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Larger-than-life Bushwick mural shows Israeli and Palestinian children embracing
(New York Jewish Week) – Amid Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Israeli and Palestinian boys act as symbols of a peaceful future in a new, larger-than-life mural painted this week on the side of a loft building in Bushwick.
The Israeli boy, wearing a kippah and ritual fringes, and the Palestinian boy, who wears a keffiyeh — the black-and-white headscarf often signifying Palestinian nationalism — wrap their arms around each other as they walk off into the sunset underneath the words: “Love’s resilience can rebuild bridges that the war has burned.”
The mural was intended to channel a sense of hope, as well as to shift the prevailing narratives in Bushwick, according to Michelle Mayerson, who helped organize and commission the mural.
“With this particular piece, actually, I wanted to do something about the war,” Mayerson told the New York Jewish Week. “In Bushwick, there is a Free Palestine mural of Muslim woman holding a child and it’s beautiful, tugs at the soul. But it’s one-sided, and I just felt we should have some representation — and even this representation is really not pro-Israel at all. It’s just the fact that there’s a Jewish kid in Bushwick.”
Through her company Brooklyn Street Art, Mayerson serves as a liaison between street and graffiti artists and the real estate companies or landlords who own Brooklyn’s buildings. In some of her work, the building owners approach her about finding an artist to beautify the sides of their property. Other times, the artists approach her with an idea, and she gets a building on board for them to make it into a reality.
In the case of this mural, it was neither. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack, Mayerson had already been thinking about what a mural made in response might look like, but found it difficult to convince both artists and building owners of her vision.
“I was trying so hard to be sensitive to everyone. I only wanted to promote love and peace,” Mayerson said. “In Bushwick and in street art in general, people love to push the limits. But with this particular issue, when the idea was hatched, most artists didn’t even want to paint anything even remotely near it,” she added.
But when her friend, a Chilean street artist and muralist who goes by the name De Grupo, reached out to offer condolences and support, everything began falling into place. “I also wanted to get a mural together about the war,” De Grupo recalled.
Now all Mayerson had to do was find the right building. Most of her work is in Bushwick, the epicenter of contemporary street art and murals in New York City.
“I called every contact I had. No one wanted to give me a wall to put anything on there that was controversial,” said Mayerson, who is Jewish. She said Jewish realtors and landlords she spoke to were especially worried about vandalism and about upsetting their tenants.
Eventually, Mayerson managed to secure 40 feet of wall on the side of 49 Wyckoff Avenue, a popular canvas for street artists that often commissions art as well as advertising. Mayerson then went on to fundraise for supplies, lifts and compensation for the artists.
“The way this came together felt like the hand of God,” she said.
Mayerson, De Grupo and a third artist named Manuel Alejandro started designing what the little boys would wear. “Little boys would be wearing jerseys and in the Middle East, what’s the biggest sport? Soccer,” Mayerson said. “So we were thinking, ‘Let’s do a little cheeky little rivalry between Ronaldo and Messi.”
The group decided that the Palestinian boy would wear the blue and maroon jersey of the Portuguese player Cristiano Ronaldo and the Israeli boy would wear the light blue jersey of longtime Argentina star Lionel Messi, both because they are two of the most recognizable players on Earth and also because each player is popular in those respective regions, as Ronaldo currently plays for Saudi Arabia and Messi has visited Israel.
It wasn’t until the drawing was completed that Mayerson and the artists noticed the combination of the players’ jersey numbers spelled out 10/7, the day of the Hamas attack that left about 1,200 Israelis dead and the beginning of the war.
“That was just a bonus. It didn’t dawn on anybody until we finished the draft,” she said. “We didn’t plan it. It wasn’t something that we had discussed. It was just there. It was a sign of God.”
They also had one of the boys holding a beaten-up teddy bear as a sign of “what they have gone through,” Mayerson said, but they are “still pulling their little toy together and walking towards the sunset.”
“I’m very happy with the idea and the way everybody came together,” De Grupo said.
The image is reminiscent of a famous photograph taken shortly after the 1993 Oslo Accords appearing to show a Palestinian boy and an Israeli boy with their arms around each other’s shoulders that became a symbol of the era’s hope for peace. The photograph has endured and even circulated since Oct. 7 as a vision of an alternate present, one in which there can be peace — even though it was revealed a decade ago to have been staged: Both boys were Jewish.
Whether the new picture lasts as long remains to be seen. Once the group secured a spot to work and funding, they painted the mural over just four days on the weekend of New Year’s Eve. It will be up, Mayerson said, until the building secures its next advertising partnership.
Mayerson said that the mural received both positive and negative feedback when she posted it on her social media page — and she decided to delete the negative comments.
“I didn’t want it to take away from the message and from people looking at it and just seeing something that really is a beautiful picture,” she explained. “What could be bad about two boys from two different cultures and religions just playing together?”
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The post Larger-than-life Bushwick mural shows Israeli and Palestinian children embracing appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.