Image of the Week: Tzfat Window
© D. Yael Bernhard
It was a hot day in August, with the sun baking the stony hills of the Galilee, that I first visited Tzfat. Also known – or rather, mispronounced in English – as Safed, this small city of artists, tourists, and students (both religious and medical) is nestled on the heights that overlook the Kinerret, or Sea of Galilee. This window in an outdoor stone stairwell gave a view of the valley to the west. Winding streets and terraces made their way down the steep slope, giving way to scrubby forest in the distance.
Israel is a land of paradox, where opposites coexist, and questions have no final answer. The more I looked, the more I saw this polarity reflected in the landscape. Stone and iron stood in stark contrast to each other. Blocks and curves interrelated. White and black shimmered against each other. Solid and open, close and far, inside and outside enhanced one another. The scene bristled with visual tension.
To me, the most interesting dichotomy was that of manmade and natural. Here the arc of time comes into play, blurring the line between that which is wrought and assembled by human hands, and that which is eroded and transformed by the elements. The stones that form this window are worn by hundreds of seasons into unique textures and shapes. The cast iron spirals, once a pair of perfect curves, sag gracefully under the weight of five centuries – twice the age of the United States, and only one-sixth of Israel's history – a history not relegated to the past, but still unfolding today. To walk the white cobblestones of the old city of Tzfat is to leave a small footprint on a very large arc of time.
My job was to lovingly render this beautiful decay, holding the past in mind as I painted a snapshot of the ancient and modern Jewish state. Sephardic Jews fleeing the Inquisition made their way here even as Leonardo and Shakespeare created their masterpieces. No doubt it was both survival of extreme persecution as well as the soaring heights that led to the birth of Kabbalah, or Jewish mysticism, here in Tzfat. This ancient city also played a crucial strategic role in Israel's War of Independence in 1948. The Liberation of Tzfat is an interesting story with a odd twist – outnumbered by the Arabs ten to one, the Jewish militia basically won because of a rumor.
As always when traveling in Israel, I wished I could have painted much larger. As always, I had a lot to think about while I worked. I fell in love with Tzfat – not just for its sweeping views and stone-lined alleyways, but also because a certain cheese shop has the best strawberry goat milk ice cream I've ever tasted. I was on my way there when I passed this window.
Tzfat Window is the image for August in my new calendar, The Jewish Eye 5781/2021 Calendar of Art, available in my webstore and on Amazon.
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard