The attached short video was created by Maty Grunberg as a protest against what is happening in Israel these days.

In 1967 Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai worte the poem JERUSALEM 1967
In 1990, artist Maty Grunberg, who was inspired by Amichai's poem, worked with him and created a wood cuts prints artist book - JERUSALEM 1967-1990.
In 2023, musician David Bradnum, London, inspired by Maty's images, created this wonderful soundtrack.
Fascinating images and sound, reflecting the turmoil  time in Israel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQoM06631r8

While the exhibition THE FIVE SPHRERS of MATY GRUNBERG attracts hundreds of visitors to The Bat Yam Museum, Maty G. and I took off to the city of Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia,  where Maty was born 80 years ago.  
OSTEN international art gallery awarded Maty G. with a lifetime achievement award, GRAND PRIX. In fact, the award was given to him in 2019, but due to the Corona pandemic, the ceremony was postponed and took place this year. The ceremony was held in CHIFTE HAMAM, an ancient and magnificent structure of an ancient Turkish hammam that was beautifully renovated. The president of Macedonia, Dr. Stevo Pendarovski, attended the ceremony. He was very interested in Maty's work and had a long conversation with him. Maty had already met President Pendarovski in the past and created a unique bronze chanukiah that  was sent to the president by Israeli Foreign Office.
The next day we were invited, along with other artists, to the President's House, where a warm welcome awaited us. Maty delivered moving words on behalf of the OSTEN gallery, on behalf of the artists, and on his own behalf. Maty G. was born on March 4th , 1943, a week before all the Jews of North Macedonia (then part of Yugoslavia) were rounded up and sent to the Treblinka death camp, from where no one returned. His survival, with his parents, is a miracle in itself. Receiving a lifetime achievement award in his hometown, and meeting the president of North Macedonia on the week of his Eightieth Birthday - are extraordinary events, and great excitement!
We are grateful for these blessings, and would love to share with you some of the excitement!

A retrospective exhibition of Maty Grunberg in Bat Yam Museum. Maty grew up in Bat Yam and returned to his childhood city in 2007, after living in London and New York for 5 decades. 
we wanted to share with you some photos from the opening event.

Young Maty's first exhibition was held in young Bat Yam Museum in 1969. with Michael Druks, Michael Eisman and Jacob Sharir

Maty G. with Tzvika Brut, Bat Yam Mayor, Eli Yariv, Mayor deputy and in charge of education and culture, curator of Bat Yam museums - Hila schneiderman Cohen, and the museum team

Maty G. with his daughter - Allona

On February 2, 2022, at 2:22 in the afternoon, the installation of the sundial sculpture created by the sculptor Maty Grunberg was completed, and the sundial was placed in the entrance plaza of the Madatech Museum - Israel National Museum of Science, Technology and Space, in Haifa.

A work that combines science and art is the most exciting for me. Each sundial sculpture I originate is a new challenge. I create under a limitation - the sundial must meet specific scientific requirements and be accurate in time. The calculations vary from place to place. The scientific requirements oblige me to find creative solutions for the construction of the sculpture. I acknowledge and thank Ilan Manulis, my friend, and talented astronomer, who did the exact scientific calculations.

 Beside the sundial - engraved in stone explanatory signs on how to read the time, in three languages - Hebrew, Arabic and English. The engraving was done by Natan Lipshitz from Jerusalem.

The inspiration for the shape of the Madatech sundial was a lithographic drawing by Picasso - The Bull, and so Haifa's Sun Bull was created.

I deal with the topic of time obsessively. Trying to decipher its riddle. In our time, in the western world, light pollution affects our ability to see the night sky. This illuminous pollutant eliminates the light of the stars. More often than not time is measured and indicated by digital devices. The connection between humanity, sun, and time, becomes less clear. By creating sundials - I try to capture time in a tangible way. This is impossible, of course, time is formless and completely abstract

Think for a moment about the following numbers; a ray of light coming from the sun travels a distance of about 150 million kilometers from space, at a speed of around 300,000 kilometers per second, and reaches the earth in an average time period of about 8 minutes and 19 seconds. Then that beam of light reaches the sundial sculpture, falls on the dial that casts a shadow on to the scale of numbers, and indicates the time. This sundial is designed and adapted to its geographical location in the plaza of the Medatech Museum in Haifa. It is tilted to the precise angle in line with the latitude of its position - 32 degrees, 48 ​​minutes and 37 seconds north. It is calibrated with great accuracy for its location in Haifa, at longitude 34 degrees, 59 minutes and 47 seconds east of longitude using zero Greenwich Meridian.

