A mural that honors the Jewish community was unveiled on the afternoon of June 4 in the Pico-Robertson neighborhood, a couple of blocks away from where the February shootings occurred.
The mural, titled “The Common Thread,” is part of the LA vs. Hate initiative organized by the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Cloe Hakakian, the artist who drew the mural, told the Journal that it was “a community-based concept.” “The community all got together and they gave their input, and I used their input and created the artwork based on all their responses in the prompts,” Hakakian, an Iranian Jew, said. The mural centers on a woman with her eyes closed with lit candles in front of her. Hakakian explained that this “is supposed to represent a mother praying on Shabbat” and the candle flames say, “L’dor v’dor,” meaning from generation to generation. The woman is also wearing a headscarf with various layers of imagery; one layer “shows generations of women getting younger and younger, all kind of having each other’s backs,” Hakakian said. “They’re each wearing textiles from different Jewish communities: the Russian community, the Persian community, all showing that there’s different Jewish communities within the community.”
Another layer shows a pomegranate, saffron flowers and “specific spices that are unique to the Jewish culture,” per Hakakian, which she said stemmed from someone in the community saying that their “mother’s spice cabinet” was part of being Jewish for them. Above the pomegranate layer in the veil is a layer depicting “a migration in the desert, which shows the healing and trauma we’ve all been through,” Hakakian said. “The goal is to get towards that bright light, that beautiful sky.” Above that layer are the words, “From generation to generation” and various Los Angeles landmarks “where Jews…
Read the full article here