immediate and concrete.
When people talk about a sea or a lake, they have this abstract idea of a container or bathtub somewhere, where you can put things in and take things out. The reality is a little more interesting and complex. When you talk about a lake like this, it extends far beyond the "bathtub" walls we imagine. Its water comes from deeper and farther places, and it penetrates deeper and farther places, so the abstract idea of the bathtub wall isn’t quite right.
Because when it recedes, all the fresh water that flowed into the sea starts moving with the Dead Sea. Fresh water is lighter than the salty water of the Dead Sea, and it kind of rides on top of it, moving with it. So, when the Dead Sea starts receding, wherever it moves, it drags the fresh water along with it.
The result is that the entire system shifts. It responds to the drop in the Dead Sea's water level. When you try to protect a fish in a pool that is slowly disappearing, you face a problem because no fish can move itself from place to place. So, if there’s a year when the water rises and then bad years when the water drops, at some point, the fish stays put and later spreads out. But the process now is happening very quickly and in only one direction, so this fish is at risk. This isn’t a metaphor—there really are such fish here.
There’s a variety of plant life here, and with it come the animals, following the presence of fresh water. When you get very close to the Dead Sea itself, in the spring areas, there’s more varied and dense vegetation, mainly plants that can cope with the salt. For example, the tamarisk or saltbush, which absorb the salty water and later excrete the salt through their leaves because they can’t really live with it. The saltbush, for example, gets its salty flavor from this mechanism designed to get rid of the salt.
And where there’s fresh water and plants, animals will come too—from insects like the tamarisk weevil to wolves, jackals, porcupines, ibexes, and even rabbits, which we’ve seen in pictures here.
But there are also animals very specific to this region, like cliff foxes and the Nubian ibex that roams along the cliffs of the Judean Desert, anywhere there are cliffs.
The Dead Sea is vengeful. There are so many minerals and salts in the Dead Sea, and when it dries up, the minerals and salts remain in the soil. So, when fresh water flows through the rock layers and reaches the salt deposits, it dissolves them. The salt dissolves, leaving a void in the ground covered by a thin layer of earth. This is why, when you step on it, the ground collapses into a sinkhole. The Dead Sea once covered this entire area, and because of all the salt, there are many sinkholes. It’s already having an impact—Ein Gedi Beach, a beautiful free beach near the Ein Gedi Nature Reserve, was closed due to these sinkholes. We had to relocate an entire road—the road that once passed between Ein Gedi Beach and Kibbutz Ein Gedi now goes through the reserve. The construction of this road, which now runs through the reserve, affects the wildlife in Ein Gedi, as vehicles are much closer to their natural habitat.
The salt leaves behind soft, mineral-rich mud, and fresh water can easily erode this mud, creating micro-canyons—winding channels—which ultimately harm the animals. For example, we’ve seen donkeys falling in, or animals trying to drink fresh water but unable to reach it.
The phenomenon of sinkholes directly impacts tourism and agriculture. Sinkholes have appeared in date plantations on the Israeli side. As tourism declines and agricultural productivity falls, this directly affects the income of communities along the Dead Sea.
The sea is part of something much bigger, and it exists in a larger context, so it both influences and is influenced by its entire environment.
The border runs right through the Dead Sea itself, following the boundary established during the British Mandate. And the Dead Sea’s nature on both sides of the border is very, very different.
In the northern region, where it touches the borders of Israel and the Palestinian territories, things are more complex because it is in Area C, a region where responsibility is unclear. It feels both like a place that belongs to everyone and yet belongs to no one. You can immediately feel that limited access affects responsibility. So, if we were to imagine a scenario where this transboundary natural resource is managed collaboratively, with equal responsibility for its care and use, that’s not the reality, as there’s no political equality in the access Palestinians and Israelis have to the Dead Sea.
I encounter a very high willingness in Jordanian communities to protect the environment, with a deep environmental dialogue and a strong commitment to preserving the Dead Sea’s nature.
Our youth are more indifferent because it affects their daily lives less—in the end, we have water in the tap.
In Jordanian and Palestinian communities, water supply often comes once a week or every two weeks.
In the Palestinian community, you immediately encounter sadness. What does it mean to encounter this sadness over the inability of the communities to establish businesses at the Dead Sea without judgment, without diving into, “But! This happened! And this occupied that!” Just take a moment to listen—what is this sadness? They don’t have access to the resource...
Communities living there said, “Our biggest wish is to bring our children to the Dead Sea. To bring them to show them this place, but we have nowhere to take them. We have no visitors' center where we can bring them and explain the Dead Sea to them, without judgment, without immediately bringing up the dominant political framework—just listen to the communities.”
The drying of the Dead Sea isn’t directly caused by the larger climate crisis, but you can draw a parallel to it. This is something caused by humans. All the struggles happening here along the lake’s shores are very similar to the challenges we as a world need to address regarding climate change.
I don’t think it will disappear... it’s too much of a national treasure for that to happen...
It would be sad... really, it wouldn’t be fun.
There will be a valley here, like the Grand Canyon.
Houses! A city!
I think it will become a giant salt pool... as if it won’t be something good. The ending won’t be good.
I sit here all the time, looking at these mountains and thinking, “Wow... I wonder if there’s someone in the mountains over there, sitting and looking and asking themselves if life exists here.”
Anyone who wants to have a cross-border experience can come to the Dead Sea and have such an experience. Whether it's by boat, meeting Palestinians in the northern Dead Sea and learning about the wealth of salt they produce, sell, and live off, or through the youth of the Dead Sea, who could guide tourists and tell them about life on the other side. They can explain what the youth on the other side do in their daily lives and their environmental connection to the Dead Sea.
This is also an opportunity for deep, multicultural political dialogue. All of this can physically happen here. Each of us can look deep within and ask, “How much of my time am I willing to give for something like this to happen? What can I do as a woman from the regional community here in the Middle East to help this resource thrive?”
Nature has its own value, even without serving humans. It has a right to exist and a value simply because it exists”