Moments captured by the (my) camera at the foundry.

And moments from the day of the placement in the front square of Madatech.

End of the day, placement of the sundial is completed. The artist with the broom...

To date Maty G. have created a number of sundial sculptures, each with its own uniqueness:
• A sundial sculpture that stands in Ascot, England.

• A sundial sculpture that stands in front of the Hall of Science in Queens, New York.

• A sundial sculpture that stands in Teddy Park, Jerusalem.

• A sundial sculpture, North Macedonia, in memory of the Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Art projects always need supporters. Today maybe more than ever.
A special thank you to the sponsors - Talia and Gad Ze'evi, Meir Shamir, the Aram family from London, in memory of the late Ruth and Ze'ev. Michael Hoffman from Geneva, Professor William McKenna and his wife Nancy from London, and to a dear friend, who has supported many of my works, Lord Marks of Broughton and his late wife Lady Marion Marks. An enormous thank you to our dear friend, with a big heart, Ruth Alon. I would also like to thank a number of anonymous donors.

For more information : www.matygrunberg.com
Written by Studio director, Naomi R. Azar

The Sister of The Bezalel Haggadah by Israeli artist and sculptor Maty Grünberg tells the story of creating his original Bezalel Haggadah, among the finest modern illustrated haggadot.
Rachel Neiman
The National Library of Israel’s collection of haggadot is considered the most comprehensive in the world, containing more than 8,500 examples from different periods and around the world. The collection was recently enriched by a singular new addition: an artist's proof of The Sister of The Bezalel Haggadah by Israeli artist and sculptor Maty Grünberg, renowned for his limited edition artist books, produced using techniques such as etching, silk screen, and woodcut.
The volume is a companion piece, a "sister", due to its close relationship to Grünberg's 1984 Bezalel Haggadah. Considered one of the finest modern illustrated haggadot, the Bezalel Haggadah has been displayed exhibitions together with haggadot by Marc Chagall and Ben- Shahn. Copies have been collected by museums, libraries and private collectors.
The "sister" story, however, is about the artistic process. In 2012, Grünberg reviewed his preparatory sketches, and placed them alongside their final versions. The resulting Sister of The Bezalel Haggadah, documents the transformation from early sketch to final print. In this sense, it is also the work of the artist as an older man looking across the bridge of time, revisiting the work of his younger self.

Grünberg is still a working artist whose latest creations - monumental bronze and stone sundials situated in locations like Ascot, UK, the New York Hall of Science, and Teddy Kollek Park in Jerusalem - express a fascination with the passage of time. His most recent was inaugurated only a week ago (April 7, 2022) at the Madatech - Israel National Museum of Science, Technology and Space in Haifa. Speaking from his car on the drive up to the ceremony, Grünberg says his motivation for revisiting the Bezalel Haggadah stemmed from an interest in how the process developed.

