It’s a good thing Rabbi Shelley Waldenberg has a large studio for his paintings. His latest two works — of scenes that inspired him in Israel — are almost as big as murals.
Waldenberg, who was senior rabbi at Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah for 19 years, has been painting for most of his life. But since retiring in 1991 — though continuing to lend his services to area congregations in need of a rabbi and to teach Jewish and biblical studies, among other things — Waldenberg has been able to devote much more time to his passion for art. He even held an exhibition of 22 canvases at the Contra Costa JCC in 2006.
He completed his latest, largest works over the last two months. His 5-by-6-foot Jerusalem street scene focuses on two musicians, a Palestinian Arab and an Israeli Jew, playing together near Jaffa Gate. Waldenberg witnessed the scene during a visit two years ago. The interaction between the two men struck a chord with Waldenberg and “warmed my heart.” Yet in his painting, he wanted to capture the full clash of emotions he imagined.
“What unites [the musicians] is their music and common humanity,” Waldenberg noted. “Their interaction is not a political statement — music transcends ideology — but rather two men relating to each other joyfully as human beings. They forget what divides them.
“Their music is a catalyst or conduit for hope, tikvah, which each sees in the eyes of the other as they play. The crowd isn’t so sure; reactions are mixed, and representative.”
Waldenberg, who is in his 70s, lived in Israel for three years and taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the late 1960s. He is a frequent traveler to the Jewish state, with family roots that go back 200 years, he said.
The rabbi’s home in Oakland is filled with his paintings, as is his adjacent studio.
As for his 3-by-4 foot “Women at the Wall” painting, it, too, was inspired by what is transpiring in Israel.
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot and following the Women of the Wall, and I felt I wanted to say something about it,” Waldenberg said of the advocacy group’s fight for women’s rights to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah at the Western Wall.
Waldenberg said the painting celebrates “25 years of faith, courage and strength by Women of the Wall, that helps us see the past with new eyes.” The scene conveys the mixed emotions involved in the ongoing struggle: a woman earnestly praying, a haredi Jew trying to get her to stop, and an Israeli soldier attempting to calm them both while asking the woman to desist.
The style of Waldenberg’s latest works mark a departure from the portraitures he has been painting in recent years. “I had never done narratives before,” he said.
He started on the street scene shortly after returning home from Israel. Since he was working from memory, however, he turned to Craigslist for models, interviewing candidates “until I found someone who best represented what I felt and saw,” he said. The models came to his studio for many sittings as his paintings took shape.
“Everybody I paint is a story or conversation,” said the rabbi. “I have to imagine them there.”
The two paintings “are about the ambivalence of how people feel,” Waldenberg summarized. “In both, people feel deeply about the same things.” At the Wall, the religious man and woman “share beliefs about the sanctity of the ancient symbols of Jewish faith,” while the musicians in the street scene “are invested in the artistic celebration of their love for the land and its people.”
A boy depicted in the Jerusalem street scene is modeled after his sister’s grandson. “He kind of represents the hope for the future,” Waldenberg added.
As for his next projects, Waldenberg has “a host of ideas.“ One thing he knows for sure: There are many more paintings to come.