In Israel’s hillside artist colony of Safed, weaver Yair Moore is better off than some. And that’s not saying much.
He’s laid off seven of his eight employees, closed two of the three stories of his studio and watched customer traffic into his Canaan Gallery dwindle from 100 people a day to a mere three to five visitors weekly. Even then, notes the 44-year-old artist, “not everyone who walks in buys things.”
Still, Moore remains hopeful that Israel’s art community, hammered financially by the unrelenting intifada and its devastating effects on tourism, will survive — along with the Jewish state itself. “The Jewish people have been through a lot worse than what Mr. Arafat can shovel out,” he says.
These days, Moore is looking to the Bay Area to give his fellow artists and his country a needed financial and emotional boost.
At the invitation of an acquaintance from Danville, Moore arrived this week in the Bay Area with a wide array of his countrymen’s tapestries, jewelry, paintings, table covers, spice boxes, candlesticks and other handicrafts.
This month, he’ll serve as the curator of a series of art fairs, which will showcase the work of some 70 Israeli artists.
Dubbed Israeli Artists Galleria “Galilee Comes to the Bay,” the shows will raise money for both the struggling artists and a fund supporting Israeli terror victims.
“It’s really heartwarming,” Moore said of the fairs, which begin Sunday with the “To Life: A Jewish Cultural Street Festival” in Palo Alto.
To Life, which drew an estimated 15,000 people last year, features a broad slate of singers and musicians, Jewish cooking demonstrations, food, storytellers, ethnic dancers and children’s activities. Sponsored by New Bridges organization, the festival provides a chance to experience the flavor of Jewish life.
Following the festival, the Israeli art will travel to separate shows in Redwood City, San Rafael, San Francisco, Sebastopol and Danville.
“Sometimes when you’re here, you feel you’re kind of on your own,” said Moore in a recent telephone interview from Israel, where he and his wife weave tapestries, kippot, challah covers and other Judaica.
The Bay Area shows are reminders that “we have some brothers across the ocean and they’re thinking about us every day.”
Dr. Elliott Lavey is one of those brothers.
The Danville plastic surgeon suggested that Moore gather artists interested in selling their work to Americans who were eager to support Israel but skittish about traveling there.
“This war has many fronts,” said Lavey, a member of Walnut Creek Congregation B’nai Shalom and founder of a community-based group called Contra Costa Bridges to Israel.
Lavey met Moore in the summer of 2000, when Lavey’s family stopped by his Safed gallery during a visit to Israel for the bar mitzvah of Lavey’s son.
The two bumped into each other again last May at an art festival in Contra Costa County. Over dinner, Moore described the grim situation facing artists in Israel these days and Lavey hatched the plan for the Bay Area shows.
Moore, as it turned out, had just finished showing the work of 30 Israeli artists at a fund-raising festival in La Jolla.
Lavey suggested that his Israeli friend “come back before the end of the year and do it even bigger. I thought, ‘OK, it would be perfect. We could do something very significant for a lot of people.'”
Hoping to broaden the plan, Lavey contacted Alan Zimmerman, who heads a similar Bridges to Israel program at Tiburon Congregation Kol Shofar, and Eric Hornstein, chairman of the Israel Action Committee at Redwood City’s Temple Beth Jacob.
Both eagerly embraced the idea of holding fairs in their communities.
Zimmerman suggested taking the benefit one step further: Give some of the profits from the art sales to a group called Organization of Israel’s Terror Victims. Moore welcomed that plan, agreeing to donate 10 percent of the proceeds to the group.
Jarek Wajntraub, a volunteer for the organization and a friend of Zimmerman’s, is also visiting the Bay Area this month as part of the effort.
“Helping the artists is really nice and really important,” Moore said.
But he added, “there’s more to Israel and more to life than just that.”
Back in Israel, Moore was deluged by requests from artists anxious to sell their wares in the United States. He estimates that he was forced to turn away 50 to 60 people. “It was getting too much,” he said. “I was getting four, five e-mails a day.”
The final group, according to Moore, represents a sampling of some of Israeli’s finest artists. Their work, he said, is “both beautiful and not too expensive.”
Despite the “bloodshed and sadness” engulfing Israel, “there are people who are sitting down and doing something every day that’s beautiful,” said Moore. “That’s what artists do.”
Among the artists whose work will be shown in San Francisco and Danville is Amitai Kav, a jeweler whose clientele has included Queen Noor of Jordan.
Moore also is bringing along wooden toys and furniture made by members of the Galilee kibbutz of Kishurit, a community of mentally disabled adults who run their own businesses.
“I think we have to make something that’s much rounder,” said Moore. “We’re going to get through this. We will overcome.”
Schedule for ‘Galilee Comes to the Bay’
The schedule for Israeli Artists Galleria “Galilee Comes to the Bay” is as follows:
*Sunday, Oct. 6. “To Life: A Jewish Cultural Street Festival,” California Avenue between El Camino Real and Park Boulevard in Palo Alto. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Free admission. Information: (650) 482-9985.
*Monday, Oct. 7 to Thursday, Oct. 10. Temple Beth Jacob, 1550 Alameda de las Pulgas, Redwood City. A $15 reception starts at 7 p.m. Monday. Times for Tuesday through Thursday are 1 to 9 p.m. Free admission. Information: (650) 366-8481.
*Sunday, Oct. 13 to Thursday, Oct. 17. Osher Marin JCC, 200 N. San Pedro Road, San Rafael. Reception on Sunday from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Other hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free admission. Information: (415) 444-8000.
*Sunday, Oct. 20 to Thursday, Oct. 24. Magnes Museum space at the Jewish Community Federation, 121 Steuart St., S.F. The show will open at noon on Oct. 20 with a free reception from 4 to 6 p.m. Remaining hours are 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Oct. 21-24. Free admission. Information: (415) 777-0411.
*Sunday, Oct. 20. Simcha Sunday celebration at the Sebastopol Community Center, 390 Morris St., Sebastopol. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. $2 donation requested. Information: (707) 526-5571.
*Saturday, Oct. 26 to Sunday, Oct. 27. Danville Community Center, 420 Front St., Danville. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. on Oct. 26; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Oct. 27. Free admission. A sponsor’s reception, costing $50, will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. on Saturday. Information: (925) 820-3633.