Los Angeles Artist Turns Hateful Graffiti into Pro-Israel Slogans

By COLlive reporter

Early one recent morning, Sheina Yarmush, a Lubavitch Los Angeles-based Artist, received a text message from a friend with a picture of a vandalized street pole with the words ‘Free Gaza’ in spray paint.

Together with the photo, her friend wrote, “Here’s something for you to fix if you are feeling inspired.”

Yarmush, who is known for her colorful street art and cheerful murals, was immediately inspired to turn darkness into light.

“I ran and grabbed the quickest ‘Jewish colors’ paint I could find, took the stencils I made for a recent paint night event, and covered the hateful words with the words ‘Am Yisrael chai,'” Yarmush told COLlive.com.

The small but uplifting act to cover the graffiti “took me literally 4 minutes to paint over,” Yarmush says. “But I have been getting so much feedback on how much chizuk it gave to those who saw the real thing, pictures or videos,” she says.

Yarmush relates that since that incident, people have been messaging here when something turns up in the neighborhood with hateful messaging.

When the location is able to be painted on without it being vandalism, Yarmush heads over to the location and paints words or pictures that are hopeful and uplifting.

On one construction site where someone had scrawled ‘Jews for Palestine,’ she painted ‘Jews Unite for Israel.’ One poster of the hostages had been defaced with the words ‘Bibi bombed me,’ so she changed it to read ‘Bring them home.’

“I feel like this is so easy and quick for me, and it has such a powerful effect,” says Yarmush. “People get sad and scared when they see the negative graffiti but when I flip it, they get fired up for the good, and strengthened to be proud Jews. I’m so happy to be doing my part in the fight of ‘Together we will be victorious’ with the talent that Hashem blessed me with.”

Follow her art on Instagram @sheinasart
Direct message here to inquire about paint parties, murals or live art community collaborations. 718-363-2981

VIDEO