Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area.

Something caught my eye the other day as I was driving on busy Charleston Road in Palo Alto. A splash of yellow on a red brick wall. Some Hebrew letters in black paint.

I drove around the block, parked near the building and got out to take a closer look. On the wall I discovered a huge yellow ribbon painted on a 16-foot wall, with the words “The Bay Tribe” written in Hebrew and “Oct 7th” in English in the bottom corners.

In the year that has passed since that terrible day, the visual landscape of the Bay Area has been transformed by murals, graffiti, posters, flags and billboards commenting on the Israel-Hamas war — most of them pro-Palestinian, some explicitly anti-Israel and/or anti-American. 

This was a rare piece of street art showing support for the people who were abducted by Hamas terrorists, 101 of whom remain in captivity.

Curious about how the mural came to be, I rang the bell of the business located in the building and met Kobi Hakmon. Over cups of espresso, the Israeli-born owner of One Move Moving Company told me he recruited local youths in the Israeli Scouts to help him paint the mural on Sept. 22. He said he deliberately chose the yellow ribbon, a symbol of the hostages taken by Hamas that is ubiquitous in Israel, rather than an Israeli flag or something overtly political.

“We want people who are passing by to investigate what it means,” he told me, adding, “It symbolizes that we want our hostages back. It’s not against anybody.”

As we chatted, I thought about a very different mural on 24th Street in San Francisco’s Noe Valley. The piece, which was painted by Palestinian American artist Chris Gazaleh and initially depicted a family of four being bombed in Gaza (it has gone through several iterations), has generated lots of controversy and media attention since it appeared on the front of a building in mid-October.

Many Jewish residents objected to its message — “Stop the Genocide in Gaza Now” written across the top — and its imagery. In particular, they found the depiction of a bomb with a modified version of the Israeli flag in which the Star of David was replaced with a dollar sign to be antisemitic. The mural has been defaced numerous times, sometimes with pro-Israel graffiti and other times with antisemitic graffiti, including swastikas and the message “Kill Jews for Allah.”

The Noe Valley artwork remains up today, to the dismay of the Jews who live in the neighborhood and have to walk past it regularly. (Rafael Mandelman, the Jewish member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who represents the area, has said that the mural is protected speech because it is on private property.) When I showed Hakmon a photo of it, he called it “shameful and sad” and said it represents “blatant incitement against anyone who is Jewish or Israeli.” 

Gazaleh, the artist, told me last year his goal was simply to show people that Palestinians “are humans too.” On his Instagram account, though, he rails against “Zionists” and cheers violent “resistance” against Israel.

The Noe Valley mural has created strife in the neighborhood, but there is a surprising silver lining to this story. Jewish resident Jordi Pollock told me that the uproar surrounding it had brought her and her Jewish neighbors closer together.

“We created a Noe Valley Chavurah group that meets monthly for Shabbat, and I have gotten to know more of my Jewish neighbors,” she said.

Back in Palo Alto, Hakmon spoke about growing up on a moshav in Israel’s north. He moved to the U.S. two decades ago after completing his army service. He said he felt very far from home on Oct. 7 and knows two people who are being held captive by Hamas.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J. The Jewish News (@jewishnews_sf)

As the first anniversary of the start of the Israel-Hamas war was approaching, Hakmon, 43, decided he wanted to decorate his business with the “biggest ribbon in North America.” He and his crew used a forklift, tape and spray paint, and Hakmon recorded a time-lapse video that he shared in a Facebook group for Israelis living in Silicon Valley. In recent days, a number of them have stopped by to take photos of the mural and to thank him for the very public gesture of support.

“It really touched them,” he said.

Given the rise of antisemitic vandalism in the Bay Area over the past year, is he concerned that he has placed a target on his business?

“It’s always a concern that people will take it the wrong way,” he replied. “As a business owner, you’re concerned that they will start going online and leave negative reviews to damage your reputation.”

Across the street, Maor Greenberg has flown American and Israeli flags above his construction company’s sign since soon after Oct. 7. He told me he has not had any issues with vandalism or what is known as “review bombing.”

Other street art about the war has popped up across the Bay Area in recent months, including a mural calling for a cease-fire that members of the SF Bay Activists for Peace collective painted on the street near Oakland’s Lake Merritt in April. That one disappeared within 24 hours, apparently power-washed away by neighbors who considered it an eyesore. “Free Palestine” graffiti and hostage posters have gone up and then vanished — painted over, ripped down, erased from our collective memory.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J. The Jewish News (@jewishnews_sf)

The street art that I’ll remember from this agonizing time are Hakmon’s yellow ribbon and Gazaleh’s scene of destruction in Gaza.

Two murals. Two pleas for an end to human suffering. Two peoples experiencing unimaginable grief who want the rest of us to see them and acknowledge their pain, even if we feel powerless to alleviate it.

“Let’s hope this war ends and the hostages will be back as soon as possible,” Hakmon said as we wrapped up our conversation. “Then we can remove this yellow ribbon and do something that is a lot more hopeful.”