The Painter Who Discovered His Judaism: 'I Said Shema Yisrael for the First Time in My Life, Word by Word'

'Through painting, I saw Hashem,' says painter Leonid Balaklav (63). 'Through it, I returned to observance.' When I attempt to ask him when he became religious, Balaklav, a methodical and principled man, doesn't easily respond. 'Even today and yesterday, I returned to observance; every day, I return to observance. Returning to observance isn't something that happens once; it's something that happens every day, until the last breath.'

The interview with Balaklav is filled with faith and art. Balaklav, winner of numerous awards and medals, including the 2014 Shiff Prize for Figurative-Realist Art, the Gold Medal at the Tokyo International Film Festival in 1987, the Jerusalem Prize for Painting and Sculpture in 1995, and the Israel Museum and IDB Prize for an Israeli artist in 2002, doesn't let the awards confuse him, and he strives to focus on what matters. 'It's important to me that my paintings bring pleasure to the Creator of the world,' he says, and turns to share his story. His life story.

Painting: Leonid Balaklav

'Suddenly, I Discovered I am a Kohen'

Balaklav began his life as a child in communist Soviet Union. 'I had to be a communist like everyone else,' he explains. At a young age, his talent for painting was discovered (by the wife of the Deputy Minister of Culture of Ukraine), and by age 15, he was accepted to a special art school in Kyiv for children of well-known artists. Although his father was just a simple carpenter, due to his rare talent the school's managers accepted him in the middle of the school year. He then studied another year at the Odessa Academy of Art. Alongside his art studies, Balaklav worked on theater set design. In the early '80s, changes began in the Soviet Union, and Balaklav was accepted as a full-fledged painter in the Union of Artists in Kishinev. He immigrated to Israel in 1989, first living in Petah Tikva and Mitzpe Ramon before moving to Jerusalem, where he resides and works in a small studio in Nachlaot. Over the years, Balaklav has grown closer to religion, and his paintings often engage with questions surrounding his Jewish identity..

'You asked when I returned to observance,' he repeats my first question, 'you probably meant when I first began to get closer to Judaism. It happened gradually. Even as a child in the Soviet Union, they told me I was Jewish, but I knew nothing beyond that—not Shabbat, nothing. They didn't teach us because they feared antisemitic classmates would beat us, so it had no practical significance, but in my heart, there was already a spark that wanted to know what it was. In 1989, at age 33, I came with my father to Israel as a tourist, to explore the land. Among other places, we visited my aunt in Petah Tikva. After a long stay, I decided I wanted to stay in the country, even though my father returned to Russia. Over time, I made frequent visits to a traditional friend who invited me. It was there that he told me about tradition, and my initial closeness and acquaintance with Judaism began.'

Painting: Leonid Balaklav

Until then, your parents didn't tell you anything?

'Not only didn't they tell me, they even hid it from me. One day, when I was 30, during a casual visit with friends with my father, I found out not only that I am Jewish, but that I am also a Kohen. It was during a visit with a Yiddish-speaking friend. My father loved speaking the language, and the two of them started a conversation while drinking wine. Out of his joy, my father recounted that when he was a child, he remembered his father ascending the platform in the synagogue and blessing with the priestly blessing. His friend immediately sparked up and told him, 'If so, it's good to know you're a Kohen.' I kept that in my heart, and I walked around with the feeling that not only am I Jewish, but I am a special Jew, a Kohen. Later, when I delved deeper into our lineage, I discovered that not only is my father a Kohen, but even my mother is a daughter of Levi. I was thrilled by the discovery.'

Did they teach Yiddish in schools in Russia? How did your father know Yiddish?<>

'My father is not originally Russian. He was born in Romania, studied in a cheder and was orthodox. When he was 13, the German invasion of Romania began in World War II. My father saw the Germans killing Jews in the street, at random. So he decided to flee to nowhere. He wandered from town to town and village to village. As he spoke Romanian, it was easy for him to integrate into the Romanian community and behave like a complete Romanian, so much so that when a Romanian soldier had to go to battle with the Germans, he asked my father to take care of his elderly parents. In return, my father received new boots and lodging. After a time, a Romanian in the village recognized that my father was Jewish. He told everyone, 'He's a Jew, he must be killed.' My father took a horse and fled the village. On the way, a group of hooligans stopped him. They wanted to kill him to steal the horse. My father hit them with the horse, trampled them, and fled. After the war, when the Russians liberated Romania, they asked my father, 'Why did you help the Germans?' My father told the Russians he was in Uzbekistan, and so my father became a Russian, Romanian, Uzbekistani—a cocktail of nations, just so they wouldn't know he was Jewish. In Russia, he met my mother, who was from Ukraine. They married and had three children. I am the middle child.

