Take a walk in the trendy Florentine neighborhood in Tel Aviv, and almost every wall is covered with graffiti, much of it relating to Oct. 7.
For example, the large graffiti of Superman that dominates an intersection in the area, with an encouraging “Don’t panic—the IDF will protect you,” written below. The graffiti, by two street artists from Ashkelon named Roman and Andrei, compares the army’s strength to Superman. It was done weeks after Roman’s house in Ashkelon was hit by shrapnel in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas onslaught.
“To be called graffiti, it must be in public and without the consent of the authorities,” Avi Ettinger, who guided a small group of journalists around Florentine, told JNS. “Otherwise, it’s called street art.”
If caught in the act, graffiti artists are fined and may spend a night in jail. But even though it’s illegal, the city has allowed most graffiti to stay up, especially anything relating to Oct. 7. For example, the graffiti depicting Rachel Edri, the hero of Ofakim, who survived more than 17 hours after five armed Hamas terrorists broke into her home.
She later said that “a hungry man is dangerous” and served her attackers coffee, tea, soft drinks and even homemade Moroccan cookies, the recipe for which quickly went viral.
She engaged the attackers in conversation and bandaged one of the gunmen who was wounded. She kept asking the attackers for permission to go to the bathroom, saying that as an older woman she needed to go frequently.
But each time she went, she passed an open window and exchanged signals with the security forces stationed outside. Eventually a special forces unit stormed the house and rescued Rachel and her late husband, David.
At a time when many Israelis felt powerless after Oct. 7, Rachel came to symbolize Israeli resilience. In the graffiti in Florentine, she is shown as Rosie the Riveter, who represented the millions of American women who came to work in factories, shipyards, and offices during World War II, while most of the men were off fighting. Edri came to see the graffiti depicting her on Tzrifin Street in Florentine.
Ettinger said that graffiti is an expensive hobby. A large piece could use 20-30 paint cans, meaning it could cost upwards of 800 shekels ($260). He said there is an informal community of Tel Aviv graffiti artists, some of whom have day jobs as lawyers or dentists. If a graffiti artist dies, he said, there is an informal agreement not to paint over the work. There is friendly, and sometimes not-so-friendly rivalry between artists, many of whom work at night to minimize the risk of getting caught.
The graffiti is also a mirror of Israeli society, like the picture of an IDF soldier and a young girl wearing a pink sweatshirt. In this case, the art was created by military graffiti artists Rotem Zamir and Yuval Peler, who served in the Israeli army as official military graffiti artists.
Overall, the graffiti tells the story of a city and a country that was traumatized by Oct. 7, but remains resilient and full of color and life.
