From Death To Life

"I've always known painting is what I want to do in my life, but life demanded from me to have a different type of responsibility towards my family," Ziva starts the conversation.

"And maybe my parents were also pushing me to a different direction since it was very important for my mother that I'd be able to stand on my feet and be financially independent."

Ziva was born in Hungary to Holocaust survival parents wounded by the loss of their family including their children.

Her passion for painting was discovered at an early age of two. "One day my mother didn't know how to calm me after plenty of crying so she brought me to my father's photography studio. He put me down beside a pile of old pictures and gave me something to color. I stopped crying and was busy painting for hours."

Till the age of ten Ziva's life was ideal. In 1956, when the revolution broke in Hungary Ziva's father who was also a Zionist activist helping Jews to escape to Israel needed to flee the country with the whole family.

Her first hardship in life came when the family immigrated to Israel. "In the transition camp no one spoke Hungarian or Hebrew, we were together with Polish immigrants and in order to communicate with other children I was drawing all the time,"  continues Ziva.

"I started my new life in Israel but it wasn't until I was a soldier serving at the foot of Carmel Mountain that I heard of the artist village Ein Hod." Once discovered she fell in love with the place.

"The first time I arrived there I just stood in front of an old arch for a very long time and I felt like I had found the place where I was meant to grow and flourish." 

Ziva spent every possible free time taking art lessons during her army service, however she still did not think that painting was her path.

"After the army service, my mother suggested  that I become a teacher, so that I'd have a profession."

Ziva was shortly employed as an art teacher in a local school. "I loved teaching, and five years later I become the manager of the school and the manager of the kindergarten section of all kindergartens in Lod."

In the same time she opened two kindergartens that concentrated on teaching art, something that had not existed in Israel before.

"In the mornings they functioned as kindergartens and in the afternoons they became kind of art based community centers for parents and children."

"It was all flourishing but  I felt in my heart that I needed something more." Ziva was 30 years old, a working mother of 3 children, earning a good income in a well respected job. "I also started to have hearing problems, first I just didn't hear if someone was talking to me, later I picked up the phone and couldn't hear the voice, soon I was already suffering from dizziness."

A tumor was found in her inner ear and Ziva needed an immediate operation. The growth was located in a rather dangerous place, and in the midst of the operation Ziva experienced clinical death.

"I remember seeing everyone from above, I could say who entered and when, who were the doctors and I knew I died. I was pulled into a tub of light with the most amazing tunes playing, and all of the sudden I saw the eyes of my children front of me, and I was told to go back to my children. And when I woke up I realized that everything that was important for me till that moment, such as getting material things, had no relevance anymore…..I understood life is happening here and now, and I knew I only want to do what I really love."

Ziva moved to Ein Hod with the family and spent a whole year creating. A year later she was already accepted as a member of the artist community, making exhibitions and selling her pictures.

"Deep inside I always knew it would work, but it is easy to be attached to a big salary and career." It can also be freighting to leave the known and trust the unknown to bring abundance, but Ziva had the courage and determination.

Ziva's near death experience has changed her view of life fundamentally. "Life is a present to each and everyone of us. We do not realize this but the second we are born we receive the present of life, sometimes our education teaches us differently and we often think that the outer world is more important than the inner."

Her connection with God is reflected through her paintings. She regularly climbs up to her roof top to meditate. "I call this place my Olympus, I climb up there alone because I need to experience the closeness of God and to feel the light again. I often receive messages through my meditations and later I paint them. The rays of light I have in the paintings are the imitation of the rays of God that I see."
 
Ziva believes that once you find what you love doing, you need to do it. "I think everyone should check oneself to see what he/she likes doing the best," she adds. "Only through joy can we bring light and love to this world."

Her motto in life reflects this belief "The more we enlarge the good in our world the more the proportion of bad will dwindle and our life on earth will become more possible."