Tears, Fears and Pride

With Israeli Street Artist Benzi Brofman 

Photos and Text: Lydia Aisenberg

An enormous agricultural trailer, turned on its side, has become a powerful public canvas for Israeli street artist Benzi Brofman, following the horrific Hamas terrorist attacks on kibbutzim and towns along Israel's border with Gaza on October 7.

Initially the trailer was strategically placed at the side of the main road opposite Kibbutz Sarid in the Jezreel Valley. On the trailer, the artist, who lives in the nearby town of Migdal HaEmek and is nicknamed the Israeli Bansky, created a heart-wrenching image of hostage Shira Bibas and her two ginger-haired young sons, Ariel and Kfir. The trailer has recently been moved to the Jezreel Valley Academic College, where it has joined many other pieces of painful art in an extraordinary exhibition of Benzi Brofman's haunting portraits of Hamas victims. Some of these portraits have already appeared in public places in Israel, Britain, Germany and other countries.

Opposite the trailer with its demand to "Bring Them Home Now" is another extremely large artwork created by Benzi Brofman at Kibbutz Reim during the Nova Festival, with portraits of three young men full of positive vibes as they attend the long-awaited music festival. Their joyful images were painted just one day before the horrific Hamas onslaught.

Six months later, the portraits of the three young men are far from the Reim festival fields. On that day Benzi Brofman added these words at the exhibition site: TOGETHER WE ARE ONE. The spray cans of paint are still lying on the ground at the foot of the large artwork.

The artist, tall, quietly spoken and deeply emotional, a blue denim cloth cap pulled tight on his head, spoke at the opening of the Look Into Their Eyes exhibition last week. The exhibition was attended by scores of family members and friends of those depicted in Benzi's compelling portraits of individuals and family groups murdered or kidnapped to Gaza six months ago during that shockingly brutal, fateful Black Shabbat.

Benzi Brofman attended the Nova festival at the invitation of the organizers in order "to bring joy in creating artwork" there. The evening before the attack his wife wasn't feeling well and asked him to come home – a call that probably saved his life. This instilled in him an urge to memorialize each and every one of the Nova victims, those slaughtered in their homes and communities along the borders as well as the men and women still held captive by terror groups in Gaza.

In the large space where the exhibition has been laid out at the Jezreel Valley Academic College, the faces of those who died – including entire families – beckon one closer to read a short synopsis of who they were and what befell them that fateful day. The images are so life-like, they bring home the bottomless pit of shock and sorrow and an even deeper understanding of the loss suffered by their devastated families, friends and extended communities.

The powerful images of mostly young people, in either individual portraits or groups of three to five revellers who were at the Kibbutz Reim site, depict mostly bearded or shadowy stubbled young men, long-haired young women with flowers in their hair, as well as slightly older folk who were working at the festival, providing the music or security and first aid services.

A particularly large family portrait, comprising two smiling adults and three children, sits alongside a separate portrait of family matriach Carol Simontov (70), who made aliyah from Pensylvania in 1974 and settled in Nir Oz, where she studied nursing and became the mother of 4 and grandmother of 11.

Alongside Carol's portrait, is son Yonatan Simontov (36) – the proud husband of Tamar (35) and father of 5-year-old twins Arbel and Shachar and toddler Omer (Freddy) just 2 years old, all of whom were brutally murdered in their home at Kibbutz Nir Oz.

"I went to Nova to create art and make people happy, and now I'm dedicated to helping the families of those whose lives were taken. An incredible relationship, a deep bond has developed between myself and the families of many of those I have painted and also between the families themselves," Benzi Brofman said.

"Today I have more than my own family and we all have each other, together we are one," he concluded.