The history of Hebrew Tattoos - a podcast
I started drawing Hebrew letters when I was five.
But what does that have to do with Nazis in Munich, the time I met Igor in solitary confinement in an Israeli military prison, and a really weird rabbinical heiter?
Welcome to the first episode of our podcast!
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Anna
Gabi!
Gabriel
Hey.
Anna
Hi. Good morning.
Gabriel
Good morning.
Anna
How are you today?
Gabriel
Could be better. Could be.
Anna
Better. Same. Yeah, I can relate to that. So, you know, there there are quite a few questions that I've been meaning to ask you. And I think that many other people are interested too. To know the answers to these questions. And, because, I mean, what we do is quite unique and it's I think it's something that interests many people to understand how how it came about and how it started.
Anna
And, yeah, it would be great to hear from you. How did you discover calligraphy?
Gabriel
Thank you. I started with calligraphy when I was five. The story is that my mom took me to an exhibition of, degenerate art and Nazi art, you know? In 1937, there'd been an exhibition in Munich and, including, Nazi art and the art that Hitler didn't want. And 50 years later, there was kind of the same exhibition, but, with a different ideology.
Gabriel
The Nazi art hadn't survived the degenerate art, the, abstract art and Jewish art and socialist art had, had kind of dominated history. And the exhibition was, you know, shown once again. My mom took me there, and I absolutely loved it. Thing is, I absolutely loved the Nazi art. So, my mom was obviously slightly irritated by that, but, I was so taken by it that I started copying the lettering from Nazi posters.
Gabriel
And, I asked my mom for for calligraphy set. And of course, you know, first she she refused. And, after a while, she kind of she agreed, but said, maybe, you know, for for a Jewish boy five years old in Munich, it might be better to, to be busy with Hebrew calligraphy rather than Nazi calligraphy. And push me kind of gently towards that.
Gabriel
And that was the beginning of it. That's what I've been doing for the last 40 years. Well, you know, I'm I'm 43 now. I started when I was five. That's that is what I've been busy with since then.
Anna
And that was an ongoing practice.
Gabriel
It was an ongoing practice. It was an ongoing hobby for for a long time. At the same time that I started calligraphy, I started playing the violin. And it was very clear that, you know, music is, a profession. Calligraphy is this weird little artsy hobby. And I should go study music, and do calligraphy in my free time.
Gabriel
And that's what I've been doing for a long time. I studied in a musical high school. Mainly classical music. And then I went on to study Arab music, Balkan music, klezmer and classical music in Jerusalem. And then I studied, tango composition in Rotterdam. And I went on to play tango in Buenos Aires. And during all that time I define myself as a musician.
Gabriel
But every night, instead of studying and instead of doing scales, I would go home and do Hebrew calligraphy.
Anna
So alongside music, there was always calligraphy. But as a hobby.
Gabriel
That's correct. Exactly.
Anna
And. Did did something happen? What happened? That suddenly it became more than that?
Gabriel
It was, it was a long process. There were several kind of stations. I when I was a teenager, I tried to work as a scribe. So, you know, writing Torah rolls and and measures, stuff like that. And it was it was horribly boring. You know, you need to just copy the same thing over and over again.
Gabriel
I what I wanted to do is be creative. No. So, after a short while, I gave up on that. And then when I was, 18 and 19, I was in prison. I didn't want to go to the Army, I refused service, I refused to enlist. And I was in prison. And in prison. I met Eagle.
Gabriel
Eagle was in for a, I think, shooting his officer.
Anna
Wow.
Gabriel
He was in for a while.
Anna
Okay.
Gabriel
He was in. He was in the cell when I came there. He was still in the cell when I left there. I don't think, you know, he made it out any time soon after I left, but, we spent a lot of time in a cell together, and when you spend a lot of time in a cell, you become, you know, intimate in a way.
Gabriel
Maybe not. Maybe not intimate in the way you would. You would imagine. But,
Anna
Yeah, but I can imagine, you know, you are in a very small room together, and you probably, you know, everything about each other at some point.
Gabriel
Yes. You got nothing to do. Yeah. You know, you have.
Anna
No, I don't know, but.
Gabriel
You know. No, you have no books. You have no. Of course you have no cell phone. You have.
Anna
Did you have like a calligraphy?
Gabriel
No. Nothing. We had we had walls and two beds. And once in a while somebody managed to to smuggle in cigarets. But except for that, we had each other. We we, you know, we'll talk. And so of course, calligraphy came up and Eagle said, I know these tattooists in Jerusalem at bizarre Art. Bizarre. It used to be the only to two parlor in Israel back then, was a bunch of Russians who, I think had it tattooed already in Russia.
