7 What we were

Look at the fresco by Yohanan Simon which is now in Kibutz Gan Shmuel's dinning hall. Formerly it was part of the "Renaissance" School in Sao Polo, Brazil. The wall has been demolished but the parts of the wall on which the fresco was painted were carefully collected, restored by experts and reconstructed in the Kibutz that inspired it. The style is naive and optimistic, almost childish, and expresses all the hopes of the early l950's (it was painted in l954) not long after the establishment of the state of Israel. At that time kibutz youth (the fresco's subject) were a source of pride and were seen by many as the symbol of the new state.
Look at the children playing, working, making music, dancing. Look at them reading books, planting trees, picking oranges and waving flags. Look at the light and the joyous activity enfolding them all and think of what was here not long ago. What grand hopes, what joy.
If today this painting seems a little childish, perhaps because unlimited optimism and exuberant joy we keep for children's rooms and outside of them we put on a grey mask of stubborn strength that shows no trace of a smile. This painting from a period of great hopes reminds us of what we were and what we still may become.