Updated April 10
A group of mostly Israeli and American Jews gathered at Lake Merritt in Oakland to paint a mural calling for a cease-fire in Gaza on Sunday, six months to the day since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
By Monday afternoon, the artwork was gone — an allegory, perhaps, about the current prospects for peace in the Middle East.
The mural, which was painted in the street by dozens of volunteers using non-permanent tempera paint, included several anti-war messages, including “None of us are safe until all of us are safe,” “Ceasefire now! Release all hostages!” and “End the war!” in English, Hebrew and Arabic. It also featured a dove and olive branches with leaves in the colors of the Israeli and Palestinian flags.
Artist Leah Yael Levy of Berkeley told J. she was surprised that the mural, which she designed with input from members of the SF Bay Activists for Peace collective, vanished within 24 hours.
“It’s too bad that it got washed out so fast, but this wasn’t made to last,” said Levy, who was born on a moshav in northern Israel and has lived in the Bay Area since 2015. “It’s more like a sand mandala action, where you’re making it for the act of making it, not for it to last forever.”
A spokesperson for the city of Oakland told J. on Wednesday that city workers did not remove the mural. Levy said her group did not need a permit because they used water-soluble paint.
SF Bay Activists for Peace is led by local Israelis who met at pro-democracy rallies organized by UnXeptable last summer. The group has hosted several peace vigils across the Bay Area since January and had discussed organizing an art-making event for several weeks. David Solnit, a local artist-organizer known for his climate-related murals, provided guidance and materials.
Shimrit Braun Kamin, a co-leader of SF Bay Activists for Peace, said it took volunteers about three hours to paint the mural while Israeli and Iranian musicians performed and a special “de-escalation team” responded to questions from passersby. Lake Merritt was chosen as the location for the mural because many East Bay residents are involved with SF Bay Activists for Peace, she said, and because volunteers would not block traffic on Lakeshore Avenue while painting in the street.
“We tried to create a space where people who believe in the same values can come together and create something,” said Braun Kamin, who works as the associate director of the New Israel Fund in San Francisco. “It was also about this fact that you’re not alone, that we’re here as a community.”
SF Bay Activists for Peace is one of the few activist groups in the Bay Area calling for a bilateral cease-fire, a hostage deal, humanitarian aid to Gaza and a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Rabbi Jeremy Sher helped paint the mural and also served on the de-escalation team.
“I had a number of conversations with bystanders that ranged from interest to a couple of discussions that were a little bit more political,” he told J. “They were on the anti-Israel side, and that’s fine. I understand why people would be anti-Israel in this climate. I’m certainly anti what Israel is doing right now.”
Sher made aliyah in 2015 while studying in Israel and has since moved to Oakland. He criticized the Israeli government for “totally descending to their level, if not worse” in its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre.
He said he appreciated how the Lake Merritt mural delivered a strong anti-war message in an aesthetically pleasing way. “The circular format is very inclusive, and it’s in harmony with the urban environment,” he said. (The people who removed the mural apparently disagreed.)
Among the musicians who performed on Sunday was Palestinian American singer and sound healing practitioner Manaar Azreik, who was born in Beersheva and moved to the U.S. in 2006.
Most Palestinians in the Bay Area are focused on their communal needs and don’t want to associate with Zionists right now, according to Azreik, who is Christian and uses they/them pronouns. They decided to participate in the peace mural event because they believe a unified protest movement is needed to bring the war to an end.
“It’s important to show that we have our willpower,” they said. “That’s how they stopped the Vietnam War, for example. People got together with one voice and they said enough is enough.”
About the mural, they said, “It was a beautiful creation. I’m sorry to hear that it was removed.”
Levy, the artist, said she found some solace in knowing that the mural was not defaced, as others around the Bay Area have been — including one painted by a Palestinian American artist in October in the Noe Valley neighborhood of San Francisco that many Jewish residents found objectionable.
“Part of why we felt the urge to do this is to make art that is less about triggering people and more about the future and cooperation,” she said. “Art has a power to transcend the written language and can open up the conversation.”