Processing trauma through art

Prof. Haim Maor, an emeritus professor of art at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and an artist, incorporated posts by Sophie Berson-Mackay, director of the Kibbutz Be'eri gallery, during the terror attack by Hamas on October 7 into his works. The gallery was destroyed in the attack.

Works dealing with the processing of personal and national traumas are at the center of Prof. Maor's work. Testimonies from the Holocaust and his memories of the Yom Kippur War were woven together and translated into paintings, with the intention of displaying them on November 24 at Kibbutz Be'eri's art gallery. However, the disaster that struck the kibbutz and most of the surrounding communities at the beginning of the Iron Swords War disrupted the plans. Many of the kibbutz houses burned down completely, and the gallery, adjacent to the kibbutz's dining room, was wiped off the face of the earth.

Maor's paintings document his family's memories of the Holocaust and his memories of the Yom Kippur War, in which he was stationed in the Mount Hermon and Golan Heights sectors. His difficult experiences during that war, as well as the events etched in his parents' memories, permeated the works he intended to exhibit in Be'eri. Now the exhibition is taking on a broader meaning and context: the processing of the "familiar" traumas was supplemented by new works that Maor painted two days after the massacre, incorporating Berson-Mackay's posts while hiding with her children in the safe room. These days, Maor continues to paint new paintings that echo the scenes of the massacre.

"The gallery building has been wiped off the face of the earth," Sophie wrote on her Facebook account, "and now that I'm done crying and my heart is still beating hard, I remember that the gallery was never a building. It's a worldview... And as long as there's one person in the world who sees life that way, then nothing ends."

In another post, she wrote: "The place where I gave my heart and soul to give light and hope to the residents of the Negev and the entire country was burned to the ground. Let's start all over again. When we return home, to Be'eri, we will rebuild the gallery from the ruins."

In an exhibition that will open after the war, Prof. Maor also intends to present works related to the events of October 7 in Be'eri.

"As far as the despicable terrorists were concerned, murdering Jews was not enough," says Prof. Maor. "They also tried to uproot Israeli culture and art, in short, to destroy our body, spirit, and soul."