Interview with Shmuel Mushnik

 Shmuel Mushnik - Israeli artist based in Hebron. He made aliyah 52 years ago from Soviet Union together with his family. He mostly paints landscapes of Israeli nature and cities.

Where are you from?   

One part of my family is from a little town Krasne which is located in the region of Vinnytsia in Ukraine and other is from Vilne, where was Vilna resistance. I am originally from Moscow and lived with my parents in our small apartment.

What you were doing before your aliyah? 

I made aliyah in the age of 15, so I was quite young then. I was studying at school and I had a big interest in biology and till today I really like this field. Since a very young age, around 4 years old, I have had passion in the art and painting in particular. My parents were one of the first people in soviet union who applied for visas of ole Hadash but because it was in 1968 their two requests were turned down.At that time such people in the Soviet Union were called “otkazniki”. They had a very special attitude towards the land of Israel and I myself took it from them. My father died from cancer 10 months before we made aliyah and sadly his lifetime dream never became true. When we were given permission to leave the Soviet Union they told to depart in a month. After I and my mother made aliyah, I have never visited the former Soviet Union again.

Could tell about your jewish life and identity before living in Israel? 

I was raised in a very traditional Jewish family where we celebrated holidays, my mother used to light candles on Shabbat. My father even taught me some Hebrew such as alphabet and a few words. But regarding the political regime, we had at that time I was used to know what I should tell in front of whom since the early years.With which people I can make jokes about political regime, with which people I can talk about Israel and so on. When I was like 13 someone asked me to translate the book “Exodus” for illegal printing, which was called “samizdat” and I was extremely excited about doing it because it was connected to Eretz Israel. However, as an adult I understand that it was a dangerous activity because the Soviet Party could have taken me away from my parents and they could have been arrested. Luckily it had never happened.

What you did after leaving Soviet Union and coming to Israel?

I came to Israel on the 5th of November in 1970, by Jewish calendar it was on the 7th of Heshvan in 5731. The date itself is quite interesting because later this day became and official day of Aliyah, which you probably did not notice this year due to elections that were held the same day. I was 15 years old boy and I went to school, learned Hebrew and then served in the Israeli army. 

Was in your life a person who influenced you in the beginning of your life in Israel and if yes who he/she was?   

Yes, sure I met such person and it was my step-father, the second husband of my mother, Pavel Goldshtein. He was very intelligent and educated man, he also wrote a few books. He supported me in many things in my life, he had very good taste and made some useful remarks about my artworks. Pavel also tried to teach me some music, but I have never had any musical talent. He sadly died very early in 1982 year.

How you started your artistic career?

As I have said I started drawing very early so my career started when I was 4 years old. Everyone was happy that I had things to do and did not cry. And once my relative saw my drawings and told my parents that I had some talent and after this I went to the art school. I had the luck to have a very good teacher, also jew Yures Lodnikov. By the way he was a very big friend of my stepfather, and later became a famous artist in post Soviet Russia. Mostly all I learned about painting has learned from him because he was an amazing teacher. Then I came to Israel, I don’t know how much popular I am but Facebook helps reach out more and more people.  To be honest, I do not have any connection with the official art establishment of Israel.

What you did after leaving Soviet Union and coming to Israel?

I came to Israel on the 5th of November in 1970, by Jewish calendar it was on the 7th of Heshvan in 5731. The date itself is quite interesting because later this day became and official day of Aliyah, which you probably did not notice this year due to elections that were held the same day. I was 15 years old boy and I went to school, learned Hebrew and then served in the Israeli army. 

Was in your life a person who influenced you in the beginning of your life in Israel and if yes who he/she was?   

Yes, sure I met such person and it was my step-father, the second husband of my mother, Pavel Goldshtein. He was very intelligent and educated man, he also wrote a few books. He supported me in many things in my life, he had very good taste and made some useful remarks about my artworks. Pavel also tried to teach me some music, but I have never had any musical talent. He sadly died very early in 1982 year.

How you started your artistic career?

