Boats of Jewish hopes: A ‘what if’ journey with artist Netta Lieber Sheffer

What would have happened to the Jewish people if the State of Israel had not been established in 1948? In history, there were many scenarios and ideas about where to situate our nation.

In a monumental exhibition, “Shattered Hopes and Roads Not Taken,” at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art (TAMA), Israeli artist Netta Lieber Sheffer, the recipient of the 2023 Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art, examines this issue in detail. 

The artist is known for looking for what is missing. She says she is inspired by absence.

She spent four years working on the exhibition, mostly on research, before she started to draw these stories on paper, putting each story in a separate boat.

In the show, Lieber Sheffer portrays over 150 characters, of which 42 were real people. She takes the viewers via charcoal drawings of 11 giant boats, sailing on the empty walls of the museum, on a journey of unfulfilled ideas.

The drawings are in black and white, but ironically she exposes that our history was never just black-and -white, and, as she emphasizes, this is important to remember in our present, too.

In an interview with the Magazine, she confided that at the beginning of this project she wasn’t sure whether it would ever be shown. She was working on it out of her own need. Last year’s prize for her previous art achievements came with the opportunity of the exhibition at TAMA. 

Simultaneous to her solo show, viewers can see her other work in pastel pencil, in color this time: Order of Priorities at the group exhibition “Common Ground” at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

I have seen your exhibition “Shattered Hopes and Roads Not Taken” twice. At first, I was impressed by its form, of enormous charcoal drawings of boats, in black and white, floating on the white walls of The Tel Aviv Museum of Art. The second time, I wanted to know the stories behind the figures and symbols from the past that you examined in detail. As we meet, I would like to ask, why did you trace these historical crossroads of Jewish identity and settlements?

I was thinking about our life here, that it’s [like] a highway; we are just driving crazy without noticing where we are going. (My thoughts were before Oct. 7.) It was interesting for me to see what is underneath our highway. So I didn’t draw anything about here and now, but about different alternatives that were...

Up to 1948?

Right. From the mid-18th century until World War II, there were approximately 40 such political proposals for the Jewish people. I drew 26 of them on a map [Map of Territorial Alternatives, the first drawing at the exhibition], and I thought of possible solutions that there were for the Jewish people.

For example, American journalist Mordecai Manuel Noah bought a third of Grand Island, near Niagara Falls in the United States, and he wanted to bring Jews from all over the world there, to live there. He thought if he built skyscrapers, he could bring six million Jews. Not all Jews, six million, which is a familiar number.... It was 1825. He made a ceremony, and he put the first stone there and he called this place Ararat. He wanted to save Jews. This stone is still there.

Another story is from Alaska, where in 1941, there was an idea of bringing Jewish refugees from Europe during the war. 

“Map of Territorial Alternatives” has an imaginary character. 

At first, I thought only of territorial options, and I drew them as ice cubes; like icebergs, they are flowing over the water. I put together towns, countries, and regions. There is no order; there is a mix of all the [potential] opportunities.

Some places happened (like the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, with its administrative center in Birobidzhan, for example), and some others were just ideas. 

The most important thing for me was to remember that our history is not just one story. I want to think about the richness of the stories that we had. I hope that we still have many ways of doing things; I don’t want to think that we have only one option. That’s the main idea of this exhibition. 

In black and white colors, you show many shades of the Jewish identity.

When I was a child, in Israel they wanted everybody to be the same. It didn’t matter if you came from Russia or Iraq, everyone should be Israeli: look the same, dressed in a shirt and sandals, act the same, speak Hebrew, and not any other languages.

Israelis with roots in Arabic countries felt attached to the culture and language of their previous homes. [Initially] Zionism didn’t like it and could not bring this part of their identity to the mainstream.

Do you think it is the same now, or is it different?

I think nowadays there is more openness to the idea of complex identities. 

Why did you draw 11 boats?

