Art and Resilience: Israeli Artist Hagar Wertheim's Journey Amidst Conflict

Speaker 2: 0:22

Welcome to BodyHolic with Dee. This is part 4 of a very special series called Creative Echoes Women Navigating Conflict Through Artistic Expression. We dive into the profound experiences of female artists in Israel amidst the ongoing conflict with Hamas. While I often discuss stress and trauma from a scientific perspective, the essence of the series lies in the genuine voices of those who are living through these challenging times. In a world where life in Israel and experiences of Jews globally has become exceptionally challenging, I truly believe in the power of real, authentic narratives. Amidst the cacophony of male voices during wartime, we turn our attention to the voices of female artists, recognizing the cathartic and the illuminating potential their stories hold.

Speaker 2: 1:34

Today's podcast guest is Hagar Vertheim, an artist, an illustrator, an animator, a mommy and a very wise woman. Anyway, she is the illustrator for the Haaretz Parenting section and she serves as the director of its Instagram profile, which is really impressive and I suggest you check it out. She also holds a master's degree in design from Shankar. Hagar possesses exceptional talent in illustrating emotions that, honestly, can't be described in words at least I can't. It makes her truly a creative force. Our conversation, which I was lucky enough to have with her, really moved me deeply. Hagar advocates for artists to create. She emphasizes the importance of moments spent with her three girls during these challenging times. She discusses the delicate balance of sheltering their young minds while allowing them to process information that is suited for them.

Speaker 2: 2:47

Without further ado, let's dive right into the conversation. Before anything, I just want to say that I'm in love with your work. I really am. I'm so happy that you're here. I'm talking about this also in the introduction, but I want to say to you that you are able to illustrate what I can't put into words. I'm pretty okay with words. That's where I shine. I have to say that there are things that are way beyond me, and you nail it. You are so talented.

Speaker 2: 3:39

I'm really grateful that you're here, Even though I am talking about you a little bit in the introduction and I do introduce you. I add that in later so that I don't embarrass you but I do want you to say maybe a few words about yourself and your journey as an illustrator.

Speaker 1: 4:07

Okay, this past year and almost a half I've been an illustrator and digital director of the Haritz Parenting Instagram page. Most of the illustrations go on the Haritz Family section. This has been the last year and a half, but before that I did other jobs and my day jobs were related to social and graphic design. Illustration basically is a very hard thing to find as a day job. It's usually a side job or if you can be an independent illustrator, that's great, but it's very hard. In the last few years the high-tech community started to grow more illustrator jobs that were per se illustrator jobs, but it still was hard to find and I'm very grateful for this place to have happened for me.

Speaker 1: 5:24

For me throughout the years, it was always a side job. I did all kinds of projects alongside my day jobs. I studied illustration in Chenca for my bachelor's degree and I have a master's in design, which is not relevant to illustrator, but I'm always happy to have another aspect to design. My main illustrations throughout the years were biographical. For many years I had a blog of personal experiences. I had that throughout the school years in Chenca and then afterwards I had the same blog turned to some kind of fashion illustration blog and that's how I rolled into my other jobs in the fashion industry. I was a graphic designer for a few grants and that was my route. Now my day job is illustration. I'm very, very grateful for that. It's pretty rare.

Speaker 2: 6:50

That's rare and amazing. The reason I reached out to you is because right now I guess it's thanks to the connection with the artist Add Perhaps the recent ongoing war that we've been facing and the event specifically on October 7th in Israel you really are one of the only artists that I'm interviewing who has been very active since then. Like I said, things that I can't put into words, that my brain can't wrap itself around, you actually are able to communicate it beautifully. It's very interesting for me to hear from you how it has directly influenced your journey as an illustrator. But since you're also a mom, feel free to also touch on those things, because it probably all funnels down into that. Everything goes into a single illustration. You have so many aspects to you.