Gabriel
They came to Jerusalem, they opened the shop and Eagle said, I'll collect you. You get out of there, go to them, tell them I sent you, and they will make you this world famous calligraphy tattooist.
Anna
So the vision came from from eagle.
Gabriel
Exactly. It is incomplete.
Anna
So the vision for for Hebrew tattoos and for calligraphy is. Oh, wow. Okay.
Gabriel
And I didn't make it out of prison, and I did make it to Jerusalem and I did go to bizarre and of course, that bizarre art nobody had heard of Eagle.
Anna
Okay.
Gabriel
Eagle was not there, friend. Eagle maybe had been there once, but they didn't remember him. But they seemed to.
Anna
Be.
Gabriel
Impressed, either by my art or just by the Hudspeth going there and saying, oh, I want to be the next big thing. So they let me work with them for a while. I started tattooing when I was, 19 or 20, but after a very short while, I felt, I know it wasn't for me. There was, It was too fast.
Gabriel
It was too violent. There was too much money for for who they were. And while they were great artists, if I remember correctly, art wasn't at the center of the experience at his art, so I. I left after a short while. But this idea of Hebrew calligraphy for tattoos kind of was planted in my brain.
Anna
So that's when you realize that this could actually be a profession.
Gabriel
No, that's when I realized that skin could be another interesting canvas. But I was a musician my whole life was kind of, you know, on the way to Buenos Aires, I had listen to a tango CD by chance, when I was 15. And my idea was, you know, I want to go to Buenos Aires to play tango.
Gabriel
And for different reasons. It took a while for me to get there, and I moved to Buenos Aires when I was already 30.
Anna
But you said you studied in, in Rotterdam.
Gabriel
In Rotterdam? Exactly. Okay. When it was 20 a.m., I became a father. And, in order to not lose touch with my daughter, he didn't go to win a status which is very far away from Israel. I went to live in Rotterdam and in Rotterdam, you know, from Rotterdam I could back I would, I could go back to, to Israel, every two months or something to keep in touch with her.
Gabriel
But, but still, even Rotterdam was kind of a station on the way to Buenos Aires. So my life was defined by music. I did not think of calligraphy as a profession.
Anna
And then? Then what happened? Then? What was the next step? When you when I mean, this was this seed that Igor planted in you. And then you shifted back to music, as I understand.
Gabriel
I wouldn't say I shifted back to music. There were okay, two things were parallel. 1 to 2, two to another. One was kind of my profession, the definition of self and the other was a hobby was something I really like to doing. Frankly, I always like doing more than playing scales. But it was never a definition of myself.
Gabriel
It was never my profession. It was never who I was. It it was what I did.
Anna
Yeah. I mean, because you had this one once you tried to actually make it a profession to work in this, to make calligraphy for tattoos in Jerusalem. And then this didn't really feel like the right place for that. So I'm just wondering, like, what was the next step, like, when did it come back? This this idea, this seed that the eagle planted, when did it sprout?
Anna
So again.
Gabriel
I don't I don't know if it if it sprouted again, but the next step was I had moved to Rotterdam. I was 26 and I wanted to learn HTML. Back then. There was no, you know, Wix and Squarespace and whatever. If you wanted a website you once created yourself, you would coded and I have this idea I wanted to learn HTML, and I had these scans of 20 years of, of calligraphy.
Gabriel
So I thought, okay, I'll make a website with that with those scans. And I remembered, I remembered ego and I said, I call it Hebrew tattoos. Why not? And I bought the domain Hebrew tattoos.com was to was too expensive. So I bought Hebrew hyphen to newscom, which was cheaper and I put it up there, but it wasn't. I wasn't busy funding founding a business.
Gabriel
I was it was an art project. And a week later somebody emailed me and said, hey, I'd like a Hebrew tattoo. And I was surprised. I didn't know what to say. So I emailed back, basically saying, why? And then he wrote back and he had this whole story about, you know, why he wanted to Hebrew to a Hebrew tattoo.
Gabriel
He had actually put a lot of thought into it. I don't think he was Jewish. If I if I remember correctly, it was like a Dutch guy, a Christian Dutch guy. But, the story impressed me and the story inspired me.
Anna
His story.