As I have said I started drawing very early so my career started when I was 4 years old. Everyone was happy that I had things to do and did not cry. And once my relative saw my drawings and told my parents that I had some talent and after this I went to the art school. I had the luck to have a very good teacher, also jew Yures Lodnikov. By the way he was a very big friend of my stepfather, and later became a famous artist in post Soviet Russia. Mostly all I learned about painting has learned from him because he was an amazing teacher. Then I came to Israel, I don’t know how much popular I am but Facebook helps reach out more and more people.  To be honest, I do not have any connection with the official art establishment of Israel.

What you can tell about your artistic work?

I paint mostly views of Israeli cities and nature. Hebron itself very influenced what I create because everything here has something special you cannot describe. Some people tell me that my works have some special love for Eretz Israel, the love for this land and people here. In addition, I organize tours in Hebron but with age it became harder to get to some places.

You live in a very special place, what made you choose this city?

That is a very interesting story. The first time I came to Hebron was in 1971 and was fascinated by its unique atmosphere I have never seen before. I spent one week in Rav’s Valtman house and I literally fell in love with this city at first sight. Around 10 days after I finished my army service I came back to Hebron. To give some piece of historical background, in 1968 people commenced civil settlement in Hebron and later in the 1970s started fighting for synagogue Avraam Avinu. People had to dig out and clean the place of the synagogue because Arabs had made there garbage dump. The first one who started the restoration of the synagogue Avraham Avinu was professor Ben Zion Tavger.He had a great name in the field of theoretical physics, who came from Novosibirsk. Even though he was very intelligent, KGB gave up on him because they were afraid that he would spoil other Jewish scientists with his Zionist ideas. So he came to Eretz  and started volunteering in order to restore this synagogue. Later, many people joined his idea, including me, and in 1976 the government threw us out just the night before Yom Kippur. The next day Arabs rioted there and destroyed everything Jewish that was there. I was very upset and furious at that time.When I shared my feelings with the wife of rabbi Langer she told me that the government, which had thrown people out of the synagogue would not last long. At that moment I thought that she was saying things that she just wanted to happen, but fortunately after not a long period of time Menachem Begin became the prime minister. We thought that our fighting was over, but we still had to go out for strikes to make our voices heard. Luckily for all us, Begin had real Jewish heart and in 1981 the reconstruction of the synagogue finished. Since 1979, in the end of April,  Jewish settlement returned to Hebron when at night a group of women and children arrived to the old empty Jewish hospital Adassa not paying attention to the ban of the government. I also took part in this operation, if I did something good in my life, it would probably be this act, and basically a new Jewish settlement in Hebron was established that night. What about me and my wife, we have 4 children, who are already grown up adults and 3 of them have their own families, we have lived in Hebron since 1984 and this summer it will be 39 years of our life in Hebron.

What differs in your daily life in Hebron from other cities you lived in?

I have lived in different cities, but the special difference in living in Hebron is fighting. It is not on an everyday basis, mostly nothing happens here but we had serious thing also. Once the government wanted to throw us away, it was in the second period of Rabin’s ruling. From 2000 and 2002 we were living under the fire almost everyday. However, there is always feeling that you do something important, maybe you will never see the result in your lifetime, but it is like a brick in the bottom. It cannot see in which direction the wall is built, but without this brick it was impossible to make the whole wall. Living here can be described as “steps of multiple generations”.

What is your advice for young olim hadashim who just came to Israel and started their life in Eretz Israel?

Look at everything with kind eyes and perceive everything with a kind heart. If you see disadvantages and they were, they are and they will be, instead of criticizing them try to . I can show it in a simple example, which happened around 30 years before while I was conducting a tour in the old neighborhoods of the new city, I can tell it was Eden Israel. I was talking and then one man started complaining about how dirty it was in Jerusalem and at the same moment he threw a cigarette on the floor. It drove me crazy but I managed to hold myself together. I took this cigarette and put it in the garbage bin which was very close. The face of the man was all shades of red and he understood me clearly. Criticizing is always easy, to complain how everything is not that good yet what you did to make it better?