In addition to the new immigrants, Israeli artists also came to Safed to open galleries and studios. Early artists, including Yitzhak Frenel and Moshe Castels, had lived and worked in the town since the early 1940s and by the 1950s many of Israel’s best-known artists had opened galleries in Tzfat. These artists included Ziona Tagger, Aryeh Merzer, Mordechai Levanon, Yitzhak Amitai, Shimshon Hotzman, David Gilboa and Raviv. Many of these artists were penniless but they shared their resources as they joined together to create the Artists Quarter Association.
Today there are new artists in Safed. Some of them have established their galleries in the Old Jewish Quarter, where tourists generally go to see the historical synagogues and other sites. Other new artists have come to the Artist Quarter to establish their galleries in the historical Artist Colony of Safed.
Photo attribution:
Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0
Sdahan11, CC BY-SA 4.0
