{"id":121289,"date":"2026-05-19T13:44:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T13:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/121289\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T13:44:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T13:44:11","slug":"using-discarded-israeli-flags-artist-tries-to-stitch-divided-country-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/121289\/","title":{"rendered":"Using discarded Israeli flags, artist tries to stitch divided country together"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watching her country become more and more politically divided in recent years, artist Tal Tenne Czaczkes decided to unite it \u2014 at least in spirit.<\/p>\n

Using gold thread, Tenne Czaczkes joined nearly 700 Israeli flags \u2014 a national symbol claimed in recent years by both the right and the left \u2014 into a 180-square-meter (1,937-square-foot) canopy that she says reflects both her personal journey over the last eight years and the country\u2019s internal struggles.<\/p>\n

Now the project, \u201cThe Flag of Flags,\u201d <\/a>is being displayed in locations nationwide, in what the artist hopes will be a public display of unity, resilience, and shared Israeli identity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flag is for each of us, and each one of us has hope and a story,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes. \u201cIt represents each of us and our society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eight years ago, Tenne Czaczkes began collecting abandoned, forgotten Israeli flags \u2014 often the smaller pennants that people attach to their cars and hang as bunting to mark Israel\u2019s memorial and independence days.<\/p>\n

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It was Independence Day, and she had noticed teenagers in her hometown\u2019s central square unintentionally trampling on decorative flags that had fallen to the ground.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tArtist Tal Tenne Czaczkes, pictured here in 2026, sewed together nearly 700 Israeli flags to produce \u2018The Flag of Flags.\u2019 (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

That year marked Israel\u2019s 70th anniversary, and Tenne Czaczkes, a graduate of Jerusalem\u2019s prestigious Bezalel Academy of Art and Design who had created public sculptures such as \u201cSea Ball\u201d at Tel Aviv\u2019s Gordon Beach and \u201cThe Fan\u201d at Rabin Square, had dyed her hair blue in honor of the occasion, identifying herself as a human flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI come from the world of visual arts, so I\u2019m the medium and the message, no agenda,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes.<\/p>\n

She was also going through a trying personal period.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like a broken flag, like a broken woman,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes. \u201cI identified with these flags; they sounded an alarm for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

She picked up the flags from the ground and brought them home to wash, dry, and fold.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t sure what to do with them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFlags gathered from roadsides by artist Tal Tenne Czaczkes (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

From then on, every time Tenne Czaczkes saw an abandoned flag on the street, she collected it, brought it home, and washed it \u2014 without a plan, but knowing she would somehow raise it again one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time I was picking up a flag, I felt like I was raising myself,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes. \u201cThere was something very personal about it, something that no one else was seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year later, Tenne Czaczkes took about 30 of the flags she had rescued and sewed them into one banner, thinking about the concepts of tikvah, or hope, and tkuma, or resurrection.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was 2019, and no one understood what I was doing, talking about tkuma,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes.<\/p>\n

Those terms would be returned to the center of Israel\u2019s vernacular after the bloody Hamas terror invasion of October 7, 2023, when Israelis were looking for hope and resurrection in the wake of the massacre.<\/p>\n

But at that point, the flag was battered and bruised by Israeli society, pushed and pulled according to opinions and ideas, said Tenne Czaczkes.<\/p>\n

Tenne Czaczkes put the flags aside, feeling that something was broken in Israeli pride.<\/p>\n

She turned to a raft of volunteer efforts, attending funerals and paying condolence calls, helping out wherever she could.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tTal Tenne Czaczkes\u2019 Flag of Flags in Sde Boker (Courtesy)<\/p>\n

At one point, a bereaved friend who had lost family members on October 7 asked Tenne Czaczkes to show her the flag banner she\u2019d made. It was a moment when the artist realized that the project could represent something for others, not just for herself.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Tenne Czaczkes began carrying the patchwork with her, using it to tell the story of the discarded flags and what they had come to represent.<\/p>\n

She also began adding those cleaned, mended flags to her \u201cFlag of Flags.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI told the story of ability and Israeli hope, and I celebrated it and I believed it,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tTal Tenne Czaczkes\u2019 Flag of Flags in Sde Boker (Tomer Czaczkes)<\/p>\n

She now usually keeps \u201cThe Flag of Flags\u201d folded up in a bundle that fits into her backpack \u2014 until it\u2019s taken out for events and conversations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s huge and beautiful and so unusual in its impact,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes, who likens it to a mass of raindrops.<\/p>\n

Tenne Czaczkes has brought \u201cThe Flag of Flags\u201d to official ceremonies for bereaved families in the south, to hospitals and organizations, to schools and nursing homes, where sometimes hundreds of people hold it up together.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tTal Tenne Czaczkes\u2019 Flag of Flags (Ofra Ron Mazor)<\/p>\n

She has held it up with Nova survivors, hostage families, veterans, and bereaved families from Jewish, Bedouin, Druze and Muslim communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I picked up that first flag, it felt like the idea of picking it up was a hopeful step,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes. \u201cIt came from the lowest place, from under the wheels of cars, from dust into something new, with emotional value.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months ago, Tenne Czaczkes began working with the Education Ministry to bring \u201cThe Flag of Flags\u201d to schools.<\/p>\n

She now works with schoolkids on similar projects, having them find flags and then wash and mend them with their parents and grandparents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like factories for the flags, and they hold onto them, they really hold the flags,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Tenne Czaczkes has sewn much of her flag canopy together with gold thread, mimicking kintsugi, the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery using lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum to fill in the cracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t give up on any flag, it doesn\u2019t matter what state it\u2019s in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

As Israel gets closer to its 80th year, Tenne Czaczkes would like to expand the project<\/a>, bringing \u201cThe Flag of Flags\u201d to Jewish communities around the world, creating an online exhibit around the flag canopy, and possibly filming a documentary about how to share the flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to tell how one person chooses to change their story through a small act and bring people to this reality,\u201d said Tenne Czaczkes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watching her country become more and more politically divided in recent years, artist Tal Tenne Czaczkes decided to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[35091,37,28292,41439,37993,41440,41441],"class_list":["post-121289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-flags","tag-israel","tag-israeli-art","tag-israeli-flags","tag-jewish-artists","tag-unity","tag-women-artists"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116601543936198570","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}