Gabriel
His story, his story inspired me to to draw. I kind of created a piece from that story. I put it in an envelope. I sent it by mail. He put €20 in an envelope envelope and sent them to me. And a few weeks later he sent me photos as well, in the envelope, of of the tattoo, you know, under his skin.
Gabriel
And I scanned those, those photos, I put them up on the, on the website and I thought, wow, you know, how cool is that? And a few weeks later, somebody else called or mailed me. And I remember that the first time when I asked why somebody wanted a tattoo, a story came back and that really inspired me. So again, I asked why.
Gabriel
And again, a long mail came back with this detailed story, a spiritual journey. This guy had gone through. And that kind of inspired me to, to draw for him.
Anna
So it was always I mean, you had the intuition to actually ask why not. What you mean. Like what do they do you want in your tattoo. But, but why. Yes. And then what you discovered basically is that they have a story.
Gabriel
Yes, exactly.
Anna
And would you say that this is what navigates your your work.
Gabriel
This is.
Anna
Now.
Gabriel
Or absolutely this is since then, this is what navigates this is what inspires my calligraphy for tattoos. I still went on to play I, I moved to Buenos Aires. I played there for five years. But this idea of there is something important happening when people tell me their story and I create calligraphy for I tattoo for them, I kind of hand them back the story.
Gabriel
That idea become became more and more present. And after five years and going to say this, I climbed off the stairs of Carnegie Hall and I closed the case of my viola, and I never played another concert. And instead of that, I started dedicating all of my time to Hebrew calligraphy. And the storytelling part became more and more important.
Gabriel
In the beginning. I had maybe one project a week, and then I had two per week, and then I had one a day, and I couldn't do both the listening and the and the drawing. So I remembered that maybe 15 years earlier than that, I had met a guy in a on on campus in Jerusalem who had really impressed me with, with his with his kind of approach to language.
Gabriel
He, he was a linguist and he was a Bible scholar, and he had this, he had this, this commitment to the Hebrew language that was both scientific as a linguist and spiritual as, as as a spiritual person and as a Bible scholar. And he combined those in a way that really inspired me. I felt he was kind of he felt what I felt about the Hebrew language was so much more profound.
Gabriel
So, still, I want to say this. I tried to reach his number. It was like before Facebook had become what it was. And through, you know, a few friends, I found his number. He had moved to this fact. I called him up, and I asked, hey, David was his name David? I got this.
Gabriel
I got this art project, which is basically a huge sin. How how would you like to work with me?
Anna
Yeah, I was thinking, you know, like, what were the challenges of of, of making this into a business and of doing this work in the beginning because, I mean, that's not something that is, there are quite a few questions about that, about, you know, how so? Yeah.
Gabriel
So David didn't really have questions. He had like one answer, which was getting no. And don't ever call me again.
Anna
So no questions. No. But an answer option a solid one definitely.
Gabriel
And he said okay too bad, but understandable. You know, it is a transgression. It is not you know, according to religion, he is a religious person. We're done. And then a week later, he calls me and says, you know what? I talk to my rabbi. Let's start working together.
Anna
What a funny rabbi.
Gabriel
What a weird rabbi. Not something my rabbi would have approved of. But this started the kind of collaboration that went on for years. For years, David would, listen to stories, find wording. Calligraphy is always about words. To find wording for my art passed me the story. He passed me, the words I would create a concept and I would draw the piece and the storytelling was kind of, you know, divided between the both of us.
Gabriel
And that worked for, you know, worked well for a long time. And at some point, David wanted to go back to, to academia to teach, to teach linguistics. And I felt that over the years, the process we had developed became more and more demanding as kind of in an almost therapeutic way. So I was looking for somebody to to put an emphasis on that.
Gabriel
And that's, that's when you came in.
Anna
Yes, I did actually.
Gabriel
Before you came in there was that I tried with a bunch of other academics, academics, and it never really worked out because nobody had the emotional capacity that David had. And then at some point, I was sitting already in Berlin, in a bar with a friend who said, I told him the story and the dilemma I have and kind of that was looking for somebody to to replace David, who had already, you know, stopped working a year or two before that.
Gabriel
And he said, you know what? I have the perfect person for you, somebody who's both a linguist and a therapist. Her name is Anna. You sitting here and we did.
Anna
Yeah, yeah.
Gabriel
Tell me about that.
Anna
About our meeting. Yeah. We met and, I mean, I would say that it was it was difficult for me to understand, what this role is in the beginning. And I think as you as you explained it, it's not something very usual. It's, it's a very interesting mix of, of skills that you need for this, for this work.