The story begins following the 1978 exhibition of Grünberg's Megillat Esther, a boldly colorful volume of silkscreens that drew controversy at the time due to its modern approach. The Jewish Theological Seminary then expressed interested in having Grünberg create a haggadah, "but they didn't want a contemporary one," he says. In the end, the haggadah was commissioned in 1979 by the Friends of Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, Grünberg's alma mater.
The Bezalel Haggadah itself took five years to create. According to Grünberg, the bulk of that time was spent searching for the visual language that would express his view about the creation of the Jewish nation through the story of Exodus from Egypt. His initial sketches for the project were colorful drawings in mixed media. Then something happened.
It was the high point of his search – though perhaps, for the artist, the lowest – a day locked in a heavily guarded room in the London British Library with the Golden Haggadah (c. 1320-1330). This small but richly illustrated and gilded volume from Catalonia, Spain, is considered among the world's most famous illuminated manuscripts. Even today, Grünberg says of that encounter, "My hands were trembling. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
"I was taken to a private room and given white cotton gloves, the librarian came in, rolled a cart in front of her with the ancient book on it, and handed it to me with extreme caution. I was shivering at the beauty of this ancient book. I realized I could not compete with this glorious Haggadah."
That day, Grünberg decided to change direction, abandon vibrant color, and find another language for creating his Bezalel Haggadah. "I discovered the Prague Haggadah and I switched to woodcuts."
The Prague Haggadah (c. 1526), the earliest printed haggadah, featured woodcut illustrations and large, elaborate fonts - now standard elements for haggadot. The National Library of Israel holds one of the two earliest existing copies of the Prague Haggadah, as part of its Valmadonna Trust Library; the other copy resides at the British Library.
Now inspired, Grünberg began exploring 19th century woodcut techniques in creating a unique visual language for his haggadah. "What I like about woodcuts is that it's very concise," he says. "Unlike other media, you have to eliminate what is irrelevant." The inspiration for the images in the Bezalel Haggadah derives from motifs found in the synagogues and other sites in Jerusalem, as well as additional ancient Jewish scripts and early Egyptian art.
The resulting volume consisted of 75 pages of original woodcuts printed on handmade acid-free paper, and pulled by the artist on an 1860 Albion printing press. Published in 1984 in a signed, limited edition of 150 copies, the Bezalel Haggadah immediately sold out, acquired by leading institutions such as the libraries at Harvard and Yale, The Jewish Museum, and private collectors.

In 2012, twenty eight years after the Bezalel Haggadah was published, Grünberg reopened his files, selected several drawings, placed them alongside the final version of the woodcuts prints, and began the work on what would become http://www.matygrunberg.com/the-sister-of-the-bezalel-haggadah.html. The resulting volume contrasts the freehanded concept sketches with their final woodcut print versions – sometimes similar, other times wildly different – to surprising and moving effect.
A decade later, Dr. Yoel Finkelman, Curator of the Haim and Hanna Solomon Judaica Collection at the National Library of Israel, was invited to visit Grünberg's studio to view the work.  For Finkelman, the companion volume represented an exciting opportunity for researchers to understand and track the artist's creative process: exploration absorption, interpretation, and expression.

On February 22, 2022, Grünberg presented his work at a modest ceremony held at the National Library of Israel. Finkelman stated "The selection of this volume will enable research on Grünberg's work, which takes its place in the long tradition of haggadot, along with the great inspiration and respect for the ancient haggadot that he examined."
https://youtu.be/Eea9NANUHPs

​In 1979, the "Friends of Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design"  in New York commissioned the "Bezalel Passover Haggadah" from the artist Maty Grunberg, thanks to generous donations by Joy Ungerleider-Mayerson, Romie Shapiro, and Richard Scheuer.

​The search for the visual language began. In 1979 Professor Bezalel Narkis founded "The Center for Jewish Art" in the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1980 he introduced Maty G. to the "British Museum" in London, which allowed him to spend a whole day with the "Golden Haggadah." This precious old Haggadah is usually housed inside a very thick glass cabinet, allowing only to be viewed. 

​"The Bezalel Haggadah" was published in 1984  in a limited addition of 150 copies. It contains 75 pages of originally numbered and signed woodcuts: 49 colorful woodcuts and 26 black- and -white woodcuts. The text was printed with the "Koren" font, originating from a wood- carved letter from the "Senchino" printer in Italy of the 19th century. The printing was done by the artist on a "Summerset" paper, using an Albion Printing press, 1860.
"The Bezalel Haggadah" was shown on a cross- country exhibition in the U.S, together with "The Mark Chagal Haggadah" and "The Ben-Shean Haggadah".  The published addition was sold-out, and can only be found in auction sales. Copies of the Haggadah are kept by museums, libraries and private collectors. 
​http://www.matygrunberg.com/the-sister-of-the-bezalel-haggadah.html  

