Jewish artists seek to process grief and healing in solidarity with Palestinians in art exhibition

Artist Sharon Jaffe had been busy working in her clay studio when she heard a voice from her ceramic golems, mythological creatures that serve as helpers or protectors to the Jewish community.

"Sometime in February, [the golems] said: 'We're happy to be here, but we need to get out and tell people. Stop! Stop the violence!'"

Jaffe, a retired hospice chaplain who is originally from Brooklyn, N.Y., felt shocked about the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. "Once Netanyahu said, 'This is war,' I was like this is not good. … All these poor people, both in Gaza and the hostages," she said.

In 2024, she was at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design when she spotted her friend Riv Shapiro's artwork, "Kri'ah," an ongoing performance and video installation using the Jewish ritual for mourning. Then it all clicked.

Jaffe and Shapiro teamed up and invited other Jewish artists working in painting, ceramics, mixed media, digital illustration, video, sculpture and quilting to be a part of "Witness" a group art exhibition of Jewish artists for Palestinian liberation.

The show runs for only five days at Modus Locus in south Minneapolis.

"When I was in Palestine [in August 2024], not only did Palestinians talk about the American-Israeli Empire, but what they asked us to do was to witness, to go back and tell our stories," she said. "Witnessing is partly about grief, but to me witnessing is a call to action."

Deciding to express this through art offered another way to think through what is happening, Shapiro said.

"I think art can help us subvert the overactive, logical, rationalizing mind that can also do all sorts of mental gymnastics to justify violence," Shapiro said. "And help us be in our bodies and in our hearts."

Shapiro's "Kri'ah" piece speaks to the mourning that the artist felt for Israeli, Palestinian and Lebanese lives taken before and after Oct. 7.

Artist and organizer Ricardo Levins Morales, a McKnight Distinguished Artist, has contributed two posters.

In one, a Palestinian woman holds an orange, offering it to the viewer.

"I wanted to make a piece of art that addressed what was happening to the people in Palestine that wasn't all about horror and mass killings and trauma," he said. "So this was a way of saying: 'Yes, we see you, and not only as victims.'"

Another work in the show is a quilt by the Olam Haba Quilt Community, made of 36 blocks from the U.S. and Canada, each one "an act of solidarity and a small piece of building the world to come," its website said. "This quilt is a site to bear witness to the genocide, to hold our collective grief and to dream Palestinian liberation, stitch by stitch." The quilt won fourth place in the Minnesota State Fair Creative Arts Division.

As part of the programming, the exhibition also will have a fundraiser for Ghassan Abu Sittah Children's Fund, providing urgent care to children in Gaza and Lebanon.

"Those involved in the fund have been witnessing in Gaza the creation of the largest cohort of children with amputations and complications of various types of traumatic injuries," said Dr. Asfia Qaadir, a child and adolescent psychiatrist and a member of Healthcare Workers for Palestine. "What the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children's Fund does is take that witnessing and turn it into action."

The exhibition is a gathering of sorts as well, with Jewish writers reading on Wednesday, a shabbat service on Friday, a Palestinian poetry reading on Saturday afternoon and a reflection and closing event on Sunday.

"We witness that we are all part of one great organism, and I think that's what we're really trying to say with this show," Shapiro said. "For me, why it's powerful to see these words 'Jewish artists for Palestinian liberation' around town is to disrupt this really prevalent narrative that Jewish liberation is at odds with Palestinian liberation, and that to say the word 'Palestine' is to be antisemitic because you must be saying that you hate Jews, and that is just not true.

Our liberation is bound up together, as is all peoples', but I think particularly in this conflict, we can't get there with one of us losing."

Jewish Artists for Palestinian Liberation: 'Witness'

When: 6-8 p.m. Wed., Jewish Writers for Palestinian Liberation; 6-8 p.m. Thu., open house, with an artist talk at 7 p.m.; 5:30-6:30 p.m. Fri., Shabbat featuring candle lighting and nosh; 1-3 p.m. Sat., poetry event; 1:30-3:30 p.m. Sun., reflection & closing.

Where: Modus Locus Gallery, 3500 Bloomington Av. S., Mpls.

Hours: 4-8 p.m. Wed.-Fri., noon-4 p.m. Sat. & Sun.

Cost: Free.

Info: moduslocusmpls.com