აჰა, ეს ჩვენი ხელისუფლება ამასაც უნდა მიაწვეს- ყაყა, ანტისემიტიზმში და ებრაელთა ეთნიკურ წმენდაში დაადანაშაულოს
http://209.85.135.104/search?q=cache:23HuB...8&client=safari The loneliness of a Georgian artist in wartime
By Lily Galili
:Tags David Chananashvili, Georgia
.When David Chananashvili left Tbilisi in 1991 and immigrated to Israel, Georgia was "nearly paradise," he says. Here, however, the Gulf War was at its height and Iraqi missiles were landing in Tel Aviv. Since then, the 41-year-old painter and artist has made his life into a comparative study of which place is worse and which is behaving more justly. And each point of comparison winds up coming back to the Russians, or at least their weapons, which star in every war
.Chananashvili thought the Second Lebanon War was a mistake from its very first day. But when the war broke out in Georgia, he never doubted the justness of his former homeland's actions for a moment. Since the first moment of this terrible war, his life has been a misery
.He and his partner, Elena Nemtzov, are continuing to work in their studio in Jaffa on the Jewish art project in which they are engaged, "because I do still have some kind of Stalinist self-discipline." But he spends most of his days, and his nights, surfing the Internet to follow events - which has become far more complicated since the Russians blocked the most important Georgian sites
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.Nonetheless, he did not join the large group of former Georgians who went to the embassy in Tel Aviv every evening and transformed it into a "situation room." Instead, he transformed his studio into a forward command post. He also gives anyone who is prepared to listen historical explanations of Georgia's ownership of South Ossetia
".Nemtzov, at least, was easily convinced. When her brother phoned from Saint Petersburg and informed her with great pleasure, "I saw how our blue berets" - a reference to the Russian army - "put them in their place," she yelled at him over the phone and reminded him that he is, after all, a Jew, and who he should really be calling "ours
.Over the last few days, Chananashvili has lost a lot of friends who identify with the Russians and have chosen to watch what he calls "the fictional films of coverage of the war on Russian television." When he explains Georgia's unquestionable ownership, in his opinion, of the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, he sounds like right-wing firebrand Geula Cohen for advanced students
"?Despite his personal - though not necessarily political - affection for the Jewish settlers in the territories, the comparison gets his goat. "It isn't similar," he insisted. "There has been an uninterrupted connection between Georgia and South Ossetia. Did you know that until the 1970s, about 50 percent of the inhabitants of Tskhinvali were Jews
.The last time Chananashvili visited Tbilisi was in May, when he was invited to teach a master class in animation at the Art Academy. He was amazed by the change, thrilled by the level of personal security. "Like Tel Aviv, only without so many drunks," he said of his impressions of that visit
".Now, they are trying to force us to our knees, to once again make us the province of a worse than Communist state, one that has learned to manipulate in supposedly democratic language," he added. "This story isn't over yet"
".The anger has not left him, nor has the desire to help. A few days ago, he phoned the Georgian Embassy in Tel Aviv and offered to donate some of his works to an auction to benefit Georgia. He did not propose that his fellow artists participate, "for fear of politicizing the idea." He explained this statement with extreme caution: "There are well-known Georgians who are constantly in touch with Russia and for them, expressing an opinion is a big problem. When Israel's foreign minister speaks very cautiously, I can understand that. But my friends who are getting disgusting sandwiches from their jobs with Russian television stations and taking sides only because of this dependence - them I understand less
.But Chananashvili is accustomed to distancing friends, at least temporarily. He has distanced others because of the challenging nature of some of his works - for example, a crucified Christ performing an act for which some people wanted to impeach an American president, or a pathetic, ridiculous Jewish Messiah who comes riding on a hobbyhorse. Some of his friends viewed these as hurtful to religious sensibilities; he, who is in fact deepening his connection to Judaism, was amused by this
".But in any case, he is not really seeking popularity. "It isn't popular to be a Georgian in Israel," he said cynically. "Ethiopians and Arabs are at least photogenic. We are the kind of people who don't photograph well on television
.To the observation that the image of Georgians has changed markedly for the better in recent years, he replied sardonically: "That's only because the Israelis have discovered that it is possible to make a lot of shady money in real estate in Georgia. Everything I've been through here with respect to my name and my face has been xenophobia
.A new animation project on which he had already been working has become more pointed during the war in Georgia. What was supposed to have been a heartwarming film about the human condition is now turning into a statement about war and peace
".It isn't a metaphor, nor is it a reality that is translated into a direct statement," he said. "A direct statement is fliers in the mailbox, and I don't want to create fliers. This is a fairy tale in which the metaphor already exists, and the war has only made it clearer"
.As for Chananashvili himself, the war has made him more isolated. An artist, he said, has a dubious place in society even in ordinary times, and this place becomes nonexistent in times of war, when the artist becomes a pathetic and completely isolated individual. This is how he feels this time, too
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Мелочь, но приятно-V,,, სასიხარულო ამბები ჩრდილოეთიდან
