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”

* This post has been shared on Happiness is Homemade, Mosaic Monday, Handmade Monday