US ambassador fills home with Israeli art showing post-Oct. 7 resilience
Jack Lew opens official residence and shows off a collection built up over the tumultuous first year of his posting
Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center
Two days after US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew was confirmed by the US Senate last November, he was ensconced in his new home in Jerusalem.
It didn’t leave much time to assemble American artworks to hang on the walls of the official residence.
“There were white walls, which was depressing, and there was a story to tell,” said Lew to The Times of Israel. “The story we decided to tell was that of art and resilience.”
Lew’s wife, Dr. Ruth Schwartz, worked with curator Polina Levy Eskenazi to assemble a collection of Israeli artworks representing the local realities since October 7, for the residence and the ambassador’s Jerusalem office.
“It wasn’t a simple goal, because it’s also a house, not a museum,” said Levy Eskenazi. “People have to live here and look at these works of art every day and feel good.”
The two women traveled the length of Israel, to the south and north, to artists’ studios, a Bedouin weaving cooperative and other workshops where Schwartz could meet the artists and hear their stories.
“At each place, there was something beautiful and inspiring,” said Schwartz.
The artworks displayed in the living space of the ambassador’s residence represent a range of media, from oils and acrylic on canvas to pottery, prints and a piece featuring embroidery on pottery.
There are familiar red poppies of the south, a canvas by Kibbutz Kfar Aza resident Shosh Segev Ofek, traditional Bedouin embroidery threaded into pottery by Bedouin artist Zenab Garbia, prickly thistle flowers painted by evacuated northern artist Doron Adorian, and colorful, naive works of Osnat Barnett Sened, an artist with Down syndrome.
Some of the works were purchased by Lew and Schwartz for their own collection, while others are on loan by the artist to the ambassador’s residence.
The displayed artworks include prints of the south from Wrapping Memory, a post-October 7 project of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, and a David Gerstein sculpture of a pigeon standing on a pile of books, tasting an apple.
“We feel the art tells a story,” said Lew, pointing to an Armenian pottery plate made by local artists and a silk screen print depicting the biblical tale of Jacob’s Ladder, by Tamar Messer.
At the gathering last Friday morning at the ambassador’s residence, which included the artists, Lew related the story of a dinner at the residence when he hosted US Senator Cory Booker, who looked at the print of Jacob’s Ladder and asked to say a few words of Torah relating the biblical story and the ambassador’s first name.
“He said, ‘You’re here with a dream and this artwork shows that dreams come true if people work hard at it,'” said Lew.
The artworks don’t erase the pain of the moment, said Lew in his remarks last Friday.
“Art can’t do that, diplomacy can’t do that, but art can help us see what we’re trying to build toward,” he said.
One of the aims in putting together the art collection for the residence was to reach artists who have been affected by October 7 in different ways and to expose the projects that the US embassy is involved in, including in Israel’s periphery.
Artists are continuing to do their work, said Lew, adding that he was very moved when he heard that some artists from the south, along with their art and studios, had survived the October 7 Hamas invasion in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
“At a time when the days are full of darkness, the art allows you to look toward a better future,” he said.