​This coming week in Israel we shall celebrate The Festivity of Purim under limitations of Corona Pandemic. For this special occasion we opened The Book of Esther that Maty created in early seventies. The whole plot of The Book of Esther took place in ancient Persia, Iran today, and is about the salvation of the Jew from collective death sentence handed down to them by the evil Minister Haman. So, you see, not much changed in the attitude of Iran toward Israelites since the old days, but the extermination possibilities got much more sophisticated...
Maty G. created The Book of Esther in collaboration with the late poet Natan Zach who created one of the most innovative, free and highlighting translations of the scroll. Natan Zach, an Israeli poet, who, at the time, lived in London, even weaved  his own of poetry into the English translation.
Natan Zach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Zach
Maty Grunberg chose a contemporary means of expression - at first glance an abstract, a closer look reveals the connection between Grunberg's silkscreen prints and the Rorschach inkblot test. Sheena, Maty's late wife, was a psychologist working in Tavistock Clinic in London. She brought to his attention Rorschach Inkblot test,  a psychological test in the form of ink stains in which the observer's impressions are recorded and then analyzed in psychological interpretation. Maty was fascinated by this visual psychological test, and it was one of his inspiration sources. He then created the Book of Esther, which is characterized by bold, stylish, illustrated and designed colors influenced by Rorschach stains. Also In each image the black color was done by Rorschach Inkblot technique - folding the page in the middle so each side mirrors the other side.
Here are two examples of images that were created under the influence of Rorschach test.

Using Rorschach technique in his artwork, Maty "forces" the viewer to look into himself while trying to figure out the abstract figures on the page he views, to create his own story. Thus Maty not just imitated Rorschach's visual method, but also applied the idea behind it, using it as one's key to his own soul, looking for an answer ,while exploring the enigmatic artwork images.

​Maty also referred to the historical background of the story. The colors of the silkscreen prints capture the essence of the scroll as an oriental forceful drama, and the emphasis shifts to the final victory and joy. As the integral rhythm of the characters spreads and penetrates Grunberg's scroll, the colorful illustrations bring an artistic interpretation attentive to the explanations of the text, which each generation of illustrators has added to the huge epic of "Esther."
​

The Book of Esther was published in 1975 with the generous help of Ron Finkel who was then head of the World Jewish Student Association in London. In 1978 The Book of Esther was exhibited at the Jewish Museum in New York and received a great response. The Book is in many private collections, as well as in public collections such as the Vatican Library in Rome.

​In 2013 M.G. created a new edition - The Younger sister of the Book of Esther. The uniqueness of this edition is that for the first time it brings not only the final version of the Book of Esther  as the artist chose to publish it in 1975, but presents the preparatory drawings, so browsing through the book the observer can follow the artist's searches until the appropriate language is found, his choices, and the process of refining the work down to the final condensed version.

Follow The Younger sister of the Book of Esther in this short video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSuHezEFSeI
See the Book of Esther project page :
http://www.matygrunberg.com/the-book-of-esther.html
Chag Sameach! Season's Greetings!

Art in the days of Corona. Something amazing is happening in the City of Bat Yam.
International artist Maty Grunberg has taken on a huge project that will speak to the hearts of many.
That's how it started ...
Maty G. and Liko our King Charles Cavalier sat down and planned a joint art project in the park next to our house.

After much thought the amazing idea came up, to turn the dog poop scattered throughout the park, into an art object plated with pure gold.
Maty G. then equipped himself with a 24-carat Tambour gold spray, and the two sat out to carry out the project. 

Triptych: The Golden Ratio Art Instillation. 

You are welcome to enjoy - the Begin City Park, Bat Yam.
No copyright, try it yourself. 

