Sharon also has a photo of anemones (kalaniyot) spilling out of a car and cascading to the ground, wistfully titled “Hope.” For me, these poppy-like red flowers evoke the famous World War I poem, “In Flanders Fields,” by John McCrae, which talks about poppies growing on the graves of soldiers. In her accompanying note, Abeles writes that the flowers remind us of lives lost and our hope that the memories of our loved ones will always be a blessing.

Anemones figure in a few other works as well. Judith Tantleff-Napoli’s contribution, “October 7th (2023),” is a fabric art piece with a gray and cream background field upon which lie small, stuffed fabric figures representing the felled kedoshim. They’re surrounded by spots of red, which at first glance conjure kalaniyot, but are really supposed to recall blood. The small doll-like figures project a childish simplicity that underscores the innocence of the victims. “I was appalled by the way the media distorted the narrative,” says Judith, a former Brooklyn resident and art teacher now residing in Dutchess County.

Another fabric piece with the anemone motif was created by Naomi Guez, reassuringly titled “We Didn’t Lose Hope.” The title comes from the prophecy in Yechezkel in the Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones, in which the despondent Jews say, “avdah tikvaseinu — we have lost hope.” (Yechezkel 37:11) Hashem promised that the bones will come to life again and go to the Land of Israel. This hanging includes swatches of black fabric for mourning, red and pink anemones symbolizing hope, blue and white stripes and Jewish stars echoing the Israeli flag, and pesukim in Hebrew written on klaf (her husband is a sofer). “My mother survived the Holocaust in France,” Naomi says. “Hashem will help us survive this, too.”

The Time Was Right

Greeting visitors together with Abigail are Esther Leah Marchette, a musician and vocalist and wife of artist DovBer Marchette, and Miriam Leah Gamliel, a trained actress and singer with a background in musical theater who, together with Abigail,  founded ATARA (the Arts and Torah Association for Religious Artists) in 2007 to provide an outlet and community for frum women in the arts. For many years ATARA focused on the performing arts such as music, dance, and theater, and Abigail, who performs in productions such as the Rachel’s Place plays and dramas at Camp Simcha, was part of the ATARA network. When Esther Leah and Miriam Leah proposed that she initiate an ATARA event in the visual arts, she initially hesitated.

“For many years I was so busy I had no time or bandwidth to undertake anything new. But currently I’m an independent consultant, so I can make my own schedule,” she explains. “As the first anniversary of October 7 approached, I saw that many places were doing anniversary projects. ATARA called me to propose doing something as well, and I knew that it was the right time and the right project. This was a project I felt passionate about and it would be my ship to steer.”

First, she had to determine what the overarching narrative would be. She didn’t want an exhibit that would focus purely on the terror and horror of the day, although obviously they could not be ignored or whitewashed. While other museums ran October 7 exhibits, most of them did not necessarily speak to the Torah-observant community.

“There was nothing that focused on faith,” she says. “Coming from a frum perspective, we know that Hashem sends us trials and terror over the course of history. It’s a cycle that repeats over the millennia. October 7 is not unique in our history, but the challenge is, as always, how do we respond as Jews?”

Abigail herself is the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, who subsequently moved to the US and rebuilt their lives. In line with their legacy, when mapping out the exhibit, she added the themes of faith and hope to balance the terror and carnage.

So Many Submissions

Once Abigail settled on a theme, she put out a call for submissions. A lengthy career in Jewish art left her with a copious list of contacts whom she reached out to, while also soliciting submissions on social media and various Jewish art initiatives. She was looking for a distribution among her themes of terror, faith, and hope, and for works of art that seemed compelling in their technique and/or message while still remaining family friendly, with nothing immodest or overly graphic.

While ultimately the exhibit includes a little over 30 works of art, she received many more submissions.

“People between the ages of 19 and 80 submitted art,” she says, “and the artists came from a range of frum affiliations.”

After determining which pieces would be displayed, booking a site and setting up a schedule, Abigail had to arrange for delivery and set up the exhibit. Since this was not a big-budget enterprise, she called in her cavalry: good friends from the industry.

The paintings are hung via wires suspended from a bar near the ceiling. The entire process took six women more than seven hours to complete, and she is grateful to her hanging teams for being so respectful and accommodating of her process.

“It’s not just a matter of putting paintings on a wall,” Abigail says. “As the curator, I had to design the walls strategically, so that the visual storytelling worked, moving from terror to faith to hope, with just the right mix of paintings.”

She did accept a few works of art that she felt were important, although they didn’t fit neatly into any of her themes. A “Jewish Lives Matter” painting by Natalia Kadish fell into that category, as did a large, colorful, abstract work by chassidic entertainer and artist Lipa Schmelzer entitled “Cosmic Hope in Darkness,” which he says illustrated the duality of human experience — acknowledging the darkness while simultaneously expressing a message of hope and resilience.

