Danny Trom visited Michael Kovner’s studio in Jerusalem. The painter was born the year the State was founded, and he is the son of Abba Kovner, who led the Vilna Ghetto Uprising, commanded Jewish partisans, and later fought in Palestine. Between the two men, there is no generational conflict, but rather a silent divide. It separates two ways of being in Israel. And what if, from father to son, the very meaning of what the State of Israel is becoming were being played out as i
Michael Kovner is one of Israel’s most prominent landscape artists. Born in 1948 in Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, he later served in an elite IDF commando unit. Today, he devotes his time to painting. His parents, Abba and Vitka Kovner, were key leaders of the Jewish resistance in the Vilnius Ghetto. After the uprising failed, they joined the partisans and continued fighting the Nazis. After the war, they immigrated to Israel. Abba Kovner went on to become one of the founding voices
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