A SPECIAL DISPLAY MARKING A YEAR SINCE THE OCTOBER 7 MASSACRE in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Curators:
Gioia Perugia, Miki Joelson, and Sharon Weiser-Ferguson – Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel Wing for Jewish Art and Life at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Among the participating artists: Shaul Cohen, Anat Golan, Ken Goldman, Einat Leader, and Zelig Segal
The brutal massacre carried out by Hamas on Simhat Torah, the 7th of October 2023, sent devastating shockwaves throughout the Jewish world. As the first anniversary of these traumatic events drew near, the curatorial team in the Wing for Jewish Art and Life felt the need to mark one year of mourning the victims of the massacre and the soldiers who fell in the ensuing multifront war, and to express the collective longing for the return of all the hostages. Thus, in September 2024, several contemporary works were added to the Wing’s permanent display, which already touches upon themes of personal and collective mourning and remembrance in the context of the Jewish and Israeli calendar and life cycle. Few of these objects address the dark events of October 7 directly, and most were designed prior to these events, but all take on new meaning in their context.
The display opens with an excerpt from Lamentation for Be’eri, written by Israeli musician Yagel Haroush (b. 1984), which starts with the verse: O how has my well / Become my grave; And my day of light / Become my darkness. The text, mourning the destruction and losses suffered by Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the worse-hit communities on October 7, has been added by many Jewish congregations to the traditional lamentations recited on Tisha B’Av – a day of mourning and fasting commemorating the tragedies of the Jewish people throughout history, particularly the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Juxtaposed with a display dedicated to Simhat Torah, the text emphasizes the dialectical connection between celebrating the Torah and remembering loss and destruction – a connection that has now been branded in the Israeli collective consciousness. The complex relation between Simhat Torah and Tisha B’Av is further enhanced in the gallery by a set of silver Sabbath candlesticks called In Memory of the Destruction of the Temple (1988), designed by the Israeli artist Zelig Segal (1933–2015). The memory of this national tragedy reverberates even on happy occasions, whether personal or collective. Segal, one of the most prominent designers of Jewish ritual objects, created three (rather than the traditional two) Sabbath candlesticks; two have apertures for candles and may be kindled, while the third is sealed as a reminder that the joy of celebrating the Sabbath can never be complete in light of what was lost. This sentiment took on an overwhelmingly poignant meaning after October 7, 2023 – which fell on a Saturday.
Displayed alongside Segal’s candlesticks is a mourning necklace called Keep It Light (2017), designed by Anat Golan (b. 1983) for the Jerusalem Biennale. It was created from the metal holders of mass-produced memorial candles – a commonly used object in Israel – cut and shaped into beads filled with wax and strung on a cotton thread. As a result, the images of holy sites that adorn the candle holders lose their original sense, with only colorful patterns remaining. By transforming them into a piece of jewelry that can be worn, the artist invites the wearer to view personal mourning within a wider Jewish and Israeli context. The number of beads reflects the timeline of the year of mourning in Judaism: at the base of the necklace are the seven largest beads, signifying the shiva (the first week of mourning); together with twenty-three medium-sized beads, they symbolize the shloshim (the thirty-day period following the burial); while the eleven smallest beads represent the remaining eleven months. The necklace offers an innovative Jewish and Israeli version of the mourning amulets or prayer beads often used in other religions. In the context of this special display marking the first anniversary of the massacre, and while a tragic war is still taking place, the necklace symbolizes both a milestone in a year of mourning and an ongoing cycle of mourning.
In the Memorial Days gallery, several pins reflect the personal and collective memory of fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. Einat Leader (b. 1966) designed a memorial candle brooch called Personal Soul (2017), also in the framework of the Jerusalem Biennale. Evoking a war decoration, the pin was designed in memory of Leader’s father, who fought in the 1967 Six-Day War. Though he died many years after, his memory remained closely associated in her mind with the complexity of that specific war’s consequences combining the figure of the celebrated soldier with an anti-militaristic figure. The pin, made of stainless steel and silver, contains a candle, two matches, and a paper for kindling – all of which can be replaced, so that the item becomes a reusable memorial-candle traveling kit. Thus, it is both a pin worn on the body – a personal remembrance decoration – and a kit that enables the performance of a traditional remembrance practice.
Another pin on display, Dam Hamaccabim (Hebrew for “Blood of the Maccabees”), incorporates a protected local wildflower which, according to legend, blooms where Maccabee warriors once shed blood. Already in the 1950s, it was chosen as an Israeli symbol for the national Memorial Day for the fallen soldiers and victims of terrorism. The practice of wearing a red flower – mostly poppies – is common in several western cultures, most famously to commemorate the fallen soldiers of World War I. Since 2017, the “Dam Hamaccabim” Project, together with the “Seeds of Zion” organization, have been growing and drying this flower and mass-producing the metal pins holding them, in order for it to be worn on Remembrance Day. In the same context, the display includes 3D-printed lapel pins designed by Shaul Cohen (b. 1981), who designed the yellow lapel pins that are perhaps most closely identified with the campaign calling for the return of the hostages abducted to Gaza by Hamas on October 7. Over the course of the past year, Cohen has been asked to design several variations on this pin in different colors, such as a black pin to commemorate Israel’s fallen soldiers on the official national Remembrance Day and an olive-green one – alluding to the color of the military uniform – for a widow of the Iron Swords war.
While mounting this special exhibit, an unplanned visual connection emerged between the displays of the Sabbath, Simhat Torah, Memorial Days, and the Day of Atonement, and the contemporary video Trembling Time (2001) by Yael Bartana, which alludes – among other things – to the Yom Kippur War that broke out exactly fifty years before the October 7 attack. We did not plan, nor could we have wished to see, such a poignant and grim connection between our days of joy and our days of mourning, but it reflects a deep, inherent complexity of associations that is forever part of the Jewish and Israeli collective consciousness.
* A Time to Remember was made possible by the support of the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Foundation.
** Thanks to Susan Strul and Annie Lopez for editing this text.