These days, when security is an issue, in order to play it safe, there was no publicity outside the building marking the event as an October 7 memorial. The Hadas Gallery has a glass front, and while it’s visibly identifiable as a Jewish organization, it seemed best not to invite trouble by publicizing an Israel-focused event. (As I left for the exhibit, my husband warned, “Make sure there are no demonstrators in front of the venue!”)

Bearing Witness

Artist Marc Provisor, who made aliyah from the East Coast in 1978, and for the past 15 years has served as director of security and building projects in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley, has also produced an impressive body of art exhibited in Israel and the US over three decades. Provisor, who is here for the exhibit, saw the destruction in Gaza in real time.

“My son was at the Nova festival,” he says. “Thank G-d, he managed to get away. I went back a few days later with a security team, walking through the horrific destruction, and afterward, I felt compelled to process the experience by painting.”

Marc’s contribution is an oil painting entitled “Eichah,” in fiery shades of orange, red, and black. It shows a mourner seated, arms around a child as flames erupt around them. The words “October 7 2023” are followed by the word “Eichah,” rendered both in modern Hebrew letters and in the block Hebrew letters that were used during the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, evoking the parallel between the two.

The deceased are likewise commemorated in the signature piece of the exhibit, whose image was chosen for the catalog cover. Created by Sarah Begun, “1400 Names” is a striking sculptural three-dimensional painting using foam, acrylics and gold leaf representing a burned menorah. “If they try to destroy us, we will always shine through,” she wrote for the catalog. Around the menorah, she handwrote the names of the 1,400 victims. On top, the shamash is a miniature representation of Jerusalem in shining gold, the ultimate symbol of redemption and hope.

More names are written out on a conceptual piece that comes to us from Carol Man in Hong Kong. After a traditional Chinese upbringing steeped in Confucian values, her spiritual journey led her to convert to Judaism. After the attack, the Ohel Leah Synagogue in Hong Kong, where she attends, distributed names of hostages to pray for. Her designated hostage was Luis Norberto Har, a 70-year-old Israeli-Argentinian who was rescued in February. Her piece, “Mi Sheberach,” was created as a prayer for him.

Carol is a calligrapher, and this piece is made up of yards of curled yellow burlap wired ribbon upon which she wrote texts of prayers in her own original, idiosyncratic Hebrew-Chinese calligraphy.

“A Walk Down College Ave,” a triptych (a three-sectioned panel painting) by Hannah Finkelshteyn, an art major at Rutgers University, reflects the experience of being a college student in the months following October 7.

“I saw the work on a Jewish artists’ chat six months ago, and I knew I wanted it,” Abigail says. The piece is comprised of three oversized drawings in black and white, with accents in red, each depicting locations in which posters of the Israeli hostages were ripped down (all on the same street).

Another young person who took to the streets to protest against October 7 is Milka Salamon, a 19-year-old from Boro Park and a graduate of Bais Surah, the youngest artist in the exhibit. Milka’s “Red for Return” piece is a pencil and charcoal work depicting the everyday people who went out to advocate for the release of the hostages, their faces exuding both desperation and hope. When Abigail, who is a friend of the Salamon’s neighbors, saw the piece, she immediately knew she wanted it for the collection.

“I did this many months ago,” Milka says, wearing the honor lightly. “I sketch and paint when I can.”

Glow in the Darkness

Another young contributor is 24-year-old Gabriella Broome from Crown Heights, who created a five-foot wide sculpture, “Our Souls in Gaza.” She took drawings and photos of faces of the hostages, pasting the ovals onto colored “leaves” attached to a single long branch.

“Our souls are one, so I depicted the hostages as one root, from the same tree,” she says. Painted paper doves attached to the branch symbolize the hope for peace.

Her depiction of faces is paralleled by Leah Raab’s “Lost Memories,” a print whose top half is comprised of tiny portraits of war victims, reminiscent of the Yad Vashem Hall of Names. “Leah did an earlier piece based on the Hall of Names,” Abigail explains. “When I asked her if the faces in this painting are supposed to be of the hostages, she replied, ‘I couldn’t bear to draw the actual faces of the hostages.’ ” The bottom half of the painting shows abstract scenes of Gaza kibbutzim.

Then there’s 28-year-old Michal Neiman, a registered nurse who spends her summers at Camp Simcha painting immersive backdrops and sets for staff productions. She and Abigail became acquainted there, and Michal submitted a stage-size mural for the exhibit titled “We Will Dance Again” as part of the hope theme. The words are painted on a cobalt blue background, while in the foreground, Jewish dancers painted in fluorescent colors sway amidst a swirling band of 364 butterflies in the same vibrant colors. On each butterfly is written the name of one of the 364 kedoshim from the Nova massacre.

Michal hung colored candles in clear holders on a line near the top of the mural and set out a jar filled with the names of the victims for viewers to take home in remembrance. Since the full effect of the work can only be seen in the dark, Abigail stops every half hour or so, gathers the crowd around the mural, and turns out the light so that the fluorescent paint and candles glow and show the work to full advantage.

