Thanks to a handful of Jewish artists, colorful and joyful paintings that depict mitzvot such as giving tzedakah, learning Torah and lighting Shabbos candles greet pedestrians and drivers around Pico-Robertson.
On Shenandoah St. and Pico Blvd., Glatt Mart shoppers now pass two formerly gray utility boxes that have been transformed into Jewish pop art. With brushstrokes of turquoise, orange, red, purple and bright green, one utility box happily announces to passersby, “I ❤️ Kosher” and the other depicts four siddurim.
Other utility boxes in Pico feature mezuzahs, tefillin and the aleph bet — all created by Sheina Dorn, who, in the days leading up to the High Holy Days season, set out to brighten up the neighborhood.
“I am here on this Earth to make my family and my home beautiful, but I am also here to spread Jewish art.” – Sheina Dorn
“I am here on this Earth to make my family and my home beautiful, but I am also here to spread Jewish art,” said Dorn, who was raised in a Chabad house in a suburb of Montreal, where her father was a shaliach. “I grew up being proud of being a Jew: walking with my back straight, feeling, ‘I am proud to be different, and I am not shy at all about it.’ I want to share that feeling.”
Last year, Dorn painted Shabbos candles on the wall next to Bais Chaya Mushka, and now she updates the candle lighting times every week.
Dorn said that she sought out the space because she wanted to paint the positive flames of Shabbos candles to replace the negative flames the building experienced in a fire last year. In front of Bais Bezalel Chabad, home to a children’s library, she painted kids reading atop stacks of Jewish books.
When walking down Cashio Blvd., east of Robertson, pedestrians might spot an unusually colorful parked bus that depicts the “Na Nach Nachma Nachman M’uman” song that Breslovers, followers of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, sing.
The bus, which is “moveable street art,” is used by Breslovers who drive around and spread joy by playing music and starting dance parties. Pico artist Shlome J. Hayun created it, and he also manages an art collective of 27 artists whose work he promotes.
Hayun, whose signature is a hamsa, an Israeli symbol that guards against “bad energy,” as he described it, also created the colorful menorah on Mamilla Restaurant on Pico Blvd. with Dorn. Last Chanukah, the menorah mural was one of a collection of eight menorahs that artists painted in eight different cities around the world. It was part of a non-centralized Jewish street art fair that Pico artist Hillel Smith, a muralist whose art appears on the back wall of Bibi’s Bakery and inside YULA Girls High School, created during COVID.
“We need to shine a light unto the nations, and street art is a great way to make people smile,” Hayun said.
Rabbi Yitzchok Moully, who has painted menorahs in different cities, said that Chanukah street art expresses the idea that “we don’t just light our menorahs inside, but [also] outside to spread the light.”
Along with Dorn, Moully spray-painted a wall of Cheder Menachem on La Cienega Blvd. that depicts an open, blue sefer that extends 70 feet. The letters of the aleph bet ascend from the book.
“When we learn from a sefer, we bring those letters to life, and that is the idea of the flying aleph bet,” said Moully. “Every mitzvah we do creates this explosion of energy to transform the world.”
Dorn’s students, who go to the cheder and are in pre-1a through fourth grade, helped to create the mural, pushing the 18-foot scaffolding that supported the artists and painting in the stenciled letters of the aleph bet.
Instead of using spray paint to spread negative messages, like some other graffiti does, Dorn wanted to portray positivity.
“Let’s switch that around and instead create Jewish pride,” she said.
Moully said that he’s inspired by the idea that everyone is given a special talent, and he or she should use it accordingly.
“Each of us has a gift: a gift that no one else has. We each have a responsibility to use those gifts to impact the world in positive and meaningful ways.”
