Israel Matzav

Artists4Israel makes a big hit

Phyllis Chesler reviews Artists4Israel's Wednesday night show in New York and loves it. Go read the review. She also talks a bit about some of their activities in New York.

According to Dershowitz: “Hamas started a culture war. We decided to be pro-active rather than defensive. … Artists 4 Israel is the offense. Rather than countering the misconceptions, lies and hates preached by the terrorist funded Hamas culture war against Israel, A4I utilizes the arts to tell our own stories and create our own narratives highlighting the rights, beauty and strength of Israel.”

Artists4I created pro-Israel posters and stood with them at the United Nations. Then, they stood outside a showing of the Rachel Corrie play and tried to arm theatergoers with some facts since they were about to be entertained by a very gripping series of Big Lies. Very quickly, Artists integrated themselves into the graffiti community, the downtown art gallery world, the world of street performers and political performance artists — and then, all youthful exuberant energy, they began a series of projects which almost defy description.

They developed the Fashion Police project. This consists of at least two or more “provocatively dressed” Artists patrolling the streets and “ticketing” any woman or man who is dressed “immodestly,” especially any woman who is wearing a short skirt or a tight top. What they give her is a consciousness-raising postcard about the “brutal crackdown” on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, Gaza, and Egypt. Were she dressed this way there, she’d be ticketed, probably beaten, hauled off to jail. Or worse. The “ticket” is actually a postcard addressed to the Royal Saudi Embassy.

Or take this project. “The Keffiyeh Exchange Program.” They have modeled this on NYPD’s Cash for Guns program. Artists4Israel is offering “free Stuff for Stupid Scarves.” With full respect for the diversity of customs in the Middle East, Artists is trying to make people aware that identifying with keffiyeh-wearers (which so many young Americans do at anti-American and anti-Israel demonstrations) also unfortunately may mean glamorizing or identifying with suicide killers, terrorists, and with ultra-leftists who are more than half-in-love-with-easeful-death, neither free spirits, nor life-loving.

Artists4I teaches art on campuses. Already, they have participated in Art Basel, which is the biggest art show in the world. They write: “Our talented team will be painting pro-Israel murals and participating in large concerts in conjunction with Art Whino.” Their inaugural event was “Bombin’ for Israel,” which took place at a downtown art gallery. Artists “collaborated with top urban art and culture magazine Bombin.” Four hundred people turned out for this event, braving snow and rain. Bombin’s publisher, Taylor Levin, said this: “A lot of these kids saw the World Trade Center fall and they see that Israel is being attacked by the same kind of terrorists. They hope that art can provide the moral clarity they don’t see in the press.”

Artists also has a monthly Life Drawing class (“Skin”), and they paint pro-Israel murals everywhere, meant to “speak to the communities where they are placed about Israel, art, and freedom.”

Read the whole thing.

For those who wanted to go to last week's event and didn't because you found out too late, that's my fault. I had the announcement way in advance, meant to post it a few days before and forgot until I got a reminder the morning of the show.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:06 AM