In Haifa, artists document the war on the city’s walls

You can tell a lot by a city by how it treats its public spaces. Sometimes, especially in Europe, streets of a city are pristine, trapped in amber from when the place was at its finest, a tribute to a long-crumbled empire. Israel, where Jewish history spans some 35 centuries, is mostly a new place and as a result, its major cities feel alive, humming with creativity, constantly changing.

Nowhere is this truer than Haifa, Israel’s third city and its largest mixed religion urban area. Its history dates back before the century BCE and since then Haifa has been controlled by several civilizations, including the Canaanites, Israelites, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, Muslims, Crusaders, Kurds, the Mamluks, the Ottoman Turks and the British. Each one has left its mark, but a decidedly new development is Haifa’s rich art scene – writ large on the walls of the city itself.

Artist Shimda at work[Missing Credit]Politically charged graffiti[Missing Credit]

This street art began, as it does in most cities, underground. In the Nineties, a group of renegade artists started tagging buildings around Haifa’s port, a then derelict district of the city, that has been thoroughly gentrified in the intervening years. Some of the earliest prominent artists, who went on to found the globally famous art collective Broken Fingaz, started creating huge murals, fighting the city’s authorities and prosecution to make their art. But in the last decade, they’ve been embraced by the same public officials, and Haifa’s art scene has flourished for it.

Graffiti inspired by the hostages[Missing Credit]Haifa graffiti[Missing Credit]

Shiri Wizner, a Haifa-based influencer (@hey.fa.it) who took me on a tour of Haifa port’s most iconic mural installations, explained that while many of the city’s tourist spots have struggled during the war, the conflict has been a source of terrible inspiration for its artists . Across Haifa, green murals have sprung up, part of a trend called Yarok Le’ad (translating as forever green), paying tribute to the Maccabi Haifa fans who lost their lives on October 7 and who have been fighting for the IDF in the months since. And the street art community has also found space to mourn one of its own. Haifa student and graffiti artist Inbar Haiman, known by the moniker Pink, was murdered by Hamas after being taken captive at the Nova festival and her graffiti tags across the city have been left as a touching tribute, a mark of respect usually only reserved for the titans of the community.

Inbar Haiman's graffiti tag[Missing Credit]

There are other displays too. In an industrial space sandwiched between a craft beer bar and an indoor climbing centre, a new display has sprung up, with dozens of pieces showing artists experiences of the war. From a harrowing mural of a white Toyota pick-up, entitled Watermelon by the Knife to artwork depicting Israelis feeling abandoned by the world, grief emanates from every wall.

“The city’s artists have joined the fight to bring the hostages home,” said Wizner. “They’re invested and are street art as a medium. It’s disappointing but not surprising that comparable artists across the world don’t stand with us.”

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​Josh Kaplan was in Israel as a guest of the Israel Government Tourism Office