Israel Matzav

Painting the town red in Ariel

A group of graffiti artists from the New York City area is here in Israel this week painting up a storm. They were here once before in November, and painted bomb shelters in Sderot and the like. This trip, they're spending a lot of time in Ariel, where they are trying to counteract the artists' boycott of the new theater there.

An international group of graffiti artists are in Ariel to break what they call "an artistic siege" against the approximately 18,000 residents, in the midst of the national debate over Ariel's new cultural center. "Graffiti writers are used to making art where people tell them not to," says Craig Dershowitz, executive director of the New York group, Artists 4 Israel, which organized the trip.

The group is creating murals across the West Bank city and giving free painting lessons to school children. On the trip, the artists also painted in Sderot, decorated a community center in Jerusalem and did murals at Intel's corporate clubhouse. After an American Thanksgiving dinner hosted for them by Ariel residents, the group will also visit Beit El and Shilo.

Artists also attempted yesterday to document and paint over hate messages on both sides of the wall in the areas of Bethlehem, but while working on the Palestinian side they were approached by Palestinian men who asked them to leave, according to the group. "Graffiti artists are called 'writers," says Dershowitz. "What we hope to do by organizing trips where American, European, Israeli and Arab artists can meet each other is to write a new story. In graffiti, we will write a better future for the whole region."

One of the things this story doesn't mention is that the group found the time to have dinner cooked by Mrs. Carl and our two younger daughters in our home last week, and did graffiti of most of our children's and grandchildren's names while they were sitting at our dining room table! They're an amazing group. Some of them are Jewish, some of them are not. Most of them are from the New York City area and at least some of them got their start decorating New York City subway cars in the 1970's and 1980's.

The picture at the top is a bomb shelter from the first trip in April. I've seen pictures from the current trip, but they aren't up on the website yet. One of them said to me that the importance of what he was doing hit him when he realized the use of the thing they were decorating. Having those pictures to look at should make them less scary for small children.

Those of you who are able to do so should consider a contribution to Artists4Israel. There's more information on how to donate here.

And yes, we're hoping our house will become a regular stopping point for them on their trips here.

Labels: Ariel, Artists4Israel, Beit El, Sderot, Shilo

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:40 AM