2023

Wax pastels, marker, pencil and acrylic paint over paper and canvas

“Am Yisrael Chai,” or “The Nation of Israel Lives,” is a Hebrew slogan that represents the Jewish people’s survival over thousands of years, despite countless attempts aimed at their destruction. While Jewish peoplehood is the central component of the Nation of Israel, or Am Yisrael,  there have always been cracks and fissures in the boundedness of this group.  Am Yisrael simultaneously exists as a whole entity, the complete sum of its parts, while individually remaining a multitude of faceted pieces.  The constant pressure of sorts between opposite poles in a perpetual tug of war and state of tension: particular and universal, fragile and indestructible, mundane and sacred, and finally, whole and cracking.

Hatikvah’s Lyrics in  English Transliteration and Translation:

Transliteration:

Kol od ba’le’vav p’nima,Nefesh yehudi ho’miyah.

U’lefa-atei mizrach kadimah,

Ayin le’Tziyyon tzofiyah.

Od lo avda tikva-teinu,

Ha’tikvah bat sh’not al-payim

Lih-yot am chofshi b’ar-tzeinu

Eretz Tziyyon v’Yerushalayim.

Translation:

As long as within our hearts

The Jewish soul sings,

As long as forward to the East

To Zion, looks the eye –

Our hope is not yet lost,

It is two thousand years old,

To be a free people in our land

The land of Zion and Jerusalem.