Eli Cohen Museum

Eli Cohen, an Egyptian-born Jew, became one of the most legendary spies in Israeli history. In the 1960s, posing as a wealthy Syrian businessman, he penetrated the highest ranks of the Syrian government while working for the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency. Over years of careful cultivation, Cohen embedded himself among the movers and shakers of the Syrian Ba'ath Party, earning the nickname 'Our Man in Damascus'. His remarkable career came to a tragic end in 1965, when Syrian intelligence uncovered his true identity and executed him.

Some time ago, Mister Handmade in Israel and I visited the Eli Cohen Museum in Herzliya, which had only opened in December 2022. Our hour-and-a-half guided tour was fascinating. We got a glimpse into Cohen's family life as well as his work, told through personal stories, original artifacts, and documents, including his very last telegram. The museum has recreated rooms reflecting his home and scenes from his operations in Syria, giving a real sense of how he lived and worked as a spy. It was moving to follow his journey, from his infiltration and intelligence gathering to his capture and execution, and to reflect on the legacy he left behind.

Eli Cohen grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of Syrian Jewish parents. His fluency in Hebrew, Arabic, English, Spanish and French made him an attractive recruit for Israeli intelligence. He travelled to Israel for a brief espionage training course in 1955 and returned to Egypt the following year. In the aftermath of the Suez Crisis, he was among at least 500 Egyptian Jews expelled from Egypt, eventually settling in Israel in 1957. He worked as a translator and an accountant before once again being recruited by Israeli intelligence in 1960.

Cohen assumed the identity of Kamal Amin Thaabet, a Syrian businessman returning to his homeland after living in Buenos Aires, Argentina. To build up his credentials, Cohen first moved to Buenos Aires and soon gained the trust of senior officials working in the Syrian embassy there. Those included the Syrian military attaché, Amin al-Hafez, who would later serve as president of Syria.

In January 1962 Cohen moved to Damascus where he managed to work his way into the social circles of the Syrian elite. He was able to relay critical intelligence information to Israel and was credited with playing a key role in Israel's success in the 1967 Six Day War, particularly in the capture of the Golan Heights. He sent intelligence by radio, secret letters, and occasionally in person, secretly travelling to Israel three times.

In January 1965 Syrian counterintelligence identified Cohen's radio signal and apprehended him in the act of sending a transmission. He was interrogated, convicted in a military trial, and publicly hanged in Damascus in May 1965.

The exact location of Eli Cohen's body is unknown. Syrian officials have revealed over the years that his body was actually buried multiple times in order to thwart Israeli efforts to retrieve it. Israel has long lobbied for its return but to no avail.
Despite this, the Mossad was able to retrieve Cohen's wristwatch from Syria in 2018, and it is now displayed in the Eli Cohen Museum, above. In addition, on the 18th of May this year, marking the 60th anniversary of Cohen's execution, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office announced that approximately 2,500 documents and personal items belonging to Cohen were retrieved from Syria in a covert Mossad operation. The collection, constituting the entirety of the Syrian archive on Cohen, included handwritten letters to his family, evidence of communications with senior Syrian officials, photographs from his time undercover, personal belongings such as the keys to his Damascus apartment, and his original will written hours before his execution. The items were subsequently presented to his widow, Nadia.
Eli Cohen is highly regarded in Israel, and many streets and neighbourhoods have been named after him. A memorial stone has been erected to Cohen in the Garden of the Missing Soldiers in Mount Herzl, Jerusalem.

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Graduation Day

Tamar's graduation ceremony took place in June, and her mum asked me to create a special card to mark the occasion. She wanted something personal that would celebrate Tamar's achievement and serve as a keepsake of this important milestone in her life.

She asked me to depict Tamar in her black graduation cap and gown. In the background, she requested a diploma reading "Psychology & Special Education", to reflect Tamar's BA in Psychology alongside her focus in Special Education. I was also asked to include "an apple for the teacher". The phrase can be traced back to 16th-18th century Europe and later 19th century America, when some rural families, often short of cash, would sometimes pay teachers with food instead. Apples were a common choice as they were plentiful and easy to carry. At the same time, education was becoming increasingly valued, and teachers were being seen as important role models and mentors. The simple gift of a sweet, fresh apple became a way of showing respect and appreciation for their work.
Over time, the apple also came to symbolise knowledge and wisdom, and giving one to a teacher became a gesture of recognising the importance of education in people's lives.
Mum wrote to me, "The card is gorgeous!"

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Hila 25

Hila, my eldest son's girlfriend, turned 25 at the end of June. She has been part of our family for some time now and receives one of my handmade cards each year. Last year's birthday card featured her family's dogs, Toffee and Archie, quite prominently. The year before, I illustrated her and Nadav at a cooking workshop in the Vietnamese city of Hội An.