In 1987 Zeev Aram, owner of Aram Design Ltd, London, approached young artist Maty Grunberg to participate in A.D. 23rd exhibition – to design a piece of furniture. Maty accepted the challenge.
As Maty said : when an artist is approached to design a piece of furniture, an interesting process starts since the artist's experience is different from that of a professional furniture designer.
To create this piece he set to himself two guidelines. First he decided to design a coffee table. When you say to an artist: your piece will do nicely on a coffee table – it's a terrible humiliating insult. So, for Maty, a coffee table represented the lowest grade furniture. He thought  to turn it into something of a higher level. 
At that time  he was interested in the geometry of precise shapes. Usually a furniture is not an accurate object, and one has to take into account the relationship between the human body that moves and touches it. Maty visited London's libraries, looking  for an unusual inspiration for an artist  - a mathematical formula that will enable him to work within its limits. He then came upon a formula by the 19th-century mathematician, Henry Ernest Dudeney: the conversion of a perfect triangle into a square and vice versa. By dissecting the square into 4 distinct shapes, these shapes can be rearranged into the triangle.
Maty found his inspiration muse. In his words: the relationship between units and forms is of a great interest to me – to change one form into another – so that an object such as table does not stay in static condition. The transition from one shape into another generates infinite possibilities.
Maty went back to his studio, designed the coffee table and built a small model, according to Dudeney's formula. David, his 4 years old son, was playing Lego in the studio. Maty asked him – what colors shall I use for this table? With no hesitation David answered – red, blue, yellow and green. Maty was impressed with the child's determination, and took his advice.
Maty brought to Zeev Aram the idea and a small model. Zeev turned it into a functional object.

​Lord Snowden photographed Maty for Times magazine. 

Years passed, David, the little child who played Lego in Maty's studio, became an architect. He never forgot Dudeney's formula. Together with his colleague, Daniel Woolfson, they established their studio under the title - 
​The D*Haus Company LTD Www.thedhaus.com.
They quote Ernest Dudeney – "A good puzzle should demand the exercise of our best wits and ingenuity, and although a knowledge of mathematics … and … of logic are often of great service in the solution of these things, yet it sometimes happens that a kind of natural cunning and sagacity is of considerable value". This concept alone is fascinating, and the possibilities are endless when applying the formula to the world of architecture and design.

David & Daniel designed a house according to Dudeney's formula. A shape-shifting home by D*Haus Company
see a fascinating short video: Dynamic D*Haus: https://vimeo.com/56045402

​David and Daniel also revived the D*Table and created their own updated version. 
below: Maty G. with the two young architects, Daniel (left) and David (right).​ 

see D*Table 3 short videos:
 D*Table Mix video: https://vimeo.com/96892629
D*Table White: https://vimeo.com/96796905
D*Table Black: https://vimeo.com/96796904 ​

A few weeks ago we got an email from… Brazil. Mr. Junior Rozzo from Editora Moderna asked for more details about Maty's D*Table from 1987, as they want to include this piece in the didactic material Editora Moderna publish. It is a  National Textbook Program that will be distributed by the Brazilian government in public schools.

​So, you see, ideas have their own ways of travelling around the world, transforming into different shapes and media. 

*. Aram Store, London's Best modern furniture store since 1964  - https://www.aram.co.uk/
*. Zeev Aram - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeev_Aram
​

​Tonight, the eighth candle of Hanukkah, December 2020,  an ancient and also new work of art will stand on the table of the President of Northern Macedonia Mr. Stavo Pendrovsky. This will be the hanukkiah, Hanukkah Menorah, nine branches, four on each side and one (shamash) in the center. It is one of the oldest and most recognizable symbols of the Jewish world. The Menorah that will reach the President's office is a work of Maty Grunberg. Maty is an artist, he was born in a hide in Skopje, capital of N. Macedonia (then Yugoslavia) in March 1943. On the week of Maty's birth  the Bulgarian police (who occupied Macedonia with the Nazis) gathered and concentrated the entire Jewish community of Macedonia, from Skopje, from Bitola /Monastir, and other cities. Men, women and babies were gathered and sent to "Monopole" tobacco factory, in the center of Skopje, and from there deported by train to Treblinka extermination camp. Maty's life and the lives of his parents were saved. In 1948 they arrived in Eretz Israel and settled in the city of Bat-Yam. 

