This article took me a very long time to write. I sat down, wrote, deleted, went for a walk, came back, wrote again, deleted again, made coffee, and tried once more. I think the reason is that even now, almost three years later, every small attempt to return to that day and that period runs into a kind of wall inside me. I’m writing now from beautiful England, during a much-needed visit to my sister, whom I last saw almost three years ago, after I escaped here back then. Everything around me is so quiet – I live on a boat, surrounded by soft green waters, gentle skies, and the slow movement of the boat rocking from side to side. Hours pass as I try to write about new beginnings.
A gallery rooted in place
It felt important to me to tell the story of Be’eri Gallery and the deep inspiration its founders awaken. This is a story about something painful, but also profoundly moving and full of life. And I decided that this article would stay hopeful, that it would hold onto light. I am not going to write about that day. We all know how long it lasted, how it seemed to have no end, and in a way, we were all there. But I was not where the people of Be’eri were, and I will never be able to fully understand what they went through. What I can do, perhaps, is tell the story of the incredible people of Kibbutz Be’eri, and of the remarkable Be’eri Gallery, and try to express, in my own limited way, how once again we witness the power of art. I first heard of the gallery when I started to follow Sofie Berzon Mackie, one of the founders of it, on social media, after coming across her beautiful, moving, and painful posts and her almost enchanted photographs. She is an extraordinary artist, a kind of magician in the way she sees and captures the world. She doesn’t know me personally, but I am a big admirer of her work.
The Be’eri Gallery, originally established in 1986 in Kibbutz Be’eri, was founded as a contemporary art space rooted in the cultural life of the kibbutz and the western Negev region. Over the years, it became an active and respected exhibition space within the Israeli art scene, presenting rotating shows of painting, photography, installation, printmaking, and interdisciplinary work. It worked closely with both established and emerging Israeli artists, while maintaining a clear connection to the everyday life, landscapes, and community of Be’eri itself.
Responding to displacement and loss
On October 7th, 2023, the original gallery building was burned and destroyed during the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri. In a single day, the physical home of decades of activity was reduced to ruins, alongside much of the kibbutz itself. In the months that followed, the gallery was gradually re-established in a temporary home in Tel Aviv-Yafo, in the Beit Romano area. Today it operates as Be’eri Gallery in Jaffa, led by Sofie and Ziva Yelin. The space functions as a living continuation rather than a relocation: it hosts changing exhibitions of Be’eri artists, including works created long before October 7th, and new works responding directly to trauma, displacement, memory, and reconstruction.
Together with its exhibitions and curatorial program, Be’eri Gallery has developed over the years into a broader cultural and educational platform. It regularly hosts artist talks, guided tours, workshops, and community programs. The gallery has also maintained an active role in documentation and publishing, producing exhibition catalogues and printed materials that extend the life of its shows and artists beyond the gallery space itself. In addition, the Be’eri Gallery Prize, launched in collaboration with the Fresh Paint art fair, continues to highlight emerging Israeli artists and support new voices. In recent months, the Gallery has also begun gradually returning to the Kibbutz, as part of the wider rebuilding process taking place across the community. While the temporary gallery space in Jaffa continues to operate, plans for a new permanent cultural centre in Be’eri are already underway, supported in part by a joint Israeli-German rebuilding initiative announced in late 2023.
The act of returning
I deeply admire Sofie and the people behind the Gallery, and I am moved by the extraordinary sensitivity, courage, and artistic vision they continue to bring into the world. The level of work they present is professionally outstanding, but also human – created by people who are carrying unimaginable loss and still choosing to create, to gather, to rebuild, and to offer art as a space of meaning and presence. I want more people to know, to understand what happened there, and to recognise what it takes to rebuild a cultural home after such destruction – or even to create its temporary continuation elsewhere. There is immense strength in the act of returning, in choosing to reopen a space for art and life.
On an even more personal level, I feel that every expression from this point forward carries weight. The way we speak, write, and tell stories now matters more than ever, because it shapes the kind of society we are becoming, and how we choose to live with pain, memory, and renewal. I hope we learn to make choices that are kind and sustaining, choices that leave enough space for the children who will come after us to grow, to breathe, and to flourish. And I hope that the art created by people who have seen things up close – the kind of truth most of us only hear about – will always be given a large and rightful place in the world we build.
I’ll try to finish my coffee; maybe now I can. Or at least let my body sense the gentle movement of the boat I’m on, swaying, from side to side.
Check the website of Be’ei Gallery here.