After I did this map of the territories, I thought, I want to talk about different ideologies. Different thoughts, suggestions, dreams; lost ideas. All the alternatives to the well-known Zionism.

They are in boats because they are not part of our reality today, so I didn’t want them to be on the ground; they don’t have a solid base. They are just flowing in time. And yet, they are like theater stages, each separate. I did obsessive research for this exhibition.

How long have you worked on it?

Almost four years. I started to think about this in 2020. I was reading for three and a half years, and then drew it during the next half a year.

“Shattered hopes.” At first, I thought about another name for this exhibition: “Premature histories.” Ideas, like in pregnancies – some of them were not born.

Starting to draw, did you have a clear idea of all the boats?

No, I didn’t. I knew about three boats, maybe. Then I was reading more, and more was coming. Also, I didn’t know I would have the space of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Seven boats I drew for myself, without knowing if they would ever be exhibited.

It was huge luck that I got this prize [2023 Haim Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art] and I got this exhibition because otherwise, I don’t know who would ever see it.

Your drawings are enormous, they demand space. Do you have a big studio? Is the paper made specially for you?

Each is six meters by almost three. I am often asked why I draw so big. I answer because they don’t exist. I try to give the idea life again, so I need to give it a real space, I want to do it a full-size body.

I use a paper used by photographers; they put it as background for their photos. This is a very simple paper.

My studio is not so small, but I have just one wall, so I can open one piece of paper from the ground to the ceiling. I never see the drawings next to each other. 

And why charcoal?

Because this is my comfort zone; I love the warmth of it. It’s really from the fire, like ashes, like nothing. I also like to paint sometimes. But drawing is my real passion.

How do you preserve them? Charcoal is very fragile.

I don’t. I use a fixative spray, but it is not very strong. If someone wants to touch it, I will see it.

If you think, for example, about Russian historical royal paintings on canvas, they are huge and colorful. [My drawings] have similar sizes, and are also historical paintings, but [in their form] are very simple, almost gone. I don’t give them the honor of old paintings, like the ones we know from the history of art. I deal with the local history.

No less important. Do you make smaller drawings beforehand, sketches?

The first boat, I didn’t, but all the others, yes, I made small sketches. I wanted to make a plan. In the exhibition, there are 150 figures, and 42 of them are specific people, with names and curriculum vitae.

Each boat (The Canaanites; The Bund; Brit Shalom; Female Leadership; Arab-Jews; Metaphysical Exile; Altneuland, The Old-New Land; The Levantine Option; Arcadian Longing; New Generation; and False Messiahs) is a different story. Let’s “visit” at least some of them. 

Let’s! [smiles]. In this boat, I drew the organization Brit Shalom [Peace Alliance], founded in 1925 – 23 years before the State of Israel. It was seeking communication with the Arabs and thought of [ways] of coexistence.

I drew here also Ahad Ha’am, who represented spiritual Zionism. He thought of a cultural and spiritual center for Jews, but unlike [Zionist visionary Theodor] Herzl, he didn’t think all the Jews should come here, physically. [The ideas were] that there will be justice and culture, and we will bring light to the world. I put in this boat all great minds, such as Gershom Scholem, the researcher of Kabbalah; and Magnes [Judah L. Magnes], who established the university in Jerusalem; Martin Buber, the philosopher....

The next boat is “Altneuland, The Old-New Land.”

Herzl wrote the story of Altneuland in 1902, in Vienna, where he lived, and this is his desk. He is sitting here and writing.

But Herzl is not present in your drawing. Why?

He used to be, but then I did another one without him. The curator of this exhibition looked at the photos of boats and she said: ‘You know, without Herzl it looks much better.’ I thought she was right. 

Why did you enter him into this project of unfulfilled plans? His plan is fulfilled; we are in Israel.

But he had a fantasy of a country where there are no problems, where Arabs and Jews are getting along, and everything is good. And that we were making electricity from waterfalls. It was a fantasy.

When you say this, I think of the Israeli scientists who desalinate the seawater. So that’s not that far...