Tonight, I will stand with Ambassador Dan Oryan and Dr. Rachel Drummer Levy, and many others, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, and shine a light on all worlds. In recent years, every year in March, an organizing operation has begun under the leadership of Dan Oryan, Israel's Ambassador to N. Macedonia and the Balkans, and Dr. Rachel Shelly Drummer Levy, who heads the Monastir-Bitola Community Heritage Association, she is also Bar-Ilan University's Academic Secretary. Thanks to the initiative of Dan Oryan and Shelly Levy Drummer I traveled three times to participate in the March of Living between March 8 and 11. I saw Maty Grunberg sculpt and erect the large sundial sculpture that will be placed in the heart of the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Balkans, in Bitola/Monastir, in memory of Macedonian Jewry. The sundial sculpture is ready and was supposed to be placed last March, but it is waiting in a workshop next to the cemetery until it will be placed in the cemetery.  The sundial will create the narrative connection between the life of Maty Grunberg and his family and the community that ascended to heaven without a grave and tombstone. Absence and presence will have a dialogue through the dial and the sun. The light and time were born together on the same day God said: "Let there be light." Darkness and chaos are self-evident, they are pre-creation, light and time are the first creations of God when he came to create the world, without them a world would not exist and without them human culture could not exist. The sundial that connects the cosmic light with the human order, will bring back to consciousness the memory of the community that perished and disappeared.  
​

​This year, the year of the corona, in March 2020 the March of Living did not set off. With special creativity another way was found to mark the event and tie the events to the light, to illuminate and light a thousand hanukkiahs in N. Macedonia, Israel and around the world in memory of the community that perished.

​Maty Grunberg told me about the hanukkiah he is preparing for this special occasion, in which the President of N. Macedonia will light the eighth candle. He added that it is will be casted in bronze in the foundry in Beit-Nekofa. On the day of the casting I joined the workshop to see how the menorah comes out of the material into the light. The roots of the menorah that went to Macedonia are in the Book of Exodus chapter 25 in the instructions received by Bezalel Ben Uri, the first Hebrew artist. He received precise verbal instructions and had to interpret the instructions and implement the work in practice. Bezalel Ben Uri built the menorah that was placed in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple. For generations, commentators on the verbal instructions for building the menorah, which was originally pure gold, have emerged. After the destruction of the Temple we find copies and interpretations of various artists in materials like mosaic, relief and iron. The menorah became a symbol that the Jewish people carried everywhere they went. As one can see in the menorah that was engraved in the famous relief of the Titus Gate in Rome, the gate that heralded the victory of the great kingdom of Rome over the small and rebellious kingdom of Judah, located at the distant border of the empire. Maty Grunberg, joined the line of Jewish artists who continue to read the instructions in the Book of Exodus and transfer the words to the three-dimensional interpretation. 

31 “Make a lampstand of pure gold. Hammer out its base and shaft, and make its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms of one piece with them. 32 Six branches are to extend from the sides of the lampstand—three on one side and three on the other. 33 Three cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms are to be on one branch, three on the next branch, and the same for all six branches extending from the lampstand. 34 And on the lampstand there are to be four cups shaped like almond flowers with buds and blossoms. 35 One bud shall be under the first pair of branches extending from the lampstand, a second bud under the second pair, and a third bud under the third pair—six branches in all. 36 The buds and branches shall all be of one piece with the lampstand, hammered out of pure gold. 37 “Then make its seven lamps and set them up on it so that they light the space in front of it. 38 Its wick trimmers and trays are to be of pure gold. 39 A talent[f] of pure gold is to be used for the lampstand and all these accessories. 40 See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.
​

​Exodus 25 is the source for the construction of the temple lamp / menorah. Clear instructions on how to build and from what materials the lamp should be built. In two places the instruction is repeated: "of one piece with the lampstand", meaning – in one cast. The description of the lamp is very detailed, one can almost visualize the menorah in his eyes. The construction is clear: six branches are arranged symmetrically, and the decoration is a button and a flower. The whole decoration is from the plant world. And from the description it is clear that as soon as a light is lit in it, there is a reflection of the light in the texture material of the lamp. Perhaps the detailed instructions on the material from which the lamp will be made, its structure and its ornaments, are a way of saying that spirituality and sublimity can be expressed even from the material.  

