JERUSALEM, Israel — The path near the kibbutz curves left, through an open field. In the distance, a grove of trees; perhaps even a hint of the skyline of Gaza in the distance. The entire canvas is bathed in red — and torn open, in several places, by shrapnel.
This is “Red Alert,” a 2010 painting by the Israeli artist Ziva Jelin, a resident of Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities hit hardest by the Hamas terror attack of October 7.
At the time she painted it, “Red Alert” was already a familiar term to residents of Israel’s southern communities, who had to build bomb shelters to deal with occasional rocket fire from Gaza, which began around 2001. But the red color also symbolized more: love, warmth, the color of local wildflowers, and the socialist ideals of the kibbutz itself.
“Red Alert” has now been reborn, a work not only newly relevant because of the war, but fundamentally changed by it.
It is a painting that, like Israel, remains damaged by what happened on October 7, marked by scars that even victory in war will not heal.
Shrapnel damage is visible in a closeup of “Red Alert” by Ziva Jelin of Kibbutz Be’eri. Israel Museum, Jerusalem,…
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