Right. But he had a dream of a perfect country. That doesn’t exist. So his vision is still an alternative to what we have.

I created in his boat the ideal city, like in the Renaissance. It’s built of buildings that were made before the establishment of Israel and are all ruined now. They are gone. This was supposed to be the last boat.

What changed it? 

The war. The women [boat] I did already during the war because I thought I could not ignore the fact of the absence of women in the present government and the deciding bodies for the return of the hostages. So I felt it is important to show women leadership.

I posed them like pioneer women, the important women in the history of Israel, among them: Hannah Maisel-Shohat and Ada Fishman Maimon, the founder of the Ayanot youth village (where I have been living for many years now). They fought for women’s rights in Israel. 

In the exhibition, you put their boat next to the “Haredim” boat.

Yes, why not? [laughs]

And where were the “Haredim” going?

I called this boat Metaphysical Exile because, for them, it’s not important if they are here or not; they feel they are still in exile. All of them, on this boat, were one of the greatest enemies of Zionism. This is a different part of Judaism. They wanted to wait for the Messiah to come; they didn’t want to come to Israel and be part of it. 

In this boat, there are two groups: the one sitting [with their] backs to us, they are only symbolic, and those with faces – real people. There is Abraham Geiger, the founder of Reform Judaism (at first, they were very much against Zionism because they wanted to be loyal to their homeland, like Germany or the United States.

They didn’t want to betray their countries). Next, there is the fifth rebbe of Chabad, Rabbi Sholom Dovber Schneersohn. There is also Jacob de Haan, murdered by the Hagana. He was a Dutch lawyer and writer, very charismatic and intelligent, and spoke many languages. He had good connections with Arabs. He challenged Zionists in various ways. Next in the boat is Yoel Teitelbaum, the first rebbe of the Satmar [Hassidim, the group known for its anti-Zionist approach]. I added to them Nathan Birnbaum, who was first Zionist, not religious, working at Agudat Yisrael [an ultra-Orthodox organization founded in Poland in 1912]. 

On another boat, there is just one person: Jacqueline Kahanoff. Her face and body seem like two different people. 

She was a fascinating figure. That’s why she got a boat of her own.

She grew up in Egypt, in a very cosmopolitan environment, and later on lived in New York, Paris, and Israel. She thought that in Israel, we should combine West and East.

I put her face on the body sculpture of a male Egyptian (the original, of course with his face, is in the Louvre). They were both writers. In a way, he represents her identity in his body. I mixed male and female, West and East, a cultural mix together.

Each boat has a story worth exploring. We must leave something for the visitors of the museum, a chance to find the answer to what would be if....What is the story behind “Order of Preferences,” on view now in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum?

I did it as a break from the boats. Order of Preferences is like a collection of statues. Like in the past, rich people would have collections of sometimes weird stuff: sculptures, shells, bones of animals. I put together the statues I saw in my childhood or later on in museums all over the world. It is in pastel pencil. In color.

In your previous works, you also dealt with the past and things that are gone.

Yes, one of my projects was Freud’s clinic in Vienna. Before he left it in 1938 for London, he asked someone to take photos of his clinic and his house, where he lived for over 50 years. I used these photos and also made a 27-meter collage of them. In the same year, I had an exhibition at Dana Art Gallery, at the kibbutz of Yad Mordechai [the kibbutz is currently evacuated due to the war], where I painted all over the walls his clinic. I tried to give it some meaning.

In 2018-2019, I painted wounded soldiers wrapped in bandages. It’s also about absence. You can’t see their faces.

In recent months, I asked many Israeli artists: What inspires you?

In all my art, I am attracted to emptiness, something that is missing, gone. In the beginning, there were my grandparents’ family albums. I took these little photos, which almost disappeared, and I tried to give them significance, a new life. To take the past and bring it to the present. I am inspired by the things that we haven’t noticed. 

For more information: www.nettaliebersheffer.com 

www.tamuseum.org.il/en/exhibition