Imagine, if you will, a bevy of haredi young men, kitted out in their finest all-black traditional threads, strutting up and down a fashion show catwalk. That’s not exactly the way Didi Khalifa sees it but he does open our eyes to some surprising aesthetic elements of the ultra-Orthodox community we might otherwise have missed.
Twenty-nine year old Jerusalemite Khalifa is one of 42 up-and-coming artists exhibiting their work in the Artists’ Greenhouse category of this year’s Freshpaint art and design fair, currently up and running at the Municipal Sport Center in Hadar Yosef, in north Tel Aviv (through to July 8). Freshpaint, which has been running now for over a decade, was established in order to provide mutually beneficial encounters between the general public – who, naturally, may actually acquire some artworks in the process – and Israeli artists.
Khalifa has something to show us – the secular and/or non-haredi majority – and clearly has his own ideas about how to do that in an innovative and alluring manner. One might even add the epithets “daring,” if not “downright provocative,” to describe his presentation.
All told, Khalifa has over 30 attractive eye-opening items on display in Hadar Yosef, with oil paintings and ceramics. They also include photographs of young haredim enjoying some downtime from their regular yeshiva studies. One shows a black kapota-clad youngster lying next to a swimming pool lazily extending a tender hand towards the surface of the water. The picture imparts a sense of some idyllic soporific hazy moment in his life, when anything is possible. It is an enticing, albeit surprising, image.
“That comes from a series which is still in progress,” says Khalifa. “I call the series ‘Bein Hazemanim’ (“Between Times,” referencing vacation slots betwixt long demanding yeshiva semesters). That is a time without time when the yeshivot are in recess.” It is, he explains, when the youngsters let their hair down. “It is when they relax and enjoy themselves and partake in lifestyle and pleasures.”
Khalifa says he is drawn to the contrasting interfaces between the orderly, strict study schedule and the R&R vignettes, and between the disciplined regimen and the dynamics and temptations of the surrounding material world. “That is where you get the release, gaining some freedom and enjoyment of lifestyle and pleasures. I was very captivated by the overlap between the world of holiness and spirituality, and what happens when the yeshiva students encounter style and luxury and fashion.”
For most secular Jews and, presumably, any non-Jews who have come across images of haredim, all ultra-orthodox men just wear the same black and white garb. But there are numerous permutations of accepted attire, depending on the Hassidic sect to which they pertain, the time of week, or the Hebrew calendar date.
“I am offering a fashionable perspective on these characters. We are used to perceiving them in a particular way,” Khalifa notes. Politics, inevitably, also comes into it. “We see them as very religious or extreme figures. Recently we have seen them in protests and resistance.”
Khalifa is more interested in their appearance. “As a religious person myself I am impressed with their steadfast adherence, their devotion, to the way they dress. At some point, this way of dressing came here from Poland and it all has very great importance for them. There is a kind of headgear worn by a married man, and a different hat for a bachelor, different kinds of socks and coats. These are impressive nuances. We would not have thought that these are matters that are related to the Torah and holiness. In general, in my work, I look at fashion and religiosity and aesthetics and sanctity. I find them fascinating.”
A new perspective
THERE IS, in fact, lots to meet the eye right across the hitherto annals of Judaism. Consider, for example, the attention to detail and sumptuous décor of the Tabernacle (Mishkan) the Children of Israel carried with them to the Promised Land after their triumphant Exodus from slavery in Egypt. And there are, of course, the two temples which, by all accounts, were magnificent affairs. With that in mind, it is not difficult to find collateral for Khalifa’s marriage of the material and the spiritual and taking care of one’s physical appearance while ensuring the soul is well-fed.
Khalifa comes across as someone who takes a bold line in achieving his creative objectives du jour, and is willing to have his say. That appears in no uncertain terms in his series of retro Greco-Roman ceramic vases which depict scenes that may have been taken straight from artifacts of a couple of millennia ago. However, instead of deities and heroic figures such as Hercules, Hypnos, and Zeus his centaur – half man-half horse – mythological figures wear kippot and have peyot (“side locks”).
That led straight to the conclusion that there was a strident subtext to the aesthetic mix. Centaurs were thought to have a connection to wild untamed horses, and that comes into Khalifa’s accommodating and critical take. “There is a place in religion which embraces Greek or Roman motifs. That works well. There are constant transitions between Judaism and other cultures.”
Unlike many members of the generally cloistered ultra-Orthodox community Khalifa does not shy away from foreign influences.
“I think that if you use them correctly, and remain loyal to the core of Judaism, that is interesting and amazing. For me, that is not subversive. It is something different and asks questions about both the external culture and is also directed inward and asks questions about Jewish identity.”
Khalifa doesn’t skirt around political issues either. The centaurs in the vase scenes seemed to be doing something with trees and logs.
“I came up with the centaurs when I thought about the Hilltop Youth,” he explains, referencing the extremist young West Bank settlers who, among other acts of violence, have engaged in attacks on Palestinian olive groves.
“I likened them to the centaurs in the sense that they run wild and are violent. They connected neatly with characters who run riot and don’t respect law and order.”
That sounds like a calming breath of fresh air and augurs well for the future of Israeli art and for a young artist who is evidently willing to stick his neck out and have his say, conveying that in an intriguing and compelling aesthetic form.
Elsewhere in the Freshpaint program are artistic performance slots, commissioned AI works, and the traditional Secret Postcard project which, this year, is a joint venture with the Umm Culture art center in Sderot. Postcards can be ordered online on the Freshpaint site, and collected at the festival from the artists in question. In another encouraging message from the South the Beeri Gallery, which is temporarily housed at Romano House in Tel Aviv, will award a prize to one of the Greenhouse artists, enabling the artist to have their own solo exhibition complete with catalog.
For more information: freshpaint.co.il/en/