Oref: Diaries from the Home Front

I was born in Kibbutz Dafna. My home is located near the northern security fence, about two kilometers from the Lebanese border and close to the Syrian border to the northeast. With the outbreak of the war, we were evacuated, and I found myself on a destabilizing journey of escape. I threw clothes into a small trolley and left for the unknown. What began as a temporary evacuation turned into an ongoing condition, with no date of return home.

The war resurfaced previous wars—those I experienced from childhood through adolescence and into motherhood. As the atrocities of the massacre in the south became clear, the trauma intensified. I locked doors and shut blinds in the apartment to which we fled from the north, sinking into a dense, black bath of chaotic, total, hysterical fear. I could not continue my life as if nothing had happened; what had mattered until that day suddenly felt meaningless.

I bought a small sketchbook—one that allows drawing for someone without a studio—along with ink and brushes, and I drew at night. Drawing changed its meaning for me: from observing life, it became a means of confronting the terror of death.

In this series, I draw from the back—the “oref”—both as a geographical position on the map of Israel and as a location on the bodily map. The drawing action emerges from an intuitive place, behind and beneath the brain. The nape of the neck, the cervical spine, is a sensitive area that accumulates pain in states of tension and distress, carrying also the knowledge that breaking the neck causes death.

The book is an expressive pictorial inquiry in ink. It traces a process that begins with the collective trauma that struck Israeli society on October 7, expressed through drawings of skeletons, candles, and botanical hybrids. Gradually, the work converges toward the personal and local—burned, apocalyptic landscapes of the north. The book offers a glimpse into a visual diary that is both deeply personal and a historical, documentary record, touching upon the lived experience of Israeli citizens.

Oref Diaries addresses anyone willing to look bravely at fear, to face terror directly, to remain with pain, and to summon moments of compassion and beauty