Anna
And. That's right. I don't know, David, but, I mean, I, I, I heard of him and of course, like, he's a scholar, but he also has this emotional depth and, Yeah. So when I started, working, I started and trying to understand what this role is about. And, I am a linguist. I studied linguistics, but I also I'm also an actor.
Anna
I started my career in theater and and, after that, I studied linguistics, and I did, translating and editing and writing for many years. And my recent training is in drama therapy, and I think I was always kind of I know what navigated all these things, but I did feel somehow that I'm jumping a little bit and I'm looking for something that will kind of unite everything that I know.
Anna
And I what interested me always was, was people stories, making meaning. And when I started working with you, it was quite incredible because I was, I was struck by how I could really use all of my skills. And yeah, I mean it starts with with meeting a person and giving them first of all space to, to talk, to be and to be, to be present, with them and, and first of all, just listening and it's amazing how people react to that because this is something that we are lacking.
Anna
And, yeah. So first of all, listening and then, when you really listen, you also know how to, react, how to reflect and what questions to ask. And also sometimes maybe, challenge people when needed and then I, I take all of that and I try to find the, the coherent story that they want to tell.
Anna
And it's quite incredible that the people that come to Hebrew tattoos, they have interesting stories. And oftentimes, you know, when a person comes in, he thinks that he knows what he wants to say. They, they tell their story. You know, they, they do this, the story that they think that they want to tell. But then when you challenge them a little bit, then the real story comes out.
Gabriel
That's right. When I, when I read through your correspondence with people, I have the feeling that there's always this arch of a story, the deconstructing of a story, the reconstructing of the same story in a slightly different way. And then those two forms of the same story kind of placed one next to each other.
Anna
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that's what I try to do. And, and I really think, like everything that I did so far, it's, it's really in this, in this work and I can be very, I'm very present in that. And I can, you know, use all the skills that I have, which is lots of fun.
Gabriel
Anna
And then in the end, you know, when we, when I have this story, when I, when I really understood what the person wants to say, together as a collaboration with client, I go to, you know, the, the texts. And it could be poetry or, you know, texts from the Bible or from the sages.
Anna
And I use these texts as a metaphor for this story, because I feel that sometimes, you know, words are restricting in a way. And they are, you know, you can say something with many words, but but then it it it it it loses the meaning. And when you actually find the metaphor for it, that's the most precise thing, you know.
Anna
And somehow in this abstraction of the story, which is, I think, I guess this is the process that I do, you know, this abstraction into poetry or into this one, fragment from a verse. It's the most precise.
Gabriel
Yeah. Yeah. I my contractions often, you know often abstracts things. So you know that the more the more the narrower something becomes that. And often the pressure of that movement often creates, a preciseness that, that is not always there or is not always visible at the beginning when I, when I draw. I often. I often go from a complex piece to a more and more simple piece, in the sense that the first sketch of a work is often almost messy.
Gabriel
It's overloaded, and the the artistic process after, you know, writing a concept of the reading through your correspondence, writing the concepts, talking to the client, feeling. If if the client is, is, is, is right for the concept, if the concept is right for the client. After that, I, I take a long time to, to, to create the work itself.
Gabriel
It's often four months, four months of sketching and drawing. And during that time I feel that what I'm going through is maybe not unlike what you are going through with the story itself. I start with something that is often quite massive, often bigger. Includes all the words you gave me, includes all the ideas a client gave me in, in our communication, our conversation.
Gabriel
And then throughout those four months, I try to, eliminate everything that is not necessary. And take out everything until the piece almost collapses. And at that point, off of the minimum needed for a work to be coherent. That is the point I aim for. It's ready when taking off a little bit more will make the piece collapse.
Anna
Yeah, I think I understand what you mean because I view what we do as this is exactly that. And, you know, your, this your step after after I finish my work after I find this metaphor is another abstraction. Yes. It's like the final refinement, the final abstraction. And I feel that the the, the end of this of any project is basically like a capsule.
Anna
And, it encapsulates this whole story. And sometimes, you know, people come with, with heavy things and with.
Gabriel
Some heavy things that you encounter.
Anna
Clients come with stories of, of loss, grief. There's quite a few people that come with, very deep, experiences of grief and, transformation sometimes very, very also also, people want to encapsulate happy stories and, happy occurrences in their lives.
Gabriel
The hardest. No.
Anna
But yes, somehow we remember and some of course, sometimes, you know, it's love and it's love for for family or for a partner or for the children that it's it's also beautiful big stories. Yeah. And then it's like, it's a, it's like a capsule of the story that, that it puts like, a like a seal on it and it marks it.
