Naama Goldberg couldn’t find the portraits of gedolim she wanted. As a newly married religious Jewish woman, she wanted to see the gedolim on the walls in her home. But she was looking for a contemporary aesthetic to match her modern décor, and none existed. The solution? She made the portraits herself. She took iconic, recognizable photos and digitally created sleek portraits on stainless steel. After getting many compliments she began making them for sale. Her studio, Ben Zion Fine Art, makes the portraits to order.

Goldberg came to the U.S. from her home in Ramat Beit Shemesh to be part of a traveling “Shuk to the Core” boutique with Israeli vendors following the October 7, 2023 attack. There were nine different fairs, including one at the Frisch School, where she came to The Jewish Link’s attention. “It was a very intense 12 days but the response was incredible; people want to incorporate these portraits into their homes,” Goldberg said in a Zoom interview from Israel.

The first portraits Goldberg made were of Rav Schach and the Steipler Gaon. The collection has grown and includes many others such as Rav Moshe Feinstein and Rav Joseph Ber Soloveitchik. She is also doing portraits by request. She can make a portrait from a photo of any rav a customer wants or of someone in the family, like a grandparent or ancestor. She has been working with nonprofit organizations to make portraits of their major donors to present as gifts and for honorees at their annual dinners.

The portraits are modern but blend into all kinds of homes, from colonial to contemporary. “They’re very neutral so they can be on a wooden background or fresh white; in a minimalist home or one that’s more casual. It’s very easy to integrate them. You can put one in a corner, three over a dining room table. One customer in New Jersey took four for their study.”

It was Sukkot of 2006 when the gedolim portraits began to take shape. After searching for gedolim photos every Sukkot, Goldberg took a photo she had, put it on her computer and started experimenting. Finally, as Yom Tov approached, she printed the photos and asked her husband, Asher, to put them on the sukkah walls. “I walked into the sukkah and stared at them,” she said. “There was something really interesting and modern about them, a spark of something I connected to.”

Goldberg began experimenting with different media for the portraits. She wanted to try stainless steel but didn’t know how to use it. Her husband, an aerospace engineer, knew just what to do as he worked with metal all day in airplanes. They tried different processes until they got it right. After the graphic is created, it is prepared for laser cutting. Once the prep work is done, multiple copies can be made. The portraits are hand-finished on an acrylic background with a simple black frame.

Enthusiasm from friends who saw the portraits convinced the Goldbergs there was a market for them. They had a few showings in their home and began selling. Then the pandemic began and the public visits stopped. So did Goldberg’s job as a web developer. With time on her hands, she turned in earnest to making and selling the portraits.

With the pandemic over, Golberg has returned to being a web developer, now with her own company, but art is still her passion. She has added a portrait series of holy places including the Kotel and Kever Rochel. Visit https://www.benzionfinearts.com/ and choose beautiful stainless-steel portraits for your home.

Bracha Schwartz is the special sections editor at The Jewish Link.