2025 marked the culminating year of the Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel Artists’ Greenhouse for Excellence, which for four years has shaped a unique model of socially engaged art in Jerusalem, bringing artists and communities together in ways that leave a lasting imprint on both. A partnership between the Jerusalem Foundation, the Jack, Joseph & Morton Mandel Foundation and Musrara – the Naggar School of Art & Society, the program empowers artists to create work rooted in real life, while strengthening community connections and social awareness.
Over its four years, 16 art projects inspired by the Musrara neighborhood came to life, celebrated in a concluding exhibition in the Musrara School Gallery. In its culminating year, the four projects were developed by artists in close collaboration with Musrara residents, drawing on local histories, identities and lived experiences. These works were presented between January and March 2026 in the concluding exhibition, “Four Entered Musrara,” which, along with the broader Greenhouse initiative, received coverage in national media, highlighting its growing cultural significance.
Each project offered a distinct lens into the neighborhood:
- Tziki Eisenberg, Treasure Island – a photographic installation transforming residents’ personal objects into shared visual memory.
- Shay Zilberman, Speech-Grille – intricate paper-cut and print works inspired by the neighborhood’s iron grilles and layered histories.
- Orit Adar Bechar, The Lost – a video installation blending Samuel Beckett’s text with Black Panther writings to explore power, identity and existence.
- Rustam Bayramov, A Passing Shadow – portraits created using a historic photographic technique, capturing the living human fabric of Musrara.
For artist Orit Adar Bechar, the experience was especially meaningful: despite decades of artistic work, this was her first-ever residency, which she described as deeply supportive, collaborative, and creatively transformative.
Beyond the artworks themselves, the Greenhouse’s four-year impact is profound. It has fostered new collaborations with diverse local communities and institutions, brought untold personal stories to light, and connected residents directly to artistic creation. At the same time, it has strengthened participating artists’ social engagement and provided vital professional support during challenging years marked by instability.
By bridging art, society and place, the Mandel Artists’ Greenhouse continues to demonstrate how creative practice can resonate far beyond the gallery, embedding itself in the life of a neighborhood and its people.
