The modern artwork kind, which views the world critically, and the strict faith of the Haledim (ultra-Orthodox), appear to be incompatible at first look. However, the 2 are collectively at Jerusalem’s underground bomb shelter, the place Noah Lee Kohn runs the artwork shelter gallery.
The curator sits in a bombshell shelter carrying white fur hats and purple glasses just under the youngsters’s playground in Mekorbalph, a super-orthodox neighbour in Jerusalem. Cone, positioned between the stable concrete partitions of the underground bunker, has been working the Art Shelter Gallery, a recent artwork area, since 2017.
Not everybody within the neighborhood would welcome the Corn undertaking. “That’s not straightforward,” she explains. “But my purpose is to supply a type of arts schooling to the group right here.”
The windowless rooms are hung with works from varied Haredi artists. The concrete wings hold on the wall. They are oppressive if they’re too heavy to fly. In one other process, cardboard houses are supported by glass ft, as if the “dwelling” is a fragile idea that may be uprooted at any time.
Bunkers and sellers have reappeared in a few of the artworks that Israelis needed to seek for shelters a number of instances since October 7, 2023, with every rocket being fired from Gaza, Yemen, Iran and Lebanon. The gallery itself stays an lively bomb shelter. “It’s a giant headache,” says Korn, who desires of a correct museum. “We cannot be within the bunker anymore. We want the precise place on the bottom.” Ultra Orthodox Jews have a good time the Jewish vacation in Ragbahmer as a siren alert for an incoming missile assault at Bnei Brak on May 15, 2025.
Visual Arts Space for the Haredi Community
The Art Shelter Gallery is the primary and solely visible arts area within the Haredi group. It was based in 2003 by a bunch of artists corresponding to Urizohar, Mordekaianon, Ikaisrael and others. “They had been distinguished figures within the arts and tradition world who started asking questions and looking for solutions after the 1973 Yom Kipper War, a traumatic expertise in Israel,” explains Kohn.
Once secular Zohar, Arnon and Israelis, partly recognized for his or her wild public appearances, discovered what they had been searching for at Yeshibot, a conventional non secular college. “They grew to become very non secular and that was a shock on the cultural scene in Israel.”
The Cohn’s Art Shelter Gallery is claimed to have been the inspiration for the award-winning cult collection Shtisel. The protagonist is Haredi’s artist Akiva Stysel, who desires of quitting his job as a trainer at Heder (ultra-Ordinary major college) with a purpose to pursue his life as an artist, and in doing so he repeatedly confronts the boundaries of an ultra-Ordinary society. “The scriptwriter studied artwork right here. He captured the temper that drew into varied scenes,” says Kohn.
The bridge Noah Lee Cohn desires to construct in her artwork tasks brings collectively not solely socially however the two worlds. Even the notorious, extra strict Mare, she begins on one facet of the gallery. Here, vacationers are warned by the banner that their smartphone shall be confiscated if used on the road. On the opposite facet of the gallery, the Midtown Jerusalem actual property undertaking produces shiny glass towers in luxurious residences.
“While Israeli society is turning into increasingly more digital, trendy and secular, the Haredi group is responding by turning into increasingly more entrenched in its identification,” Kohn says. “This dynamic is more and more reaching the stress between these two worlds.” And it’s exactly between these two worlds that Kohn sees himself.
Art historians describe themselves as “trendy haledi” and examine themselves to the Chabad motion. This seeks to deliver conventional theology into mainstream Jewish society. Her paper was revealed in 2022 in Baaleiteshuva (Jews of religiously noticed secular backgrounds) within the artwork scene, like a founding member of the Art Scene Gallery.
In the gallery, Kohn desires to provide area to ultra-orthodox artists. “They are really pioneers just because they do not have function fashions.” In strictly non secular communities, artwork is seen as a distraction from the examine of the Torah. Plus, there are few studios or galleries that respect habits and guidelines.
Cohn desires to advertise ladies particularly. It hosts workshops the place brokers and curators can get to know one another and frequently show their works.
There are many challenges. According to the Israeli Institute of Democracy, ultra-Orthodox ladies give delivery to a median of 6.4 kids. Korn herself is a mom of 5. And whereas ladies are sometimes busy at dwelling, males typically make little cash. “It’s troublesome. There’s not a lot time left,” she says.
Korn additionally helps artwork kinds that had been beforehand unthinkable in Haredi society. Walking round Mecorbaluch’s neighbourhood, she factors out the graffiti. One created throughout the coronavirus pandemic exhibits Haredi males carrying well being masks, singing songs and enjoying keyboards.
“At that point, Haredim was misrepresented as a virus spreader by different societies, which left them much more excluded,” she says. Other graffiti may even be seen as provocation from Haredi’s perspective. “Ahavat Chinam” reads one lettering, “free love.”
The Art Shelter Gallery has been holding comedian ebook competitions for 5 years. Korn talks concerning the comics increase in Haredi society. Even Mea, even her Arim, some bookstores have cartoon cabinets. But as an alternative of Superman and Spider-Man, there are main figures just like the terrifying heroes combating the Nazis. Korn is presently finding out these Haredy heroes at Brandeis University close to Boston.
Impact on the gallery on October seventh
One theme has a significant influence on the artwork shelter gallery. October seventh. Shortly after the Hamas bloodbath, the gallery was scheduled to have a good time its twentieth anniversary, but it surely all turned the other way up that day, says Kohn. “We simply could not proceed.”
Shortly after the assault, the gallery was known as out to carry out and all of the names of about 250 Hamas hostages written on black canvas. This record continues to be on the entrance to the bunker at this time.
The Yechiel Offner exhibition came about within the gallery on the finish of 2024. The artist, who followers of the Chabad motion, serves in non secular navy models that establish our bodies. He labored on October seventh, and the next day.
When he found the ruins of the Kibbutz Kissfim household, he started drawing two troopers defending their kids on the partitions of the burnt-out home. “The second was an emotional launch,” Ofner stated in an interview. He later adopted the picture with chalk on the black painted partitions of the Art Shelter Gallery.
Kissufim’s work had been solely found when Kibbutzniks returned to a group that had been destroyed a number of months after the assault. “They did not look forward to finding Haredi troopers behind it,” Korn says.
The authentic wall was eliminated earlier than the destroyed household dwelling was demolished and is now saved in Israeli state archives. Even if the chance is deeply saddened, for Korn, the 2 separate worlds wherein the artwork shelter stands has come a bit nearer.