Circumcision Knife, diameter: 70 cm. Graphite drawing.\ Raya Bruckenthal

The Flashing Ever-Turning Sword

For Raya Bruckenthal (b. 1975), the past two years prompted an almost primal turn toward printmaking. In the days following October 7, she began a residency at the Jerusalem Print Workshop, where she produced a series of images that resemble angel wings or cherubim composed entirely of knives. What initially appears from a distance as a radiant Native American feather headdress reveals itself up close as fragments of a mythical figure titled Angel of Hysteria, echoing the verse from Genesis: “He banished the human, and stationed the cherubim at the east of Eden, along with the revolving sword blade, to guard the path to the Tree of Life” (3:24). A related blade motif appears in a cut drawing dedicated to the circumcision knife—a sacred instrument marking Jewish male identity and belonging.

In the large print Oculus (“eye” in Latin), Bruckenthal reinterprets the circular opening that crowns monumental domed structures. Directed skyward, the oculus suggests a divine eye, raising questions of providence and guardianship under the conditions of war. The form also opens to multiple readings: a crown of thorns, the face of the moon, a fractured fossil, the pupil of an eye, or an ouroboros—a serpent biting its tail, a symbol of the unbroken cycle between war and peace.

Displayed alongside is a drawing of a crown of thorns, rendered in Bruckenthal’s characteristic monochromatic style. While the works avoid direct reference to contemporary events, they draw on biblical imagery and the Jewish collective subconscious to reflect on the present. The recurring thorns recall the closing lines of From Here and There, Yosef Haim Brenner’s foundational story of early pioneers in the Land of Israel: “Existence was an existence of thorns. The account had yet to be settled.”