This year, Nadav sent me this brilliant photo of Hila and Toro, the rescue pup they adopted last year, below. It was taken in the open spaces of Kibbutz Ramot Menashe, where Hila grew up, and the two of them look like they're having a wonderful time together. It's quite amazing how high Toro can jump!

Nadav hoped a card based on this photo would be a memorable one for her.

I nearly always sketch my cards first, and this time the sketch is worth sharing. I wanted to preserve the natural background of the original photo while still making Hila and Toro the focal point. You can't see Toro's face on my card, but you can see just how much energy he has!

I added a large number 25 to mark Hila's age, and the Hebrew greeting simply reads, "Happy Birthday Hila".
I've also included one final, slightly gratuitous, photo of Toro at the bottom of this post - this time showing his face - because it would be unfair not to let everyone appreciate just how handsome he is ☺

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Teddie, Shoshkie and Naomi

One of my recent commissions came from a customer who wanted a special birthday card for her niece, Rebecca. The brief was simple. The card was to feature her dog, Teddie, and include a large "27" somewhere in the design. My customer sent me a couple of photos of Teddie, and I got to work.

The card was fun to create and was very well received. My customer was keen to share that her niece adored the card!

Back in February, Mister Handmade in Israel and I went to the Peres Center for Peace and Innovation in the port city of Jaffa to hear the artist Zeev Engelmayer speak about his artistic work and activism. Working under the creative persona "Shoshke", Engelmayer is known in Israel for his ongoing illustrated "Daily Postcard" project. Through these drawings, he responds to current events, politics, and social issues with honesty and insight. I have followed his postcards closely since the outbreak of the war and was keen to hear what he had to say about them.

Since the 7th of October, when Hamas terrorists attacked Israel's Gaza border communities, killing thousands, committing atrocities, and abducting hundreds, Shoshke has been drawing his interpretation of the day's distressing events on a regular basis. Although he has now turned his attention to larger projects, during the war he would sit each morning at a small kitchen table in his Tel Aviv apartment overlooking the Florentin neighbourhood and create his "Daily Postcards", depicting hostages, soldiers, and mourners. He portrayed the Bibas family - mum Shiri, dad Yarden, and red-haired preschoolers Ariel and baby Kfir - as well as 80-year-old Yaffa Adar, a released hostage, riding home in a heart-festooned golf cart with ballerinas alongside her. In other works, Mary Poppins magically brings hostages home beneath floating parasols, while in another, child hostages travel on a rainbow from Gaza to Tel Aviv, above. He also responded to the daily reports of soldiers killed in Gaza and, more recently, in Lebanon.
Shoshke's colourful A4-sized "Daily Postcards" capture the horror, fear, and sorrow of the war, but they also offer a different way of engaging with the day's unfolding reality. Through humour, emotion, and illustration, he approached painful subject matter in a way that can bring a sense of comfort. The public responded immediately, sending messages and requests for him to tell the stories of their loved ones. We also asked whether he would consider portraying Gadi's story, though that now seems unlikely.
I was pleased to be able to purchase one of Shoshke's prints, and now have it framed and ready to hang on the wall as soon as I find the right spot for it.

The Hebrew text reads: "Today all the hostages are returning home"

Since losing Gadi, neither Mister Handmade in Israel nor I have really been in the mood to listen to music. However, we were recently given tickets for a tribute performance to Naomi Shemer at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv, and we decided to give it a go.
Naomi Shemer was an iconic Israeli songwriter, composer, and performer who, in her own words, wrote "a thousand songs and one more". The tribute evening was curated by her son, the acclaimed musician Ariel Horowitz. The show was a musical journey through her well-known Hebrew songs, interwoven with personal stories about her life and working process. It featured songs she wrote and composed herself, poems by other writers she chose to set to music, and songs she translated. These include Lu Yehi (Let It Be), Al Kol Eleh (For All These Things), and the Six-Day War anthem Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold), among others.
The Israeli actress, comedian and television presenter Rivka Michaeli, Naomi Shemer's close friend, appeared on stage alongside Tamar Giladi, Shemer's daughter-in-law and Ariel Horowitz's wife, and Lali Shemer, her daughter. Each of them shared small anecdotes from Shemer's life. Together, they offered a personal and intimate glimpse behind the scenes of the woman often regarded as the First Lady of Hebrew Song.
It was a moving evening that celebrated Shemer's extraordinary body of work, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Although she passed away more than twenty years ago, in 2004, her songs continue to live on.

Photo by Boris Carmi, courtesy of the Meitar Collection, Pritzker Family National Photography Collection, National Library of Israel

A Tribute to Naomi Shemer at the Cameri Theatre - singer Adi Cohen performs “Jerusalem of Gold”

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Baking, Nursing, and a Taste of Australia

To celebrate Polly turning 60 on 7th May, her husband commissioned a special card. He shared that his wife's interests include cooking, especially baking, as well as nursing, and asked that I incorporate the Clalit Health Services logo, where she works, on the card. Clalit Health Services is Israel's largest health maintenance organisation (HMO). He also requested images of Australia, where the couple recently enjoyed a three-week holiday.