Speaker 1: 8:13

Yeah, I dropped that in the beginning, but I'm a mom of three girls, so it always finds its way to my art and my work, especially these days. Everything that happened affects the house and how we live here and how we communicate with them and our conversation and really every aspect of the day to day. What's happened since the 7th? On the 7th, I would like to talk a bit about my work for this past month. On the 7th, I already talked to the editor of Family Section from the Family Section and we started to talk about how to communicate what's going on, and the main subjects that we talk about and that we post and I illustrate some of them and some don't are how to talk and communicate with our kids about what's going on. So on that day, when we still had no idea of the capacity or what's going on, on that day, we already started working on the conversations that we're going to have with the kids and started posting about that.

Speaker 1: 9:48

And you said that I put into words what you can. I have a lack of words, so I imagine it in lines and that's how I try to communicate the feelings that I have, because writing is not as powerful for me as the lines and the colors that I can use to express what's going on, and I'm fortunate that the first few weeks I had the work that my day-to-day job is, because I couldn't feel what happened to a lot of artists that I know. In the first few days they just froze, me included. I knew that I had to do something, but I couldn't do it by myself. I had no capacity to start working on something on my own, so my daily job forced me to confront a lot of subjects and I had no choice.

Speaker 1: 11:08

But if I had a choice, I would probably wallow in those feelings instead of working on some of the early work from the first few days. One of the first few works that I did was in the first few days there were already clips and videos of what's been going on, and there were articles about teenagers watching those on the phone on Instagram and social media and the fact that parents. I have to be aware immediately that this is going on, and so I had created a short animation of a burning phone and so all of these kinds of topics, a lot about mental health and even relationships between couples doing war. Those are the main subjects that we touched in the articles and that I confronted through the work and it really was therapeutic to me through this work.

Speaker 2: 12:39

I'm looking at the burning phone right now and I'm going to ask you for permission for the YouTube version to link it so people can see what you're talking about. I mean, that's really like we don't understand how dangerous it is to see certain things Because that's going to end up being PTSD for someone who wasn't actually in the event, but it's in their brain, it's in their head. So you were on a major mission and I spoke to many artists. I'm very, very lucky to have spoken to many artists and most describe the freezing For the first few weeks. Some are still there. I have a very close friend who's like a major rock star and we are now, I think, 52 days into the war and she's 100% frozen.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, yeah, and which I completely understand.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Yeah, and I think about it. You think about it in the historic perspective because you know we already know that this is an historic, horrific event and we know that everything that comes out of this period is documented. It will be documented. It's a mass of work in every art form that we will know after this for years. So everything feels this much more substantial and heavy and you feel like your work has to be correct, but I want to.

Speaker 1: 14:46

I don't know if there are artists listening, but that is a key point for artists, because we have all sorts of exercises that we do to ourselves how to release the hand before we start illustrating, or whatever artists do for their methods. But so we have to find a way to feel more free to create, even if it's not the right and correct words to put in a song or the right and correct color to put in the illustration, because there is an importance to creating right now and not afterwards. There will be it's important to create afterwards, for sure, and that's going to happen. Yeah, it's going to happen. But I think if you force yourself, it has a good quality to it as well. It's a therapeutic process, even if it's not the best work you've ever done, because it's meaningful for you and for your audience and for people who come across your work and, even if it's not the best that's what I'm saying it's important to create right now, because those feelings and the process that you connect to right now it's different. It's different.

Speaker 2: 16:36

And it's different because it's not the cathartic post-traumatic process.

Speaker 1: 16:42

Yeah, because we're living it right now.

Speaker 2: 16:45

Right, and the reason I've mentioned this a lot when I'm talking to people.

Speaker 2: 16:54

I host a well-being, health and fitness podcast and it's very scientific and we get into the nitty gritty of like how many reps should I be doing for a bicep curl to grow my?

Speaker 2: 17:10

And we get into DNA and the thing is that, yeah, and protein, exactly.

