A Prayer: To See Ourselves in Others and Others in Ourselves
Mixed media: Found mirror, acrylic on canvas, found wood, replica of 14th century picture frame (Siena, Italy), found silver plated vases, glass beads formed into a Poppy, and Poppy Anemone using French wire beading process and Czech glass beads.
18” x 28” x 5”
This past summer my husband and I traveled to the Czech Republic, where my husband’s father’s family has its roots. In Prague we visited the Pinkas Memorial Synagogue, where the names of almost 80,000 Bohemian and Moravian Jews murdered in the Holocaust are hand written on the walls. They are organized by home communities; with each name is a date of birth and the date the person was last seen alive. We had been told by friends that they saw my husband’s last name, Fleischner, written there We had always thought that the name was unusual and imagined we might see it once or twice.
We found the names of 84 people named Fleischner. When I got home I took a deep dive through digital archives of the memorial and was able to see how family members fit together (by their more exact location) and also to see when and where they were taken – to deaths at Theresienstadt, at Auschwitz, Lodz, Riga, Klein Trostinetz, at Izbica, Treblinka, and GrossRosen.
To honor these people, and the many others whose names I didn’t recognize I etched the name of each Fleischner murdered during the holocaust into the glass of a vintage mirror. One of the 84 was listed as “survived.” Her name is last.
On Saturday, October 7, 2023 around 6:30 am, Hamas militants from Gaza attacked Israel. They killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in the deadliest day of the Jewish state’s 75-year history. Israel promised to destroy Hamas’ leadership and its fighting force in response. Within five days, the Israeli Air Force dropped 6,000 bombs on Gaza – 42 bombs an hour – including many unguided missiles.
On Tuesday October 17, 2023 around 7 pm, a devastating explosion ripped through the courtyard of the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City where civilians were sheltering. By the lowest estimates, dozens of women and children were killed; many more injured. Photo journalist Abed Khaled recorded several women huddled in the aftermath. I was struck by the similarity of this image to mother and child configurations seen in countless churches and cathedrals, and I used it as the basis for the painting.
The origin of the blast at al-Ahli hospital is disputed: some reports say an Israeli missile was responsible and others, including Human Rights Watch, conclude the explosion was the result the misfire of an Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. But the cost to the civilians of Gaza since October 7 is not.
The World Health Organization tracks attacks on health care facilities in conflicts all over the world. Since Oct 7, there have 68 attacks on health care in Israel. Twenty- four people have been killed and 34 injured.
During this same period, more than two-thirds of all attacks worldwide were perpetrated by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank. These include 535 attacks on hospitals and 443 on ambulances, with 769 deaths, many of them doctors and others healthcare workers. There is now an unprecedented public health catastrophe in the Palestine Occupied Territory.
It is both difficult and heart wrenching to get accurate and up to date numbers for the casualties during and after October 7th. in the Israel - Gaza war. By October 7, 2024, from various sources these stand at:
In Gaza and the West Bank 42,612 killed (including 16,928 children) 103,416 injured. I could not find numbers for how many children have been injured. More than 10,00 people missing.
In Israel, 1139 killed (183 of them women and children), 8730 injured. , I could not find numbers for how many children have been injured.
I can see the shadow of my face in the mirror over the names of my husband’s murdered relatives, their first names ringing in my mind. And I think of the over 60 Palestinian families like Youssef Salem’s.
He mourns 270 relatives killed since October. And the Mughrabi family - more than 70 killed in a single Israeli airstrike; the Abu Najas - over 50 killed, including two pregnant women; the Doghmush clan who lost at least 44 members in an airstrike on a mosque with 100 more killed in following weeks and the Abu al-Qumssan family – over 80 people killed.
The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, has called for a sustained humanitarian ceasefire and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages by Hamas.
The two vases hold the national flower of Israel, the Poppy Anemone, protected by law in Israel, and the national flower of Palestine, the Poppy, protected by law in Palestine.
May all being find peace. May all beings find happiness. May peace prevail on earth.