Women of Jerusalem
This
painting is a transformation of an image in a painting by Rembrandt -
The Woman of Samaria. In his version, Jesus is a shadowy figure gently
connecting to a woman drawing water from a well. The Samaritans at that
time were a group of Jews considered to be less than fully part of the
community. In my version, none of the woman are connecting. Each is lost
in their own world. However, the woman wearing a skull cap -
unthinkable in modern ultra-orthodox dominated Jerusalem - is disquieted
and reflective.
Holy Mountain
The Museum of the Seam in
Jerusalem sits on what was the border between Arab East Jerusalem and
Israeli West Jerusalem. Its walls are covered with battle scars and its
windows and doors bricked up. The ascent of the holy mountain - Let us
go up to the House of the Lord, says, David in a psalm - is blocked for
Muslims and Jews. There is an on-looker who was always in this land, the
ibex. There is release and depth - the cave.
No Separation Barrier
A
people arrived and landed awkwardly. A people were already there.They
cannot bear to look at each other. But the forces of life affirmation
will always try to plunge beneath their hatred, beneath the walls that
separate them.
Beit-El - How Holy is this Place
Jacob in
Genesis sleeps in a mysterious place and meets an angel or is it a man
and dreams of a staircase from heaven to earth. My friend P., a half
Moroccan,half French Jew, arrived in Israel one night after her mother,
in trouble with the law, fled from a European country. Her grandmother
was a survivor of Auschwitz. She met G., whose family has lived in
Israel for several generations. G.'s great grandparents gave up their
beautiful home in Hebron that had been in their family for generations
and re-settled in West Jerusalem in 1948. They made this sacrifice
because they wanted to be helpful both to the new state of Israel and to
the Palestinian people for whom Hebron was to become predominantly
Arab. The two women in the picture are P. and G..