Speaker 2: 17:17

And the thing is that since October 7th, the only thing that I found and it took me a moment to realize this that I found was, I would even go as far as to say, saving me and my sanity and my well-being was turning to people like you and who were allowing me to process whatever I'm going through, right, because I don't have the artistic hands and I'm not in the recording studio and I'm really leaning on artists for my personal well-being and sanity, which is why I was like let's bring these people onto the podcast, because right now, we're in kind of survival mode in terms of sanity and well-being and this is the one thing that is really helping me, except for working out. But also, very soon I'm not going to be able to work out. I'm going to give birth pretty much any minute. So it's really like I'm really leaning on artists and the importance and the impact that you have on the layman right the person who's not really in the creative realm is huge, is huge and on the basic well-being and health plane.

Speaker 1: 18:52

I have to mention two artists that start creating pretty fast, which are Zoya Czerkiewski and Oge, I think, and their illustrations were straight up documentary from the horrors that they heard or that they read on the news or that they saw in videos.

Speaker 1: 19:26

And that mass of work is so important and not everyone has to be that they did a great job.

Speaker 1: 19:37

And again I'm turning to the artist audience or whoever creative that feels frozen that mass of work is amazing and so important that they created and now everybody has a space to create a new mass of work in their own interpretation and their own style, to tell about the feelings that they have or the things that they heard. And we are working I'm working with the editor of the family section on a comic series about what's happened on those days that you don't see, what happened inside the homes of people, of regular people, like in the midsection of Israel that didn't have. We had a lot of sirens, but not as much as the South and Ashkelon, and what happened to families that went to the reserve, what happened to our nerves. So we're working on documenting those little moments that seem so unimportant, but it's true, those really are the important moments, because we keep on living through these days and it's important to document that as well, because we need to know and remember how we live through these days.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Absolutely, absolutely. So you're in the middle of working on this right now.

Speaker 1: 21:39

Yeah, I create already four pages of different stories. One that I want to tell is a friend of mine. I act around mainly women with children because that's our main subject on the parenting section. So I talked to a friend of mine and she said that she lives in Tel Aviv and she said that she was walking with her three-year-old in Tel Aviv and then they came across the candle, the massive candles that they had in I think it was in the Zinkoff circle, and he was so excited to see all the candles. He didn't know. So he was so excited from the candles and he said Mom, can I lit a candle and she was so emotional and obviously she didn't tell him what are the candles for. But she cried and then they lit the candle and that little moment is so surreal to think about that. A small child is excited about candles but the candles are a symbol for the souls that we lost. It's just surreal. So this small moment is it has to be documented in some way.

Speaker 2: 23:21

So I relate to this story so much I'm sure that any mother in that capacity and like the center, what you're saying, the center of Israel, where we're dealing with it, but not as intensely as the people more in the north, the people in the south it reminds me of when I'm listening to my daughter. She's four and a half. She's telling people about certain things in her kindergarten and she's always very excited to say that in her gun there's a shelter. So we had to share our gun, our kindergarten with a gun is the Hebrew word for kindergarten. So we had to share our kindergarten space with other kids who didn't have a shelter and she's always very excited to say that her kindergarten has a shelter and she says it very proudly and I so relate to that where it's like it's surreal.

Speaker 1: 24:31

It's just surreal, you can't imagine a reality that you, that a four year old and my three year old she heard. She heard me explain to my seven and a half the process of the iron drill Because we heard some explosions but we we had no science, but we heard the explosions and she was scared so I explained to her and I explained that we're safe because we're in the center and in the position of our apartment is very safe, and all kinds of explanations and she paralleled it afterwards. My three year old sometimes, when we had silence, she started saying she started explaining the iron drill because she heard me say that and it's insane, right?

Speaker 2: 25:24

Right, Right, Right, Absolutely. Oh, my gosh, so this is actually. This really is. You're already answering the next question that I had for you and but, and so what I'm? I guess I'm inviting you to even elaborate more on your personal experiences. If you can elaborate on personal trauma that has influenced your creative approach not even you don't, even if you are able to, because I know this is a very personal question but maybe, maybe, maybe, even go beyond October 7th and how you're able to express these emotions through your visual art.