I decided to show bespectacled Polly baking some heart-shaped cookies. She is wearing her white coat, with the Clalit kupa (health organisation) logo on it, and blue disposable medical gloves. Next to her I added a cooking pot and a wooden spoon, and on her other side, a little bottle of medicine, some capsules and a plaster. I also included photos of Sydney Opera House and Uluru, or Ayers Rock, two places I know that the couple visited on their Australia trip. Finally, I added a large 60 to mark Polly's age, and underneath it, the emblem of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), which features a sword wrapped in an olive branch inside a Star of David. Polly does some part-time work for the IDF.

Her husband was very happy to see the card. "It is perfect, and you are the best!" he said.

* This post has been shared on Happiness is Homemade, Mosaic Monday, Handmade Monday, Monday Morning Blog Club, Busy Monday, Talking About It Tuesdays, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop, Thursday Favorite Things and BFF Open House.

Hansen House

Hansen House (Beit Hansen) is a historic building in the Talbiya neighborhood of Jerusalem. It was built as an asylum to care of sufferers of Hansen's disease, also known as leprosy. The large building was designed by German architect Conrad Schick. Construction began in 1874, when the cornerstone of the "Jesus-Hilfe" (With Jesus' Help) asylum was laid. The name is still visible on the façade, above.

Today, the compound hosts a rotating gallery of art exhibitions and is the headquarters of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design's master's program. Every year, Hansen House hosts Design Week in collaboration with artists and creators from around Israel. The Ofaimme Farm's Coffee House for Sustainable Agriculture was opened in the historic doctor's house. All the food is from an organic farm in the Negev desert. Hadir - The Bar at Hansen, which was opened in 2018, is located in what was once a goat pen, whose dairy products were used to supply the residents of the leper hospital.

The permanent exhibition, 'Behind the Wall', tells the story of the building and its residents.

It seems that Hansen's disease was pretty rife in these parts in the 19th century, which was not at all to the liking of a German aristocrat by the name of Baroness Augusta von Kefenbrinck Ascheraden, who visited Jerusalem with her husband in 1865. Disturbed by the sight of lepers begging at the Old City gates, the baroness raised funds from her wealthy European contacts. With support from the Joint German-Anglican Protestant Church in Jerusalem and the Moravian Church, she helped purchase a plot of land in Mamilla (a neighbourhood of Jerusalem that was established in the late 19th century outside the Old City). However, the sick of Jerusalem were wary of moving to the new asylum for fear of losing the income they scratched together by begging. That was compounded by the fact that the majority of the sufferers were Muslim, and they were concerned they would be forcibly converted to Christianity if they moved into the new refuge. A second, less hospitable and even less successful facility was established by the Ottoman authorities in the district of Bir Ayub in 1875.

Despite all this, the asylum in Mamilla eventually proved to be too small and in 1874 the Moravian Church purchased a vineyard in Talbiya from the Greek Orthodox Church and the construction of a new asylum began. It was completed in 1887 and was designed to take in up to 60 patients and members of staff. The patients were from Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities throughout the country.

In 1950 the asylum was purchased by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) but continued to serve as a leprosy treatment centre through 2000. The Israeli Ministry of Health took over the running of the asylum, renaming it the Hansen Government Hospital (after the physician Gerhard Hansen, who identified the Leprosy bacteria). With the development of an effective cure for leprosy, more patients were rehabilitated and discharged, resulting in the closure of the hospitalization unit.

In 1986, due to the building's significant historical and architectural value, it was declared a preserved building. The facility operated as a day clinic before finally closing down in 2009, when the Israeli government decided to hand over the building to the Jerusalem Municipality, for the purpose of converting it into an interdisciplinary cultural centre. In 2011, the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA) started the Hansen House preservation project. By the end of 2013, the impressive historical building was reopened to the public as a design, media and technology cultural centre, where academic research, development, education, and public activities could take place.

Fortunately, adding 21st-century hi-tech content did not erase the rich history that had taken place in the building since the 1880s. Under the protection of the JDA, modern floor tiles were removed, to reveal the original, far more aesthetic flooring, as were partitions that the Health Ministry had installed. The beautiful gardens surrounding the building have been conserved and maintained with the rest of the compound. 

One of four water cisterns that formed part of Hansen House’s original infrastructure.

The Tea House, pictured above, is a shell-shaped structure with an intricate mosaic floor that was relocated to the northern courtyard of Hansen House in early 2021. It originally stood beside the pool of Villa Sherover, a historic residence built in 1954 for the affluent Meir Halevy Sherover and his wife Gita in Jerusalem's prestigious Talbiya neighbourhood. Their home was once a vibrant centre for cultural and diplomatic gatherings. Today, the Tea House has been reimagined as a sound gallery, featuring contemporary music and sound-based art.

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