(Photos: Elchanan Kotler)

Who would have thought that a drab building in the middle of a Jerusalem neighborhood would become the canvas for a group of religious graffiti artists, making this counterculture art form into a vehicle for spreading a message of light and hope?

It’s breathtaking massive, eye-catching. And to think, it used to be nothing but a grimy wall. But here in Jerusalem’s Mekor Baruch, across from the Skverer cheder on Yehudah Maccabi Street, the outer wall of the neighborhood’s industrial complex has transformed that drab section of the neighborhood into a trendy display of chareidi modern art.

About two months ago, the residents of the neighborhood noticed something remarkable taking place: Seven chareidi artists had begun working on the wall, using spray paint to produce an assortment of pictures with significant messages. Unlike the graffiti we’re used to — hastily scrawled on walls in the middle of the night, often with aggressive or vulgar themes — this graffiti was actually authorized by the Jerusalem municipality. The wall was even given a name: “Graffidos,” a contraction of the words “graffiti” and “dos” (religious person).

The initiative is the work of the adjacent Art Shelter Gallery located in the street’s public miklat (bomb shelter), a gallery for modern Jewish art that was established about 15 years ago by a community of baalei teshuvah headed by former entertainers Rabbi Ika Yisraeli a”h, Rabbi Mordechai Arnon, and Rabbi Uri Zohar.

“The local residents were stunned,” Reb Yiddy Lebovits relates. “We began working on Isru Chag Succos, which was a vacation day for the children of the neighborhood, and we found ourselves with an audience of about 600 boys and girls, not to mention yeshivah bochurim. But their presence didn’t bother us. On the contrary, we were happy to explain to them what we were doing and to make them feel a part of our project.”

No School for Graffiti

“When we started,” says Lebovits, “the wall wasn’t just dirty and neglected, but also completely unfit for painting. We had to smooth its surface in order to prepare it for our work. Then all us artists had to get to know each other. I had never actually met another graffiti artist, and it was a real eye-opener for me that there were other frum artists who were into the same thing.”

Lebovits, who came on aliyah with his family to Jerusalem three years ago (he already has married children) is a son of the Nikolsburg Rebbe of Monsey. His Hebrew isn’t fluent, but a brush and a can of paint are always a universal language.

Lebovits, who’s been an artist pretty much all his life, says his father, the Rebbe, encouraged him all along. “My father is a big believer in people developing their individual talents. His philosophy is that there isn’t only one way to serve Hashem, and that every person should do his own internal avodas Hashem in the way that is correct for him. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: He happens to be an incredibly talented artist in his own right. When we were young, he used to draw with us.”

There’s no art school that teaches how to produce graffiti, says Lebovits, who in any case never had formal art education, because it’s an art form that is often anti-establishment and illegal. “Graffiti is generally unauthorized, and most graffiti artists do their work in the middle of the night, spray painting their creations on walls when no one can see them. The locals simply get up in the morning and find their walls covered.”