By Carl Zebrowski
Editor
The first event in the Lehigh Valley for the three artists who had just arrived from the Valley’s Partnership2Gether community of Yoav, Israel, on September 9 was a hands-on art therapy session with the Jewish Federation’s Women’s Philanthropy.
Romina Oppel, an art therapist who led the program fittingly titled “Art and Life,” used art to promote healing from the difficult year that has passed since the October 7 Hamas attacks.
“This is not an art class,” said Oppel, who was joined at the event by the other two Yoav artists, Sunny Versano and Idit Porat. “This is an experiment. This is to work from the heart.”
Porat, a sculptor whose medium is “earth,” talked about a photograph she had on display at the event. It showed sunlight shining into sandstone formations at the site of Solomon’s Temple in Israel’s Timna Valley.
“There is a crack in everything,” she explained. “That’s how the light gets in. “This is for hope. The main issue here is the light that is coming through the crack. Even though we are having very tough times now, there is still the light coming through the crack.”
Oppel, a native of Argentina who moved to Israel after falling in love with it (and her now-husband) during her first visit there, left Israel after the October 7 attacks. Her family lived near the border and she decided they needed to get away to keep her son safe.
That didn’t last long. “I realized how much my heart is in Israel,” she said, explaining her return. “Just going back made me feel full. I cannot be in a different place.”
The program moved into the art-creation phase. Participants choose from a selection of photographs from Israel on offer to inspire their own creations and even to include in their own works. Then they could choose from among dozens of media and tools from paints and rubber stamps to glue and crepe paper for making their own pieces.
Afterward, some of them talked to the gathering about their experiences and how they were connected to what the Israelis lived through on October 7 and the trying circumstances they continue to live through.
“A lot of you chose the color yellow,” Oppel pointed out, referring to the color representing the Israeli hostages. “I think it is in our hearts, it is in our minds, all the time now.”
Elaine Rappaport was one of those who highlighted yellow. “I have the sun,” she said of the focal point of her work. “But the sun is crying.”
Cherie Zettlemoyer worked with a photo of three Israel Defense Forces soldiers hugging. “There’s nothing like the resilience of the Israeli soldiers and the Israeli people,” she said. “Obviously they’re there for each other, because they’re in a tight embrace.”
Miriam Zager, one of the organizers of the local Run for Their Lives effort to keep a focus on the hostages and getting them freed, said, “We walk for the hostages every week.”
She told the gathered women that the hostages are always on her mind. “I just can’t stop thinking about them,” she said. “So many tears are shed.”
The event did provide relief for participants, as intended, from its start with socializing among the Women’s Philanthropy members to the communal process of art creation to the sharing of thoughts and feelings about the experience. “Just playing with the clay was very therapeutic,” Zager said.
Eileen Ufberg took a light approach to her piece, which proved to have the intended healing effect. “It’s not going to hang in an art museum,” she said, “but I did have fun.”
Other appearances by the artists during their week in the Valley included at the JCC’s weekly Friendship Circle for older adults, at the JCC’s early childhood education, at the Jewish Day School, for Jewish Family Service, and at the Tikvah House group home.