Photo is courtesy of intuitive painter Rachel Ben Hur. The painting is titled “Shema Israel” [Hear O Israel, in Hebrew] which is the name of perhaps the most famous of all Jewish prayers:Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One
Rachel Ben Hur learned Kaballah and Kaballah-healing. "Ana Bechoach" is a Jewish prayer for healing. Rachel learned painting in Bezalel 40 years ago and started painting again only 3 years ago. In this painting she thanks the Lord for giving her the ability to create art.
Photo of a yellow Star of David on the palm of a Jewish holocuast prisoner is courtesy of artist "Silvisrivers" from Flickr who wrote to me:This image in fact is part of the “Wire King” series I am working on to describe to weaving emotional and existential thematic of human history that singles out peoples for terrible treatment … Its a poetic image both about “camps”, holocaust feelings, destruction and pain - but its also a “Voice” coming back out of the flames and destructions of spirit…Silvisrivers has many works on Flickr and some of them have a Star of David. Silvisrivers is unique in combining poetry with visual art. When his visitors comment to his painting he usually answers them by writing a new poetry. For example, the above work is accompanied bt the following poem [excerpts]:
He spoke a million coloured prismsOne of his visitors, Jessie Doncaster, commented:
Behind the usual bars
Of chemical prisons…
He talked of ovens
And how children were logs
From birth
I feel like you carry the weight of the world, silvis,,,Silvisrivers answered, later:
Put on your lead coatAnd later:
And steel shoes
How can the artist
Ever talk the weight of earth
Without sliding the blue
Stetson Everest over
His own head of human bruise ....
What if the traumtised and those driven half mad by events in the SHOAH had been completely tranquillised after the events of the 2nd world war . Equally why do we tranqulise atrocities rather than hold them up for remembrance . Like a national child abuse day or a memorial to all the child abused - perhaps holding the hand the figure of the "all-abused"
Perhaps the ghost hands of the holocaust jews
Perhaps the arabs too
Perhaps the all raped
Perhaps the cornered who are bombs
Sivisrivers wages his artist's and poet's battle against artifice, cynicism, alienation, and detachment with the weapons of words and images, not to divide and conquer, but to humanely invite his audience to forge connections- not only to others, but to their inner-most selves as well.Copyrights:Silvisrivers 2007
The Mental Health Arts Group I set up in North Birmingham UK is also where I and some of my colleagues practice - this-and-that-arts - sort of multi media and mixtures of getting the messages out about the human condition. We have done a film. Its about remembrance and the power of narrative building - to encourage people to bring stories back from very very difficult social contexts... An inspiration for me was Eric Freid (German Jewish poet who died in the 1980's in London - he took a small glass tube to Auschwitz and scooped up some of the "sands" there - It was not usual sand - it had bits of bones in it , remains of people .... Eric Freid - liked to repair things - rescuing things out of skips in London - like three legged chairs ...He'd make the other leg… Oh I understand that so easily …When you lose a lot family…You want so much to repair the world ... Bless him ...... Silvis Rivers
Intuitive painter, Rachel Ben Hur, sent me this photo of a yellow Star of David button and told me it belonged to her mother who lived in Bulgaria during WWII. She went to visit her husband. The train she was on was full with Germans. She was afraid that the button might indicate that she's a Jewess and tore it off. Rachel told me that in Bulgaria the yellow button was used instead of the yellow badge.
Photo of Magen David with balloons that were released to the skies of Siegen, Germany, during the Pro-Israel initiative 2007, is courtesy of "neveragain2006" who published it on Flickr and wrote to me:The Magen David was produced with water cut technique. As you can see on the photo, it was our aim to let it fly high above our city in Siegen. We celebrated an Israel birthday party in the city. If you want more information about the pro-israel-initiative, you'll have to go on our website and then use a translation by Google.I followed the link and saw the Star of David with the balloons in the video on this website. I also translated with Babelfish the opening excerpt:
Why we celebrate Israel’s birthday?Siegen is in North Rhine-Westphalia, Hesse, in Germany and has 100000 residents.
A public celebration for the 59 Birthday of Israel… means today far more, than expressing only solidarity in relation to the state, which nevertheless earned fully and completely our support, appreciation and friendship, as the only democracy and as the only quite-national order in the Middle East. By this celebration we express our astonishments at the fact that the Jewish people could return to the land of Israel, after centuries of being scattered among all nations, after centuries of suppressions and Pogroms, after centuries of political, religious and ethnical Anti-Semitism.
It may be the largest Star of David "symbol" on the planet. I've been googling for a larger one but so far have had no luck. It is unfinished and I don't know what the actual plan for development was.
The town is called EL JOBEAN it is part of Port Charlotte Florida. The towns name was derived from an anagram of the 1920 developers name JOEL BEAN. In the 20s there was a land boom and areas were commonly changed from anglo to spanish sounding names.
Apparently in the late 70s another developer created these hexagonal roads which form an "unfinished" Star of David. The 80s real estate bust in the area stopped the completion. Route 776 runs thru the center where there is a small park.
The actual star pattern is tilted 30 degrees. You can google maps or earth it to get a better picture.
5 miles to the south west is Rotonda a community shaped like a Giant Wheel. It may be the largest wheel shape on earth. It also has a piece missing.
160 miles southwest in the Dry Tortugas is Fort Jefferson, the largest masonry structure in the western hemisphere and also apparently the largest hexagon.
Photo is courtesy of Judith Weinshall Liberman who sent me the following caption:SELF PORTRAIT OF A HOLOCAUST ARTIST #133 is part of Judith Weinshall Liberman's SELF PORTRAITS OF A HOLOCAUST ARTIST series. This work is 10" by 8" (25 cm by 20 cm) and was created in 1997. It is in the permanent collection of The William Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut, U.S.A. In SELF PORTRAIT #133 the artist is seen in silhouette behind a screen made up of yellow stars on each of which the German word for "Jew" - Jude - is spelled out. The faceless appearance of the artist behind the yellow stars is a reminder that behind the labels imposed by the Nazis were individual human beings, and the artist's bloody appearance symbolizes the millions of Jewish victims who perished in the Holocaust. The SELF PORTRAITS OF A HOLOCAUST ARTIST series consists of over 150 small mixed-media works in which the artist places herself in Holocaust settings in an effort to explore her emotional relationship to the subject of the Shoah and to express her empathy with its victims.
