On the heels of the first-ever Jewish Street Art Festival in 2019 in Jerusalem, leading Jewish street artists from around North America brought public art to their communities for Chanukah 2020. The 2020 Jewish Street Art Festival (jewishstreetart.com) was reimagined as a decentralized art event in which nine Jewish artists each created a public art piece in their own city. Each artist or artist team painted a Chanukah menorah, linking the eight participating cities through art. Participating cities included New York City; Washington, DC; Charlotte; Atlanta; Toronto; Chicago; Los Angeles; and Detroit.

Some of the artists also called on local Jewish and civic leaders and other artists to “light” the menorah murals each night by painting in a flame. With the closures and cancellations of Jewish and arts programming because of COVID-19, this project allowed artists to engage their local communities.

Three years ago artist Rabbi Yitzchok Moully of Hillside began a yearly tradition of creating a large interactive Chanukah mural in the New York/New Jersey area.

Last year, Moully created a mural in Jersey City following the Jersey City shooting on a wall near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. It is called “#Light Over Darkness.” He invited other artists to paint the flame each night, and the names of the victims are memorialized on the left side of the painting. “Following the success of the Jersey City mural I wanted to try to do something even bigger for this year,” Moully told The Jewish Link. [This mural as its stands today is featured this week on the cover of The Jewish Link, commemorating the one year anniversary of the Jersey City shootings.]

This year Moully reached out to artist Hillel Smith of Washington, DC, to bring his annual mural to a wider audience. “We made this year’s festivals all about menorahs. Eight cities, eight menorahs, nine artists.”

The festival featured artists renowned for work that deals with Jewish themes and work inspired by their urban landscapes. These artists come from diverse backgrounds: Ashkenazi and Mizrachi, secular and religious, and from around North America. Their varied perspectives exemplify the richness of the Jewish world and create a platform for a broader conversation about Jewish art and identity.

Street art has become enormously popular in recent years, increasingly embraced by the art world and tourists alike. As street art is often used by artists to express their identities, Jewish artists have found a perfect outlet in murals and other public art. The festival sought to highlight this development on the world stage by creating conversations about Jewish presence in our cities.

The festival was supported by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation’s Grassroots Events program.

This year, Moully created a large interactive mural on the corner of Classon Ave. and Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn. His mural featured members of the local Jewish community each holding up a candle, making up the branches of the menorah. Eight diverse community members as well as Rabbi Simcha, the center’s spiritual leader, were depicted larger than life in the 30-foot wall. Each night of Chanukah local artists and community members added a new flame on the menorah.

The public was invited to add their light to the mural following the call to action #ShareYourLight by adding a positive message to the wall.

Said curator Smith, “Street art has the power to inspire new kinds of Jewish engagement while beautifying our spaces, and we hope to build a model to spark conversations about Judaism and art for years to come.”