‘An attempt at healing’: New Israeli exhibit pays tribute to heroes and victims of October 7
Eden Spivak’s illustration of Awad Darawshe, an Israeli-Arab paramedic who stayed at the Nova music festival to help save lives, before being murdered by Hamas fighters on October 7
Leora Eren Frucht reports in Haaretz on 19 December 2023:
Noya Dan, a 13-year-old “Harry Potter” fan, was one of over 1,200 people murdered by Hamas terrorists in Israel on October 7.
Haim Ben Aryeh was a bus driver from Sderot who drove the surviving children of Kibbutz Be’eri to safety that Saturday night – but weeks later, traumatized by things he’d seen, took his own life.
Police officer Yigal Singer helped hundreds escape the massacre at the Nova trance music festival at Re’im before he himself was seriously wounded.
All three are featured in an artistic initiative called “Names & Faces” – @namesandfaces.il on Instagram – paying tribute through illustrations to those affected by the brutal attack.
“The idea was born about three days after the start of the war on October 7,” says one of the project’s initiators, illustrator Or Segal. “The internet was full of images and clips of the horror that we all saw, and there was lots of pain and fear.
“We felt there was a need for those people who were hurt by all that happened to be portrayed in a respectful and empathetic manner, that they deserve to be shown in a different way – not just through the horror,” explains Segal. She launched the project together with three other Tel Aviv illustrators: Shahar Tal, Yael Volovelsky and Maya Bar Yehuda.
Noa Kelner’s illustration of bus driver Haim Ben Aryeh, who drove children fron Kibbutz Be’eri to safety on October 7.
In an open call for proposals via Instagram, the four women invited colleagues to submit illustrations that paid tribute to anyone in Israel affected by the events of Black Saturday and its aftermath. To date, the site has some 70 illustrations by dozens of artists in a variety of techniques, with new ones added every few days.
The project started and continues as an online initiative on Instagram. However, it is also being presented as a physical exhibit at Jerusalem’s Safra Square Plaza as part of the Outline Festival – which this year is devoted to the theme of illustration and words during wartime. The “Names & Faces” exhibit opens on Tuesday and is set to run until May.
Some of the illustrations were previously mounted on billboards in Tel Aviv, and many more will be heading to Argentina in January for an exhibit at an art center in Buenos Aires.
‘Sanctifying life’
Many of the project’s illustrations are devoted to people who were either killed or taken hostage, some of whom have since been released.
Alona Millgram’s illustration of a grinning Noya Dan in a Gryffindor tie commemorates “a fellow ‘Harry Potter’ fan” – murdered by Hamas.
Noa Kelner pays tribute to Haim Ben Aryeh, the uncle of a dear friend, writing that “the horrors he had seen that night broke his heart, and he had not been himself since. On the morning of October 25, he was found dead inside his bus.” Kelner has depicted him with warm smiling eyes, standing next to his vehicle.
Other illustrations are a more general tribute. A powerful black and white illustration by Keren Katz, for instance, shows a stylized abstract male figure hunched over on the ground, shielding someone from the inky blackness surrounding them. “I chose to draw all the fathers – those who hugged, protected, directed to a safe haven, sacrificed themselves, strengthened, rescued, cried, held. When they go out to protect [someone], everyone is their child,” writes Katz of her work.
Project co-founder Shahar Tal explains that “there was the event of October 7 and the specific people affected by it – and then there is the whole country that experienced trauma. Some illustrations speak to the feelings of all those people.”
In that vein is Aya Chor’s colored pencil illustration depicting a figure looking skyward toward a jumble of outstretched hands and birds – dedicated to “anyone who’s missing, and to anyone who misses others.”
Noga Erlich Kochavi’s haunting image of a frightened, almost transparent woman lying alone in the darkness is devoted to “anyone who feels lost, to anyone who has lost her will, to anyone who needs a hug.”
Some illustrators chose to portray someone close to them. Others opted to depict a stranger whose story moved them.
Shira Eylon, killed at the trance music festival in Re’im, imagined by Gai Safran Lulai.
