Yorzeit – Artist’s text

November 9, 2014 / Texts,YORZEIT / No Comments

My works are built as a series, and as triptychs. They always take the

form of a journey, and relate to the search for a place where I will feel an

affinity. This is in fact a journey in search of identity. The place where I

feel this connection will answer the questions of my identity. The scene,

which expresses my search, freezes, photographs the place, and continues

onward in search of other places. In the drawings that I paint, which

describe the places that I find, I, and the viewers are able to remain in

the place, but the search will always continue. I paint the places on small

canvases, as if they were postcards, a collection of memories. Usually I

suitcase, which enables quick movement from place to place, as if I was

the wandering Jew, or as if I was my father, who traveled around Europe

for 8 years until he reached Israel, and also here his journey did not end.

It is impossible to build a continuous identity when there are missing

links. My father hid his past from me. He denied me the opportunity of

getting to know him. There were details that were revealed to me , but

my father broke their continuity, and I was unable to construct his full

story. It is difficult to make contact with a father when there are so many

things you don’t know about him.

When my father died a year ago, I slowly began to find the missing

links. I found pictures which I had never seen – photographs of places

which I never knew he had visited. I arranged a picture album for him for

the first time. I met people who told me about him, and his past, and he

was no longer there to interrupt. I met people from the small town in

which he grew up, and I discovered the meaning of my family name,

Podissuk which is a rare name in Israel : the name of the district in which

It’s a paradox – on the one hand his death left a huge vacuum, yet on

the other hand, now, after his death I am able to try and make contact

with him. This attempt is displayed in the work “Yorzeit” where the

threads attempt to make a connection between all the elements in the

work, and the hands search for a way to reach each other.

The first work which I dedicated to my parting from my father, was

a paper chain, like those we use for decoration on the holidays, in which

there would appear alternatively pictures of my family as a young girl,

and pictures of my family today as a mother – the chain of connection

and identity which passes from generation to generation.

“Yorzeit”, is as such a parting from my father. I was born in 1966-

when I was born my father was 56. I grew up in Tel Aviv – the “big” city,

the city of the bourgeoisie, the middle class, where many of the residents

then came from Eastern Europe. From my childhood I remember the

people with the numbers on their arms. Already before I could understand

the meaning of things, I understood from other adults that I shouldn’t ask

questions – that it’s connected to something terrible. I understood that I

shouldn’t get close to them, that I would never know about them, and the

“people with the numbers” won’t tell me anything. Today I know that in

every place in Israel the number on the arm was a code for identifying,

and social isolation. In the streets of the city “the crazy people of the

holocaust” as we called them, wandered around. There was one who was

tall and thin, always dressed in short pants and high boots summer and

winter. He would march forward swiftly, and suddenly stop, raise his arm

forward and shout “heil Hitler”. At that moment we would run terrified

into the shop openings. We felt his fear and madness long before we

understood the reality of what Hitler had done. Another “crazy” holocaust

survivor would stand on her balcony and spit at whoever walked past.

Another wandered around with two suitcases, would stop in the middle

of the intersection and wave his hands – we thought he was reading the

stars! As children we understood that something dreadful had happened

to these people. Most of adults around us were not born in Israel. They all

knew additional languages, and dressed differently. My father always

wore a suit and hat, when those born in Israel (sabras) wore short pants

and sandals. People like my father brought with a spirit of a different

place. I repeat, and emphasise- the message was that one must not ask,

yet with this one must not fear. The message was not given openly, but

unconsciously, using gestures of speech, hand movements, silence and

My father told me very little of his past, but his past and life

experience penetrates deeply into my life at all times. My father was born

in 1910,on the border of Russia and Poland, and he experienced three

wars, as he would say – two world wars and the War of Independence

in Israel. During the world war he served in the Soviet army, and after

the war he wandered around Europe for a few years, and came to Israel

in 1948. My father didn’t talk much and didn’t relate stories – I know

nothing of his life as a child before the war. I don’t know why he didn’t

marry for so many years. It was important for him to teach me about

“life”, and as he spoke so little, he passed on his conclusions, summarized

and as a doctrine – as a body of knowledge, not to be queried. Most of

this was handed on to me in an unconscious way. He would say: “what

could you possibly know about life?” and it was clear to me that life

was too large for me. After he died, and the ban on his past was lifted,

I started to examine within myself what things I got from him, what

approaches to life I adopted, without knowing. And here are some of

Survival and the meaning of life:

Life has always been to me something one relates to very seriously. One

doesn’t live without purpose, doesn’t enjoy aimlessly- that would be

senseless, as my father would say ————————. Life is something

one should prepare for – to look 10 steps ahead, to be prepared for any

change that appears, and to adjust accordingly. When the last intifada

broke out in 2000, I saw within myself the ultimate of my father’s

inheritance: I was in a state of panic and confusion. Perhaps this was the

situation I had been prepared for for so many years? Perhaps everything

is going to be destroyed and he who is clever and will act smartly will

be saved? Is this the same situation that my mother’s family was in in

Germany in 1933 when they realized that this is the time to leave and be

saved? I immediately set into action. I was in advanced stages of selling

my apartment, and transferring the money to foreign banks, and getting

prepared to leave at any minute. I just wanted to protect my family at

all costs. At the last moment I realized that I was acting irrationally, and

that the danger was not so great. Instead I cancelled the subscription to

the daily newspaper and distanced myself as far as possible from the

confusion that was occurring in the country.

There are several layers to reality: This is another inheritance from

my father and that generation. There are several layers to reality, and one

can only live part of them – like those holocaust survivors who continued

their lives by closing off their past within themselves and living in denial.

In the same way, I also continued to live my daily life without relating to

what was happening around me. The survivors who closed out their past,

out of difficulty to touch it , or for fear of hurting their close ones, carried

within them heavy guilt feelings for having survived. Shabtai, my friend

from the organization of Greek survivors, would repeatedly say to me :

You see who has survived? These are the simple folk who knew how to

steal and to succeed in life – the intelligent ones went……

Another element of survival was money. One should always have

cash money and foreign currency at hand. I remember from my childhood

a neighbour who wasn’t wealthy, but his pockets were always bulging

with dollars, for any emergency that might arise. In the first Gulf War,

my father forced me to sew inside pockets on the family’s clothes, and

filled them with tens of thousands of dollars. I also got strict instructions

that if anything should happen, I am not to worry about my parents, but

should buy a plane ticket at any price and flee. Money is not meant for

living, but for security for the future.

My father didn’t trust other people. I remember how he would

instruct me: “If a friend starts to talk to you and talks too much, tell him

politely that you are in a hurry, and leave. It’s not good to speak too

much” He taught me Yiddush sayings which illustrate his approach to

life………………….which means one can’t trust anyone, and…………

Which means: we don’t have much control over our lives and over others.

And as I said, the work “Yorzeit” which I am presenting here, is in

memory of my father Zelig Podisuk, but it is also part of my search to

uncover his world, which in turn is helping me to unravel my identity, as

something separate from his.

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