The Torah tells us that Sarah laughed with joy when she learned she was pregnant at the age of 90.

She named her son Isaac, or Yitzhak, after this joyous laughter. This is the inspiration for a new visual arts collaboration involving artists in Dayton and the Western Galilee Region in Israel.

Project Yitzhak calls upon artists from all fields to create an unlimited range of projects that reflected on the theme of Yitzhak.

On Aug. 2-5, the project came to Downtown Dayton’s Metropolitan Arts Center through workshops the Muse Machine held for Dayton-area secondary school teachers.

The teachers participated in poetry, dance and acting workshops in addition to an art workshop.

Locally, Project Yitzhak is sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Greater Dayton.
The Federation was involved in a similar project, Children of Eden, with The Muse Machine and the Human Race Theatre in 1999.

Nurit Cederbaum of Western Galilee College, who worked on Children of Eden, proposed this project to all of the communities involved in Partnership with Israel.

Partnership With Israel promotes people-to-people relationships between our Jewish community and Israel’s Western Galilee through cultural, social, educational and economic programs.

Dayton, along with 12 other cities in the central United States, is linked with the Western Galilee, located in the most northern part of Israel on the Mediterranean coast.

Partnership, chaired by Irvin Moscowitz, is funded through the United Jewish Campaign.

Debby Goldenberg, chair of Culture Works as well as the Arts Task Force for Partnership with Israel, helped the project take form.

“This year, the 13 communities involved in Partnership with Israel are all working on projects that deal with the same theme, Yitzhak,” she explained.

Projects vary in media and focus: In San Antonio, artists are working on a piece which examines the women in Yitzhak’s life.

Rebecca Tsaloff, a studio artist at the Overfield Early Childhood Education program in Troy, was invited to design Dayton’s piece and direct subsequent work on it.

The planning committee caught a glimpse of a small drawing in her sketchbook and thought that it invoked the towers in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Tsaloff planned a sculpture of three rectangular towers of Plexiglas panels. When the project is complete, the towers will stand at five, six and seven feet tall. Tsaloff was assisted by Michael Bashaw, who helped construct the sculpture.

Guided by Tsaloff and other visiting artists, each teacher at the arts workshop created a Plexiglas panel with his or her interpretation of a moment of joyous laughter.

Some decorated their panels with quotes or poems, while others wrote short memories or stories that made them smile.

The panels were colored in warm pinks, oranges, and yellows, and when the sun streams through them their appearance seems to invoke joy.

“Everyone drew on their own experiences,” Tsaloff said.

“The teachers approached the project with such openness, such creativity and insight,” Tsaloff said, “It was the best experience I’ve had as an artist.”

Goldenberg said the teachers really put their hearts and souls into the project. “It was very exciting…they did beautiful work.”

Some of the teachers said they liked the project so much, they’re planning to create similar programs in their own schools.

The finished sculpture will be displayed in the Schuster Center in January or February.

It will then be shipped to the Western Galilee in Israel where participating artists from Israel and the consortium communities will exhibit their work and participate in various workshops on the subject from June 20 to July 1.

Partnership organizers hope to foster international dialogue, as well as to encourage local art and artists.

After its display in Israel, the sculpture will return to Dayton.

Those involved locally hope this sculpture will serve as a prototype, to provide a template for a larger, more permanent sculpture to be displayed outdoors.