Marsha Plafkin Art & Design's Art and Design Studio

I visited Israel-Palestine during college in 1983 and resided there in 1987 and 1988 while studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I made two other short trips, one as a Hillel Director in 1996, and another for my brother’s marriage to my Israeli sister-in-law in 1999. 

Since 1999 was my last visit, I have never seen the “Separation Wall” whose construction began in 2002 under Ariel Sharon. I have only seen this wall in photos and read about it. 

Spanning some 440 miles and standing 26 to 30 feet high, this wall separates Jews from Palestinians and hides Israeli military abuses in the occupied territories.  In 2011, I published objections to the wall in ART AS RESPONSA Blue Paper on Israel. 

The wall represents about 2 million cubic meters of concrete that could have instead built schools, hospitals, libraries, restaurants, grocery stores, and homes.  Jews are expected to remain silent about the wall or to justify it if they dare speak at all. Those who object to Israeli apartheid are called “self-hating”, “not really Jewish”, “traitor”, or worse.

During my studies at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, we were required to take a class on the history of messianism with the UJ President Emeritus, Rabbi David Lieber. Lieber’s curriculum reviewed the concept of messiah from its first appearance in Torah through classical, medieval, pre-modern, and modern eras. He concluded his survey stating: “Zionism is the new messianism”. 

This conclusion was not triumphant in the least as Rabbi Lieber remained a man of faith who never chose to make so-called Aliyah.

THE TRUE NAME OF ISRAEL

The name "Israel" first appears in Genesis 32:28, where Jacob spends a restless night struggling with an unnamed man. He awakens to discover a permanent injury on his thigh, a symbolic area for intimate injury.

Impaired, Jacob is given a new name signaling spiritual capacity over physical power.

The Torah states that he “will no longer be Jacob, but will now be called Israel”. His new name comes from a word which means to ‘wrestle’ or ‘struggle’, which Jacob earns by successfully wrestling “with God and with men”. 

כִּי-שָׂרִיתָ עִם אֱלֹהִים וְעִם-אֲנָשִׁים

This wrestling is the central challenge of Jewish life. 

But wrestling alone is insufficient. 

Jacob had to prevail over darkness and fear to earn his name. 

Related to this, I just discovered a documentary released in February 2023 titled Israelism.

I recommend this and feel grateful to those who created an important and courageous film. 

They have prevailed.

Marsha Plafkin [Hurwitz]

February 21, 2026