In her tiny home in Meah Shearim, nonagenarian Huvy Elisha paints breathtaking masterpieces that are acclaimed around the world
J
ust a few short kilometers separate Meah Shearim’s winding alleys from the tourist-filled, hotel-lined Rechov King David, but they are different universes. Those universes collide in a small art gallery, home to the exquisite paintings of Ahuva (Huvy) Elisha, nonagenarian resident of Meah Shearim, whose art is acclaimed around the world. But if art reflects life, perhaps this is not surprising — Huvy’s personality and life experiences are tinted with as many shades as her landscapes.
Inside the gallery, I gaze at a large oil painting: a field of poppies, a haze of mauve mountains against the horizon. Huvy’s son, Menachem Elisha, has told me that Huvy’s childhood memories were seminal influences on her life’s work. She was born in the Bukharian quarter to Yerushalmi parents. When she was a young child, her parents moved to Czechoslovakia and then Austria, where her father had business interests, before settling in London, England.
I stare at the picture, trying to match the scene to the Devonshire countryside where Huvy was evacuated with her family. I draw a blank. Her son watches my puzzled face with glee. “You want to know where this is?”
“Yes.”
“That was my mother’s childhood playground. She would head out of the Bukharian Quarter and this expanse was her childhood playground. Meadows of poppies that led all the way up to Maalot Dafna.”
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