“This is (not) my war” in Bat Yam: how artists born in Ukraine made Israel listen more attentively

The exhibition “This is (not) my war”, which concludes this week in Bat Yam, has become not just a cultural event for people from Ukraine. It has shown a much more important thing: the Ukrainian artistic voice in Israel no longer exists somewhere on the margins of the emigrant agenda, but is increasingly entering the professional cultural environment of the country — with its media, institutions, criticism, and the general public.

This was reported on March 18, 2026, by Israeli Friends of Ukraine.

This is a project that brought together 15 Israeli artists born in Ukraine. Behind this was a new cultural initiative “Platform 202“, created to support Ukrainian authors in Israel, and the curators of the project were Vera Gailis and Svetlana Matvienko. This very set of names and tasks sets the exact context: this is not a one-time action “on occasion”, but an attempt to build a sustainable presence of Ukrainian art within the Israeli cultural space.

We have already talked about the opening –

Exhibition “This is (not) my war”: Ukrainian artists in Israel speak about the impossibility of neutrality — from January 15 to February 26, 2026, Bat Yam.

Why this exhibition in Israel turned out to be more noticeable than it might have seemed at first

The opening turned into a major public event

The start of the exhibition was loud in both the literal and figurative sense. About 300 guests attended the opening — representatives of the art community, journalists, diplomats, friends of Ukraine, and the Israeli public, for whom the topic of war, memory, and identity has long ceased to be something external and distant.

For Israel, this is an important signal. When an exhibition about the Ukrainian experience attracts not only the “own” community but a mixed audience from the cultural, public, and media environment, it means that the project has hit the nerve of the country. And this is what distinguishes a strong exhibition from just a correct initiative: it does not ask for sympathy but forces you to look, argue, think, and compare with your own experience.

Bat Yam turned out to be not a random point on the map

The exhibition was held at the Design Terminal in Bat Yam — a professional cultural space that represents leading figures in art, design, and culture in Israel. This is not a peripheral hall for the “inner circle”, but a large multidisciplinary platform where events for a very diverse audience take place daily — from representatives of the art scene to business and public initiatives.

That is why the location itself is as important as the exhibition. When a Ukrainian art project is in such a place, it receives not a symbolic but a real inclusion in the Israeli cultural circulation. It is seen not only by those who came purposefully but also by the audience that comes to the Design Terminal as one of the vibrant centers of contemporary cultural life in Israel.

How the Ukrainian theme went beyond the community conversation

Israeli media not only noticed the exhibition but integrated it into their agenda

The project received wide media support, and this is perhaps one of the most indicative results. Leading Hebrew-language publications in Israel, including Time Out Tel Aviv, Portfolio, and Erev Rav, wrote about the exhibition, and it was not just about recommendations “where to go”, but full-fledged analytical publications.

This is a fundamental point for understanding the scale. When the Ukrainian theme enters the cultural press of Israel not as an exotic and not as a political appendix to the news about the war, but as a substantive artistic conversation, the status of this theme changes. It ceases to be “someone else’s pain that needs to be respected” and becomes part of the local professional discussion — with all the ensuing consequences.

In this sense, NAnews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency have repeatedly noted an important change: the Ukrainian presence in Israel is increasingly read not as a temporary trace of a great war, but as a full-fledged cultural, social, and intellectual contribution to Israeli reality. This exhibition in Bat Yam is just one of those examples — calm in form, but very strong in meaning.

Radio broadcasts and live conversations enhanced the effect of the exhibition

In addition to publications in the press, curators and artists gave interviews to leading Israeli radio stations Galgalatz and Kan Tarbut. Special attention deserves the hour-long broadcast on the state radio “Reka”, where Vera Gailis and the participants of the exhibition spoke in Russian, expanding the audience of the conversation and making it accessible to those who live between several cultural worlds at once.

But it was not only the media that were important. As part of the exhibition, tours were held for the Ukrainian community, as well as critical discussions and debates in Ukrainian and Hebrew. And here the true depth of the project was revealed: it did not close on the visual impression but became a space for discussion, where art serves as a reason for conversation about war, memory, identity, and the place of the Ukrainian experience within modern Israeli life.

What this project means for Israel and what will happen next

This is no longer a one-time action, but the beginning of a new cultural line

“Platform 202” was created specifically to support Ukrainian artists in Israel, and the results of this exhibition show that it is indeed a long-distance journey. Together with Israeli Friends of Ukraine, the team is already preparing new exhibitions and projects in which the Ukrainian voice will sound even louder — not as an invited comment, but as a natural part of the professional art scene in Israel.

And this is perhaps the main result of the whole story. Such projects are important not only for the artists themselves and not only for the Ukrainian community. They are important for Israel itself because they expand the local cultural optics, introduce new experience, new visual memory, and a new language of conversation about war, vulnerability, and belonging.

The support of friends of Ukraine and the embassy became an important foundation

The exhibition was held with the support of Israeli Friends of Ukraine and the Embassy of Ukraine in Israel. Such support is important not only organizationally. It shows that a working alliance can arise between public solidarity, diplomatic participation, and the professional cultural environment, which gives results not at the level of declarations, but at the level of real projects, real viewers, and real presence in the Israeli public sphere.

For the audience in Israel, this is especially important now, when the question of Ukraine’s place in the local public consciousness constantly competes with its own Israeli agenda, overloaded with war, security, and internal crises. The more noticeable are the projects that do not require condescension and do not work on emotion head-on, but simply take their place — confidently, professionally, and for a long time.

The exhibition “This is (not) my war” in Bat Yam is concluding, but it seems that the story itself is just beginning. And if the new initiatives of “Platform 202” maintain the same level of inclusion in the Israeli cultural environment, Ukrainian art in Israel will no longer be perceived as a temporary episode. It has become part of the general conversation. And this is perhaps the most accurate result of the entire exhibition.