After reading about Shira Eylon, one of the young women killed at the trance music festival in Re’im, illustrator Gai Safran Lulai dedicated her illustration to her, writing: “I’m sure we could have been the best of friends.” Inspired by Eylon’s trip to India and her love for all living things, Safran Lulai renders her sitting on a swing exuding harmony, surrounded by plants and animals.
Segal says it is no coincidence that the name of the project evokes a phrase that has become a motto of Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center: “Unto every person there is a name.” This is not to say that what happened on October 7 compares to the Holocaust, but rather that it’s possible to learn from that experience how to commemorate horrific chapters in history, she says.
“Over the years there has been a change in the way the Holocaust is commemorated – from recalling all the terrible things the Nazis did to remembering what life was like before that. There is an understanding that behind the disaster are not just historic events but people, and there is a need to commemorate the individual.”
Tal adds: “Behind every story is a person with a face and a name and a life and a whole world. There is a life, even if they are no longer [with us], and this is about sanctifying that life and all that was before.”
For Segal, whose grandparents were Holocaust survivors, the Shoah reference point resonates strongly. “Of course the events were very different, but what they have in common is that terrible and deep blow to our sense of security that we felt on October 7. In that respect, I am relieved that my grandparents were no longer alive on that day, so they were spared from experiencing all that again.”
‘Begin to heal’
The stories accompanying the illustrations appear in three languages: English, Hebrew and Arabic.
“It’s in Hebrew because it is meant for Israeli society – and also for the illustrators themselves for whom the work is an attempt at healing, a kind of therapy for them,” says Segal.
It’s in English in order to reach out to the rest of the world and serve as hasbara (public diplomacy), she explains. “When we talk about October 7, there was a huge crime committed against us, and to talk about it just among ourselves and in Hebrew is important but not enough.
“I feel that in the global discourse of the art world, it is important to include the point of view of illustrators who live in the State of Israel – the fear, the grief, the loss that we felt in the wake of October 7. There is a need for this perspective,” Segal adds.
“The decision to include Arabic is because we live in the State of Israel and, to our sorrow, among those killed and kidnapped are Arabs and Druze,” notes Tal. “We have a shared destiny. It’s important for us that this speaks to everyone and includes everyone who is part of this story.”
Several of the illustrations pay homage to Israeli Arabs who lost their lives that day. Eden Spivak’s black and white drawing of a medic treating an injured person, against the backdrop of a menacing thick black shadow, is a tribute to Awad Darawshe, 23, of Iksal, an Arab village near Nazareth. “A paramedic at the [Nova] music festival, Awad chose to stay at the festival grounds under fire and tend to the wounded for as long he possibly could, until he was murdered by Hamas. Thank you Awad for holding fast to humanity even in the darkest of moments,” Spivak writes in the accompanying text.
Illustrator Daniel Hemed portrays Abd al Rahman Al Nasasraah, a Bedouin man who was murdered in his car while trying to rescue people from the Nova music festival at Re’im. In Hemed’s illustration, red anemones climb and cling to Al Nasasraah’s bullet-ridden car.
The decision to have the text in Arabic has another purpose as well, says Segal: “There is the hidden hope that maybe there is someone on the other side who wants to listen.” Although Segal is no stranger to depicting the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, those “on the other side” are not portrayed in this project, which focuses only on the experiences of those in Israel whose lives were upended – or ended – on October 7 and in the weeks that followed.
Two years ago, she initiated a project that brought together 40 illustrators to commemorate the Palestinian and Israeli children killed in the last Israel-Hamas flare-up, in May 2021. When asked about the decision not to include the experiences of Gazans this time, she explains the need to focus on October 7 in order to move forward.
“It was an event of a different sort than anything that came before, and that requires us to stop and look at it, frame it and reflect on it,” she says. “October 7 was a one-sided, unprovoked attack against civilians, including women and children, babies and the elderly. I think we have to shine a spotlight on that day, on what this disaster did to the people closest to us, to begin to heal.”
Segal continues: “We are against all violence against civilians. My goal is to come to terms with the open, bleeding wounds and wrap dressings around them. Once we do that in our own society, there will hopefully be place again for projects like the one I launched two years ago.”
This article is reproduced in its entirety