Collaborating with Artists in Arad, Israel
by Elisa Sananman, NJ Co-Chair, Greater MetroWest Arad Arts Committee
Seven artists from Greater MetroWest spent a week last summer in our partner city of Arad, Israel, meeting and learning from Arad’s artists. Several months after the Americans returned, their Negev-inspired artwork was exhibited for the community. Elisa Sananman co-chaired the arts committee that helped forge this artistic collaboration with Arad. Elisa explains how art provided the vehicle through which the Americans and Israelis could form lasting connections.
In the summer of 2016, seven artists from New Jersey arrived in Arad, Israel, as part of a remarkable and unique weeklong arts exchange program. The week was carefully planned. The artists, graciously hosted by Aradniks, worked alongside Arad artists, exchanging techniques and sharing experiences both mundane and unusual.
The program was an outgrowth of an innovative vision developed by the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest’s Partnership2Gether (P2G) Arad Renewal Program, part of the Global Connections Department. The goal was to build enduring relationships between individuals and communities. This arts exchange project was one of many creative endeavors to accomplish this goal. How would the artwork of the New Jersey artists reflect their Israeli experiences? What kinds of personal bonds would be formed? Despite the many preparatory meetings and workshops before the mission, no one knew the answers to these questions.
Arad is a city built in the 1960s in the Judean Desert, about 12 miles west of the Dead Sea. It is Israel’s first planned city and is home to about 26,000 diverse people, including Ethiopians, Russians, and Bedouins. There is an artists’ quarter but no movie theater. The city, built near the site of the ancient city of Arad, is perched within a stark and beautiful landscape. The DesArad Planning Committee believed Arad would provide inspiration for the artists. It can haunt the imagination, as artist Anne Luria Burg noted in describing the layers of desert sands: “I found it difficult to take my eyes off of them. I wanted to capture the swirls and layers in my work. The colors also really stayed with me.”
Our Jewish community’s connection to Arad dates back about 20 years, when one of Federation’s overseas partners, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI), developed programs to advance professional connections. In 2014, this connection got an infusion of new energy as the vision for a Partnership2Gether program with Arad was revitalized to develop:
- A partnership where both parties are benefactors
- Projects where lay leadership is cultivated
- Volunteer teams that work together to form a think tank that develops new projects
- Long-lasting personal friendships and connections formed as a result of working and playing together
In March 2014, 15 members of the Greater MetroWest community traveled to Arad to meet with our Israeli cohorts. After hours of workshops, lunches, parties, intense conversations, site visits, and of course dancing, we were a team. And more importantly, we were mishpacha, family. In July of that year, the Arad planning team came to visit us, and the relationship deepened. We formed sub-committees that became think tanks for generating bridge-building projects. Robin Plattman, a Women’s Philanthropy Board member, currently chairs the P2G GMW/Arad Steering Committee.
One bridge-building idea eventually developed into what became known as the DesArad 2016 Arts Festival, which sent seven New Jersey artists to Arad for an exchange program from June 24 to July 2, 2016. The program extended its reach when the artists returned home and their works were put on display locally. The DesArad Negev-Inspired Artwork Gallery was featured at JCC of MetroWest Gaelen Center for the Arts in West Orange for two months this winter. The JCC of Central New Jersey in Scotch Plains will host the exhibit at its Israel program on May 11, 2017.
In a metaphorical sense, Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest was painting on the social landscape in the same way that our artists were painting on their canvases or taking photographs. Federation was creating programs to build bridges between our community and Israel, tapping into volunteer commitment and leadership. This is a remarkable vision.
As a member of the Renewal Committee that invested many hours of team-building and process-modeling, I found it very rewarding to see the artists at work and at play in Arad. Late one night, two of the Israelis, Eyal Keydar, P2G Arad Steering Committee Chair, and Chen Lenchner, an Arad Committee member, rallied the artists: “Let’s all go to the Dead Sea!” Everyone piled into cars and headed out of town. Like college kids, free and happy, they floated in the hot briny sea. And on other days they studied flamenco dance together, visited with the first pioneers of Arad, baked bread, and partied together. And, of course, they talked heart to heart. These memories are indelible.
The DesArad art exhibit that opened in New Jersey after the artists’ return distilled these memories and images. Anne Luria Burg’s woven work is a colorful homage to her host Arad artist, Aliza Ben Nur. Jared Green’s hamsa and its desert colors, Marilyn Rose’s charming watercolor paintings and drawings, Gail Winbury’s mysterious mapping series, Ellen Hanauer’s fertile fiber work, Gene Lowinger’s delightful and diverse photographs of children, and leader Carol Berman’s landscape photos all bear witness to the influence of Arad on their art.
And their words also bear witness to that influence, as well as to their love for Arad. For Green, “It’s a bond that only art and shared experiences could build…. We laughed together – comfortably and uncomfortably, stretching our… creativity to connect on the most basic level – design craft.” For Burg, the connections formed “will continue to inspire me for the rest of my life.” What impressed her most were the “people, full of passion and energy.” And through them, she found a way to be “more fearless in her art.”
The effects were mutual. Arad artist Aliza Ben Nur said her experiences “got me exposed to other kinds of art…. We were influenced by each other.” Marilyn Rose, whose charming sketchbook became a diary for the trip, noted that the Israeli kids she met “were so excited to see my quick sketches of them, that they took my book and drew me!”
The artists thrived with cross-cultural communication and, in the process, enduring connections developed. As Rose said, “Many times, people have asked me if I have family in Israel and I have always said no…. Now I truly feel as if I have family in Arad.”
The visionaries at Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ got it right when they invested in programs to ignite and enhance our feeling of peoplehood.