Painting: Leonid Balaklav

The Heart Speaks

Until now, you've told me various things you've seen and kept in your heart, but when did things begin to come out of the heart and transition to practical matters in your Judaism?

'Being a painter and artist, painting led me to Judaism in a not so straightforward way. After staying for a while with my aunt in Petah Tikva, I visited friends in Jerusalem, from there I decided Jerusalem was my place as a Jew, and my place as a painter. For an artist, Jerusalem is the peak of dreams. I rented an apartment in the Ramat neighborhood and began looking for various Jewish subjects to paint. It was Shabbat. Suddenly, I saw a synagogue, went in unexpectedly, and began to sketch the Jewish attendees. It was a Chabad synagogue, and the attendees soon placed a kippah on my head. After that, the synagogue's rabbi, Rabbi Kurts, invited me to his home for Shabbat meals. A very close relationship developed between us; the family received me warmly. I even painted them in one of my beautiful works (the piece sold for $5000, A.N.). As I deepened my connection with the Kurts family and Judaism, I moved to the Nachlaot neighborhood. There, I had an art studio, and during one of my neighborhood tours, I entered the 'Nahar Shalom' kabbalistic yeshiva located behind Mahane Yehuda market. The students saw me, welcomed me warmly, put tefillin on me, and for the first time in my life, I said 'Shema Yisrael' word by word. I felt like being at Mount Sinai. Do you know what it's like to say 'Shema Yisrael' for the first time in life? Since then, I received tefillin and began putting them on daily.'

Painting: Leonid Balaklav

Balaklav took art and painting a step further and integrated them with a Jewish soul, as his paintings testify. Balaklav is primarily known for his agonized, elongated self-portraits, which are subtle and captivate with their directness and boldness. His style is expressive, developing along an internal path of sharp self-examination within a personal imagery language. His paintings exhibit a high sensitivity to light and its impact on painted objects. Many of his portraits are staged on rough, broken, and sawed planks and wooden boards. In parallel, Balaklav also creates modest, expressive charcoal on paper drawings and oil paintings of minor street and interior scenes..

What do you most like to paint?

'I love to paint everything, but my specialty is mainly in self-portrait. I look in the mirror and draw myself. I have portraits spanning the last thirty years. It's interesting to see how the world changes, every second it changes, the light, the person, everything moves, you can't lie to yourself. In painting, you sit opposite Hashem; you include Him in the painting, creation, humanity, the wonders here. Painting is like a language, with its notes being light, shadow, and background; it's the language that speaks, for the painter essentially connects his hand to the eye, and through the painting, you see his perspective on the world. I'll give you an example: when looking at a chair, what do you see? The answer is, 'It depends on who is looking.' If it's a carpenter, he looks at the type of wood the chair is made of; if an engineer, he looks at the chair's construction; if it's a teacher in a classroom, he sees that the child who should sit on the chair isn't there today; if it's, Heaven forbid, a grieving mother, she sees that her child has moved on to the next world and only the chair remains. That's the secret, to see the world through profound, penetrating, and insightful lenses.'

Painting: Leonid Balaklav

Besides portraits, what else do you paint?

'What don't I paint... For example, the first time I met my wife, I painted her, and thank God we're happily married. I can also tell you that thanks to my wife, I am alive today. It happened at age 40; they found something that required chemotherapy and radiation. I decided I wouldn't do treatments because if Hashem decided to give this to me, I must accept it, why intervene? But my wife disagreed and took me to Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu of blessed memory. He decreed that I must get treatment. I said, "If it's a rabbinical decree, I must listen." I started treatments and spent most of my time at home. Everyone said to me, "If you're home, use that to teach others painting," and that's how I basically started teaching painting. I had many students, among them those from Yeshivat Makor Baruch; the artist and educator Dassa Froman, wife of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman; the rabbi of Tekoa, and many more. Through my illness, I entered the world of art teaching. Thank God, I overcame the illness, and here you are speaking to me. But beyond being an artist, I am a believing Jew, and that's what's important. I study Torah regularly and listen to lessons from Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, whom I am very fond of.'

To conclude, I asked Balaklav how long it takes him to paint each painting, and he candidly replied, 'Sixty-three years plus the time it takes to paint the picture.' In other words—the painting is his whole life, and his life is all the painting. This is his world.