Inside Light

The older end of the age spectrum among the artists is represented by prizewinning artist and illustrator Lloyd Bloom (“Ner Neshamah – The Soul Candle,” the image of a candle in black watercolor), and Archie Rand, who is a professor of art at Brooklyn College and has served as the chair of the Department of Visual Arts at Columbia. His acrylic painting “Zachor,” in deep shapes of carmine, depicts a lone yahrtzeit candle placed atop blue and white striped fabric.

Pinny Segal Landau, a young Bobover chassid from Montreal, is here in person to showcase his abstract painting. Called “Divided We Are Lost.” It features a few anonymous faces of hostages floating on waves of different bright colors, suggesting the need for unity (underscored by Hebrew letters with flaming crowns spelling b’yachad nenatzei’ach).

“I wanted to show that we must all come together, even if we seem very different,” he says.

What Jewish art event could be complete without the Pop Rabbi, Yitzchok Moully? The Australian-born Chabad chassid began his career with silk screen in the early 2000s, creating playful pop art-style images of Jewish life that included his trademark chassid in orange socks. He’s here tonight, 12 years after our first interview for Mishpacha back in 2012, with streaks of gray in his hair and stylish clear plastic glasses.

Moully’s contribution to the exhibit is a colorful Torah mantel. The bottom third, in mournful black, has two figures dancing with a symbolic representation of the neshamos of the kedoshim. The middle third, in gray, states “In Memory of the Kedoshim of Simchat Torah,” and the top third, in white with splashes of colorful blotches, displays the hopeful yellow words “Am Yisrael Chai.”

Moully has brought a laptop to display the other work he’s created in memory of the October 7 victims. “I’ve been doing a lot of large public artworks recently,” he says. “I was commissioned to do a menorah for the South Street Seaport [it has a nautical theme], and I’ve done other large menorahs, and a Cup of Blessing.” (The Cup of Blessing is a sort of performance art; attendees choose cups of paint to pour over the plain four-foot high kiddush cup while verbalizing gratitude for their blessings.)

Now he displays an image on the laptop of his “Infinite Light — October 7 Memorial,” a ten-foot-high yahrzeit candle with the names of all the kedoshim carved on it. The idea is to light it from the inside so that light shines through their names; the cut-out letters have been mounted on wires that extend out of the candle to create the impression of a flame. (It brings to mind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, but in this Jewish example, light pours out from each sanctified neshamah.)

One Nation

There are quite a few paintings of soldiers called up in the aftermath of October 7. While parents of young children are familiar with Brooklyn-based Rikki Benenfeld as the author of a series of children’s books illustrated with her own charming watercolors (Let’s Go to Shul, I Go to School, and I Go to the Doctor, among many others), she’s a serious artist who mostly works with oils. Her painting “Soldier of Hashem” shows a young soldier wearing tefillin and reciting Shema in intense concentration, his hand over his eyes. “Chesed B’Milchama” shows us the achdus that the war aroused, as a group of chareidim — one in a tallis — walk towards a battalion of tanks and soldiers with provisions.

Eve Schachnow, an FIT-trained artist from California now living in Lakewood, also painted a soldier in tallis and tefillin reciting the Shema in a field populated by fellow soldiers and an Israeli flag. Her “Kibbutz Nir Oz” is the painful, almost abstract-style image of burned, cracked walls. An abandoned pair of sneakers lies on the floor, a reminder that people once lived here.

Talia Zahler of Lakewood focused on the hostages. “Beacon of Strength” is a textured white oil painting depicting the Bibas mother and her two children. The only other color is the red hair of all three of them, recalling Dovid Hamelech’s fiery red hair symbolizing strength, leadership, and a deep connection to Hashem as he faced pain and uncertainty with faith, and the yellow ribbon in the mother’s hair, representing the hope for liberation.  Her “Resilience” painting, which has a glowing red background, depicts a Jewish mother praying for the hostages as she lights Shabbos candles, while the anxious, plaintive face of her daughter meets our gaze.

One of Talia’s art friends is also here showing a painting: Why, it’s Mishpacha’s own Chani Judowitz, of Kichels fame! When Chani isn’t producing our beloved Kichels or illustrating children’s books, she devotes herself to fine art. Her canvas “Am Echad” depicts a soldier and an older chareidi man in a tight embrace. Amid the grief, a glimmer of hope was revealed through the acts of incredible love and unity that brought the nation together.

Yossi Wagshul, a young Chabad artist who often works with artist Michoel Muchnik at his studio, created a piece from hard foam, baked clay, and old metal called “Sword of Purity.” It shows a pure white sword on a hard foam background of magenta and orange.

“Tehillim 149 speaks of pious people exacting revenge with a double-edged sword,” Yossi explains. “But I also glued on a piece of harp-shaped metal — it’s actually a piece from a necklace — to suggest the peaceful harp of Dovid Hamelech, because peace is really what they are fighting for.”

Perhaps his dual message most encapsulates the theme of the evening — mourning for what we lost and a burning desire to see Heavenly justice, along with the fervent desire for peace.

The show is slated to run through January 31. Information on arranging school, shul, and private tours can be obtained via Mishpacha. 

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1039)