Reuven Rubin

Israeli art is not a subject I'm particularly familiar with. I would struggle to name more than a couple of famous names from this field, so this morning, as a first venture into the Israeli art world I payed a visit to Reuven Rubin House, just a couple of doors down from Bialik's.

The first pleasing fact I learned about Rubin was, that he was Romanian, like my mum, even though this doesn't really mean anything and is just an instinctive, irrational reaction; I mean, it's not like we're related.
The second pleasing fact I learnt about my Romanian half-brother is that he painted these paintings himself, he didn't steal them, honest; there are photos and films to prove it; that is relief to know.
The third interesting thing to learn about Rubin is he's a Romanian who looked a little middle-eastern in his youth, especially in the self-portrait below; well that's OK, my dad's Iraqi - maybe we are related after all.

Ancestral nonsenses aside, Rubin's painting capture the early day's of Israel, when the country was more or less just a pile of sand. His early paintings from the 1920s often show characters holding flowers in front of a desert backdrop, reflecting the dream of making the desert blossom. His paintings often depict familiar Israeli themes including religion, zionism, multiculturalism and the meeting of east and west, as well as beautiful Israeli scenary, always in vibrant color; a feast for the eyes!
Here are a few of his paintings that particularly caught me eye for different reasons.

1) This Jaffa scene somewhat reminds me of my current lifestyle except without donkeys and goats.

2) This painting is called something like "Jew with a red beard". I find it impressive in its straight-forwardness. Also, I too have a reddish beard, so this is what i might look like religious!

3) This one called "Rakafot" proves he is Romanian after all; didn't he know it's illegal to pick flowers in Israel; wait till the authorities hear about this!

4) "The first seder in Jerusalem" depicts early mutiethnic, multicultural Israel at Pesach, including, strangely, Elijah the prophet on the left dressed as Jesus of course. So he turned up for once but did he have to come in fancy dress? It's Pesach no Purim!

Let's just say when I had finished, I wanted to see more.