Speaker 1: 26:25

First of all, I read that question this morning again and I have no personal trauma that I connect to and work through my art. But a good artist, in all forms of art, can relate and connect to trauma or to real life or other people's experiences through their art, because they have a different point of view, because they can relate. I think many, many years ago I heard Sting talk about the song Roxanne that he wrote, and he talked about writing someone else's experience Someone else's experience it's not his experience but that a good artist can see something and imagine the inside of that experience and then create that art through that. So that's how I feel. But in this case it's a bit different because the 7th of October, other than the personal traumas of the people who actually experience it, there's a sense of a collective trauma of all Israelis and this historic event, horrific events, has affected everybody. I don't know any Israeli that it didn't affect them, even here and even abroad Israelis that I know abroad they felt the pain on the day and throughout these 52 days they feel it. You can't explain the connection and the sensory effect that this had on people. Because of that, because of this collective feeling, it's very easy to be inside the thing. You don't need a process or method like creating a story about somebody else, because you're in it all the time.

Speaker 1: 29:13

We are fortunate because most of the time the girls were home, because at the beginning there was no school, so we didn't open the news. We wouldn't open the TV with the news at home because we didn't want them to see and we were very protective of that. So we learned everything on our phones. But it's not the same massive information and visuals that you see all the time as in houses that the TV was on all the time. It's very different. We can choose to be on the phone all the time, but it's still different with the soundtrack of the news all the time. So it helps. I think I don't know about my partner, but I think it helps the whole house processing things better when it wasn't on all the time. But still again, the collectiveness of this historic event immediately puts you in the space that you can create because you're there. You don't need to have a different experience, like I said, the small moments of what happened in the back, in the safer areas.

Speaker 1: 30:44

Yeah, yeah they're still crazy. It's not a normal life. It's not a normal life.

Speaker 2: 30:53

Right, I was having a conversation this morning with a friend of mine who's a leading journalist and you know he was saying it's kind of like you and I started off our conversation today where we were saying because, as Hagao and I are recording this, we are in the last official day of the exchange for hostages and it's and ceasefire, and I was saying to him, to my friend, that I just want all the hostages home, but I'm also afraid of the ceasefire Because I'm so afraid of what they're capable of doing and so the fear is very, very real and it's so multifaceted because I'm also afraid for our brothers and sisters and kids that are there being held hostage.

Speaker 2: 32:05

And I'm also afraid for, you know, I remember the first few days. I mean this sounds so ridiculous now that I think I mean I felt like it was ridiculous then but I didn't care. But you know, I double locked the door, I double checked, I triple checked, I put stuff against the door which you know, I know that like it probably wouldn't help or maybe I don't know, but to think that like I was just pushing furniture and and six packs of water against the door is just shows like the very, very, very basic sense of fear.

Speaker 1: 32:51

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:53

And um.

Speaker 1: 32:59

I have one page of comics about that. But about locking up the house, do you really? Yeah, I spoke with a friend whose husband is in the reserve and she documents a lot of her feelings online in her stories and I thought it would be interesting to ask her personally what's, what's going on? And she said about she talked about the end of the day of locking up the house and that that I don't know if still now, but in the beginning she was sleeping with both of her kids and and in the drawer by the bed was enough, she had a knife. Because of that, yep, yep.

Speaker 2: 34:01

Yeah, we're basically, we're in the, we're all in it, really, no matter, no matter where we are in the country and yeah, and even outside of the country, like people, people are scared and people are hurt and brokenhearted. And yeah, this is, this is very global already and you have, you have so many themes that we've already brought up, like the what's happening in the central center of Israel, the little, the seemingly little things that we go through on our day to day life. You, you mentioned the burning phone, which I am looking at it, I have in front of me. I love it. Are there any other specific artworks or themes that you would like to mention or talk about, given the struggle, and one is the one is the past week or so, a week or two.