Anna
Then, you know, a person marks it on their skin because I think in memory also sometimes meaning shifts and, sometimes it also it's also lost.
Gabriel
Yes.
Anna
And I think a meaning of, of a tattoo of, of this capsule can also shift. But there is something you know, that is more concrete in that it's like it's tangent tangible.
Gabriel
Yes, yes. That's true. I want to say something about this changing meaning and abstraction. I feel that one of the reasons I push for abstraction, there are a lot of reasons. One of the reasons I push for abstraction is exactly that shift in meaning. Abstraction holds the the, the possibility of finding different things in something. It's like poetry, poetry.
Gabriel
The more abstract poetry is, the more different things can be projected onto it. And it's kind of seen and found in it. And the more abstract my art is, the more. People who will stay with the art for the rest of their lives because it's on their skin, can find shifting meanings in the same story over the course of their lives.
Gabriel
You know, somebody has I have tattoos. My first tattoo was in prison.
Anna
I it's you're back in prison? Yes.
Gabriel
You can imagine how it looks, right now, but the meaning it had back then was is entirely different than the meaning it has right now. It's still the same tattoo, it's still the same story. But what I see in it is entirely different. And one that option to be open for, for people with my art on their skin.
Gabriel
I wanted to be abstract enough to be open, not relevant, not meaningless, but open in its in its abstract, in its abstract ness. Of course, it's always based in Hebrew calligraphy and hence based in Jewish philosophy. And Jewish identity. And of course, you know, the place and on the body is really important. And of course, there is a specific story that is expressed in the moment.
Gabriel
But within those limitations, I want people to to be able to see different things in the story over the course of their lives.
Anna
Yeah. And I think this is, this is something you know what I when you were talking, I thought about, you know, people sometimes say, oh, I tattoo I will have it for the rest of my life. But and of course people change. And then you know that how you react to to this art or, you know, this tattoo that you have on your own, your skin changes.
Anna
But I think that what we do is that we try to find something, the essence and, a truth of, of a person's story. And then of course you, you can change. But, but when, if you really, truly find something that is the essence, you know, so if it's, if it's truth then it's truth.
Gabriel
Yeah.
Anna
And and then with with the abstraction of course your relationship with it can change, but the essence, it stays nice.
Gabriel
All right. A nice thought, but we're we're almost out of time, so, I, I feel this is maybe a great moment to or a great thought to to finish with this, the steady essence of a person, if you really find it. Yeah. It will be relevant over the years.
Anna
Yeah. Because, you know, the person changes, but but the essence, and I. Yeah, I think that's what we aim for. That's what I aim for. And I know this is what you aim for for the last 15 years. Yes.
Gabriel
More or any more. Yeah. Nice. I would like to finish with, a question I will ask you over the next episodes as well. Okay. And that is, the recommendation. Did you recently read any book or watch any film or hear any music that inspired you?
Anna
Well, I started reading, book, by Albert Camus that, I actually never read before. It's, short stories, and it's called exile and the King. Yeah. Yes. And it's stories about exile.
Gabriel
Yes. And, we should record an episode about that.
Anna
Yeah, absolutely. I think it could be a really, really interesting, and a really interesting conversation and, Yeah. Just read it. It's it's an.
Gabriel
Interesting I did, I think I did, I, when I was like, you know, you read it.
Anna
And then you talk about it.
Gabriel
Okay. Nice. Nice.
Anna
Okay. And how about you?
Gabriel
I'm reading a book by, by a German sociologist I really love. And it's like, it's, it's. You mentioned loss, and the book is called for Loss to Loss. He mentions he understands loss as, a basic problem for modernity. He says modernity is based on the assumption of progress, and loss doesn't doesn't fit in that story.
Gabriel
I feel it's really, relevant for today because we're not not only because of the loss that individuals experience. And, you know, we, we are confronted with, but because of our collective loss, as Jews, but as well as Western society and maybe, maybe, maybe mainly the loss of future. So the loss of the promise of a better future that.
Anna
There is so many different kinds of loss. Yes, I need to read that. And we can talk about that too. So we have, you know.
Gabriel
Two more episodes, Exile.
Anna
And Loss.
Gabriel
Oh my God, please.
Anna
Having heavy conversations. Yeah. Okay.
Gabriel
Right. Good. Was lovely.
Anna
Was really lovely to meet you. Thank.
Gabriel
You okay? Nice.
