Since the outbreak of the Swords of Iron War over five months ago, around 250,000 Israeli citizens have been evacuated from their homes in the periphery. The evacuees’ temporary homes include hotels, hostels and dormitories, and for some of them, there is no end in sight.
Miriam Gottlieb, director of Mosaics by Miriam, has been teaching mosaics workshops for four years. She has been part of many important family and community projects like the mosaic for the lookout that the youth of Efrat put together in memory of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee who were murdered in the Jordan Valley this past spring.
Gottlieb worked for nonprofits for most of her career and now finds a way to mix her passion for Jewish community work with mosaics. When the war broke out in October, she tried to find a way to help evacuees and communities find an outlet for their frustration and sadness.
“All of our lives are somewhat broken, and they are never going to be the same,” said Gottlieb. “Just like when you break a tile with a hammer, you can never put it back together exactly the same, but you can take the broken pieces and make something new and beautiful with them. So many have lost friends and family and so many have been away from their homes, but there is much beauty to build with this experience,” she added.
Miriam’s war project started when friends in the diaspora were looking for ways to help. She asked if they would be interested in sponsoring workshops for evacuated families and communities and many did. She got in touch with the contacts for the evacuees and the project took off from there.
By Chanukah, Gottlieb was doing workshops with groups of evacuees. Shalva, the center and school for individuals with special needs, has been hosting students from Ashkelon, Ashdod and Sderot whose programs had closed due to the war. Shalva reached out to Gottlieb and she did a workshop making chanukiyot with the students.
Around the same time, Dr. Elana Heideman, executive director of Israel Forever, contacted Gottlieb and a collaboration was born. Israel Forever focuses on the Holocaust, Israel and Jewish identity education, and Heideman has been reaching out to Jews in the diaspora to become involved in projects for Israelis who are going through this tough time.
Shlomit, a village on the Gaza border with 84 families, had been evacuated since the beginning of the war. They lost four members on Oct. 7 and wanted to plant a garden in their memory. They also wanted to create a community project of a mosaic sign for the garden. Israel Forever and Global Israel Alliance found the donors and Gottlieb has been carrying the project through.
She recently worked with Kibbutz Sasa on the northern border, whose members have been relocated since Oct. 17. This year they are celebrating their 75th anniversary, which is difficult since they are not there. Despite this, they celebrated and created a large mosaic that they will install at the entrance to the kibbutz.
Gottlieb reflected: “People who build a mosaic often think it doesn’t really look like anything until they step back and see the whole picture. When you look at something up close you can see every crack, wrinkle, blemish and broken piece. This is similar to life. Sometimes, when it seems you can only see the bad, you have to step away so you can also see beauty in what is happening. I think this is a metaphor for what we are going through as a nation.”
Gottlieb would like to continue working with evacuees and bereaved families and communities to help them heal through mosaics. Unfortunately, there is a lot of loss in Israel right now, and Gottlieb is helping people and communities memorialize their loved ones in a beautiful and therapeutic way.
Donations are necessary for Gottlieb to continue to provide Israelis with mosaic workshops.
Donate through Israel Forever’s website at israelforever.org/programs/healing_arts/mosaics-donate.
Aviva Zacks is a writer living in Israel who loves speaking to everyone and hearing their stories.