Speaker 1: 35:14

I felt the urge to create something of my own and not related to work, and I started a series of posters and the last one is animated with voicing out the call of bringing them home now. And the last one was I did I finished it on the day that's the, on the first day of the house of you release and I am. I created a little girl that's being held hostage and then you see her and rise up and run and her dad stands with with the poster and then she runs up to him and they hug. So I hope to see all the families and join and and be whole again. I still don't know if I, if I, if I continue that series I have three and, but but, throughout this conversation I thought about what we talked about, the historic moment that we're living in.

Speaker 1: 36:32

We need to remember that there are lots more head, because it's it's it's not related to the word self. There are a lot of people who lost their house and who are living in hotels or at friends houses, and the rise that we will experience afterwards and will be will have to be documented as well, because our whole lives are going to change and the fabric of each community is going to change. If some, if people from other cities or keep what says or are moving to different geographical position, it will. Things will change. It's not the same, nothing is the same. So we need to still to still have a very open eye and heart to these experiences as artists and as documentaries, that words or whatever form, and to know that we need to remember and to be kind and to to remember what's happening Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 37:59

It's not over. It's not over, so we need to think about the day after.

Speaker 2: 38:06

I, I don't even. I can't even imagine when it would be over. I'm thinking of. Right next door to me there's a I have a neighbor and her sister is living with her now because she was. I can't believe, I can't believe she survived what happened in her, her people. It's Neil Oz, and you know when I, when I first saw her arrive, she was very, very bruised. It's very hard to see someone over the age of 70 so bruised it's, it's like it's, but she just happens to be a majorly strong fighter. Like it's, almost like she demands that you don't feel sorry for her. You know, just by her presence.

Speaker 1: 39:05

There's an illustrator that created a graphic of like a grandma winking and it said don't mess with a kid, with grandmother.

Speaker 2: 39:17

Totally. I mean, you can even see that when, with the women coming back, I mean that's that's exactly my husband and I are sitting, that we're looking at them come back and we're like this is like, this is a lioness, and I'm thinking, you know, there there's the so much aftermath. There's and and of course you could probably relate to what I'm about to say is, you know, there was Abigail, the four year old, who returned home yesterday and she was three until Friday and then she and she was actually declared missing and then, and then they brought her home and you know all I'm thinking about, because I know what four years old is, because I have a four and a half year old and I'm thinking, okay, she's back, that's one thing, and we all were waiting for her to come back. And then there's how do her grandparents and siblings go about telling her that both her parents are killed? And I'm sorry, like this is.

Speaker 2: 40:34

You know, we're getting into difficult things and that's the thing. It's like the aftermath, it's what you're saying. It's so we don't even know what's ahead of us. I mean, that's just one point of the aftermath. I can't even imagine and yeah, it's too much, it's a lot, and I think touching on that and remembering that is so important, because we're gonna be in need of a lot of compassion for each other.

Speaker 1: 41:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:16

I've been. Anybody who's on my Instagram knows that I get very angry at the world and I'm offended and my feelings are hurt.

Speaker 1: 41:31

It's a bad time to be offended and angry at the world, because everybody's insane.

Speaker 2: 41:38

Right, so I've been dealing with the first two weeks. I was deeply, I was really offended, I was crying, I was speaking to the world while bawling, and then and now I've shifted over to like wow, the world is leaving me speechless, the way that the anti-Semitism has risen hugely and also the uneducated speaks so loudly. And I was wondering about you and how you feel about the current state of the world and their response, and is it influencing your work at all or just on a personal level?

Speaker 1: 42:39

I feel that it hasn't really affected my work, because I'm not very noble, I'm very local with my work, so I don't have that conversation with my audience. But, from a personal perspective, I'm waiting for them to. I'm very surprised of the massive people that pretend to care about something that they don't, that they know nothing about. They can't even I don't know they can't even tell what's going on in their own country. So that's what I'm talking about, so that's what blew my mind, but so I'm like waiting for them to find a different subject because, usually that's what happens.

Speaker 1: 43:35

They find another thing to to go back about that. Yeah, to focus on the things with anti-Semitism is that I don't think will die down, because it's not even the Israeli subject. It's just an excuse to be horrible.

Speaker 2: 43:57

It's an excuse.