​As soon as the 1000 Menorahs / Hanukkiah Lighting Project in Memory of The Macedonian Jewish Community  was launched, it was clear that one of the menorahs would be by Maty Grunberg. And indeed, when Ambassador Dan Oryan came to Maty Grunberg's studio and saw the model he decided that this was the menorah to be lit in N. Macedonia on the President's table. The menorah Maty Grunberg created is the 1001st menorah. It's prototype is in New York at the Hebrew Union College; it is a meter-high menorah that was built for the synagogue of the Hebrew Union College. It was commissioned by a couple of Jewish donors - Richard and Joan Scheuer. That menorah was designed according to the lamp model of Bezalel Ben Uri,  according to the instructions given in the Book of Exodus chapter 25. The instructions say that it is to be built as one piece, and the branches have to be done in the ornamentation of vegetation.

A short remark: The Menorah has 7 canes, 3 on each side and one in the center. Menorah is a symbol of the state of Israel. Hanukkiah has nine branches and is used only on Hanukkah festivity. 

​At the day of the casting I met Maty in Beit-Nekofa, at the foundry - the place where all the great works begin - the transition of the primordial raw material into a creation. It was a bright, wintery day outside in the Jerusalem mountains. Organs molds of sculptures that have already been born were lying around the foundry. Maty then told me the story of the birth of his hanukkiah many years ago in New York, quoting the instructions from the Book of Exodus and emphasizing the concept of "one-piece" which is repeated twice. In 1988 he was commissioned to  create a hanukkiah made of pure sterling silver, for Gale & Steven Spira, a couple of private collectors in New-York. The hanukkiah was to be casted of four kilograms of sterling silver. This presented a huge challenge for the silversmith in London. When Maty brought the project to the silversmith craftsman he thought it was impossible to cast in one piece. He advised Maty to cast separately different parts of the hanukkiah, then solder them to each other. Maty insisted: "but they did it that way thousands of years ago, it is written in the Bible".
Maty then approached his old bronze foundry, Meridian, and consulted Len, an old Irish man, the most experienced craftsman. Len also thought it was impossible to cast the whole hanukkiah in one piece, because the liquid silver will harden too fast. But, as Maty encouraged him with two bottles of fine Irish whisky he committed himself to the project. Maty describes the casting process :"we held the hollow ceramic mold upside down, and poured the liquid silver top down, from the lampstand to the branches. We constantly warmed it with a flame thrower, and we turned on a vacuum machine  that sucked the silver down. Late on, when we broke the ceramic mold, we saw that the silver spread well to all the branches. Len, the old Irish man said: "it was the most complicated casting I made in my life". Maty adds: "If Bezalel Ben-Uri did this thousands of years ago, it was a great challenge for me to find a technical solution to cast a one-piece hanukkiah now a days."
I learned this lesson from Maty at the entrance to the foundry in Beit-Nekofa.

We entered the foundry, and amidst the chaos of metals and pieces of work, the model of the menorah stood on a working bench, still in the process of making. its back panel seemed to me like a tombstone. The following chilling sentence was engraved on it:  

​In memory of Macedonian Jewry taken to Treblinka extermination camp.
March 11. 1943.
No one returned.

​The hanukkiah was completed, but was not yet attached to its pedestal. It was all casted, adorned with spectacular plant decorations. At the end of the canes, at the end of the branches, Maty's interpretation of the almond goblets that form the cup for the Hanukkah candles, the source of light. 

​While I was watching, Ilan Shoshani, the owner of the workshop, and Ibrahim, one of the pourers, came to weld and connect the menorah to its pedestal. Maty Grunberg then signed his work and added an instruction: "the color of the patina should be light olive green". A controversy has arisen as to the nature of the color in the artist's imagination, whether to add white or black color to the green bronze patina. The next day I saw the photo of the menorah after it had dried, and I realized that Ibrahim well understood Maty's request. 

​Tonight is the eighth candle of Hanukkah. Mr. Stavo Pendrovsky, the president of N. Macedonia will light eight candles in the 1001st hanukkiah Maty Grunberg created in memory of his ancestors, the Jews of Macedonia. An entire Jewish community that was exterminated in March 1943, and there was no one to save them.
The light of the 1000 menorahs that will be lit tonight will illuminate the memory of this community.
AMEN.

​This article was written by poet Hava Pinhas-Cohen, http://havapinhascohen.co.il
Free translation by Naomi R. Azar