When the war began with the terrorist attack on Israel’s southern border civilian settlements on October 7th, museums in Israel applied the war protocol to their collections, taking valuable artworks into the vaults. Artists working in studios in the Sam Spiegel building in the Talpiot Industrial Zone, Jerusalem, were invited to install artworks from their group exhibition in the studios in the Bible Lands Museum. Thanks to the initiative of producer Yael Boverman and curator Noa Arad Yairi, works by Jerusalem contemporary artists were installed in empty spaces in the Museum in appropriate galleries. When the war began it seemed ridiculous to paint. However, searching for the pioneer spirit and the reason we are in Israel, when I came upon old family photographs of the Huleh Valley taken in 1946, I was inspired to paint the scene: Buffalos in the Huleh, 1946 (2023) is currently installed in Gallery 9 – The Patriarchs Gallery in the Bible Lands Museum. I am very happy that the timelessness of the Huleh is connected to the timelessness of the Age of the Patriarchs.
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