Speaker 1: 43:59

Someone who was anti-Semitic just has an opportunity to raise their voice right now, because it's fine.

Speaker 2: 44:10

Nobody will say anything. Yeah, now's the time.

Speaker 1: 44:14

There was a designer that I saw in an interview and Israeli one who said and he was he's working on different types of communicating what's happening in Hezbollah, and he said that liking Israel is a boomer thing. It's not cool.

Speaker 2: 44:37

So that's what they're trying to change the perspective, because it's not cool right now to like Israel so everything piles on that 100% and and I'm like becoming kind of okay with that, because I can't, I can't, I can't keep crying and being angry and offended. I'm just like, all right, there's that's. You're saying things that are very strange and that's none of my business. Like, at this point, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just do what I can in my little bubble and everybody's gonna do what they can in their little bubble and we've got people who are interviewing beautifully and speaking out beautifully. It's, it's, it's really amazing for me. I think that was my big thing, where I couldn't believe that anti-Semitism existed. I clearly was so naive before October 7th yeah, cause I lived in in the post Holocaust world.

Speaker 1: 45:49

Right, all of us and the denial of what happened on the 7th is absurd, and the denial of the Holocaust is. It's insane. The the stuff are insane, and the thing with anti-Semitism and racism in general is that it has nuances. So you can be a raging anti-Semitism and like it comes out in nuance in your conversation. So it's okay and it was okay until now, and now you have a place to to rant about it even louder. But and I think we all have I'm not examining us from work, cause I think we all have a responsibility of what we, what we put out and once we voice out to the world, cause we all know people that are not from here and we have that responsibility to to talk to them and and then make them aware of what's going on and what happened. And it's not about fighting with bots or or or or poor Hamas people online. You don't have to do that.

Speaker 1: 47:11

It's to each to each of their own, but, but you do have a responsibility. If you share something, share something substantial, that that is related to what's happening. Cause I read that Mike no, I don't remember his name so I won't say it, but some reporter that's that's very poor Israel, he's British, and he said that we need to remember.

Speaker 2: 47:41

Are you saying Douglas Mare?

Speaker 1: 47:42

Yeah, I forgot. I'm just in love with him.

Speaker 2: 47:45

which is why? Which is why?

Speaker 1: 47:48

So he said he told Ella who's doing a great has brought for Israel. If you know her, her account is a lot travels she's.

Speaker 2: 48:01

Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 48:04

So he told her that we need to remember that a lot of people that are not visible to us have no idea what happened. They have no idea Right From their perspective, Israel started the war.

Speaker 2: 48:18

Right.

Speaker 1: 48:19

They have no idea what happened. So we need to remember that and to voice out what happened Is and is still happening, and people have lost their homes and families. And it's not, it's not just a date, it's it's. It's an ongoing event.

Speaker 2: 48:40

Absolutely and it goes back to what I was saying Like I'm I'm scared of the ceasefire cause, cause they also promise to keep doing it publicly. Absolutely, and if, if you can speak substantially, like you said, please do absolutely. And and if you don't know what you're saying and if you're not clear on it, sleep. Yeah. Yeah, I was having a conversation on the first episode of the series. I was interviewing now Ma Guggenheim, who's just a a very active and talented artist, a singer, songwriter, and she was. We kind of got into this area of the conversation and I was like stay out of it. Like you're, it's so harmful to say things that are that are not I love the word they use that are not substantial. But yeah, and, and also, if you are promoting peace in a peaceful way, in a way that is compassionate and and filled with empathy, then also I mean we need so much more of that and you're definitely doing that. Thank you, thank you. If there is anything else that you would like to add, please do.

Speaker 1: 50:21

Just thank you for this interview it was a very nice conversation and for your platform and for bringing women, women's voices, which we haven't talked about at all, but it's so important right now and there are all. There are piling evidence of strong women who fought and did such amazing things this month, these two months, but they do it anyway. But now we have proof and we need more women's voices.

Speaker 2: 51:02

Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you again. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 51:09

Thank you, thank you.