Ibillin, Israel – Created in 1982

This monumental mosaic mural was created by Abed Abdi in 1982 for the courtyard of the Mar Elias Educational Institutions in Ibillin, northern Israel.

Measuring 30 meters in length and 2.5 meters in height, the wall integrates traditional mosaic craftsmanship with modern artistic expression. Its themes reflect values of education, cultural identity, and community.

The mosaic remains one of Abdi’s most significant early public art commissions and continues to inspire students and visitors alike.

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Public Art

At about the time when Badr was completing his mural in Ramallah, Abed Abedi from Haifa was working with Father Elias Shakkour to design a mural for the playground of a new school in ‘Ibillin in the Galilee. With less than half the budget Badr required for his imitative “masterpiece,” Abed built an organic work of art that could well stand as a most authentic model for any future public art form in the country.

The immense but unassuming mural, which stretches across the entire school yard on a slightly curved wall, is a brilliant visual narration depicting the life of Elijah. Here, Abedi, a Muslim by tradition, working together with a Christian leader (not unlike the team of Badr, a Muslim, and Khalaf, a Christian by tradition) did not play to the theatrics of the great theme of “Palestine” nor to the confining interpretation of religious art. Instead, Abedi drew his inspiration from a legend that he interpreted through his palpable experience of Christians and Muslims living in a Jewish state.

Made up of indigenous stones, broken down into geometrically odd, flat pieces of natural shades and a limited variety of colors, the mural was conceptualized as a mosaic. Abedi intuitively believed that the most natural builders of this mural could only be the schoolchildren themselves. He orchestrated every stage of the operation, but the children themselves physically recreated their own environment with the new imagery of a legend that functions as a bridge between a mythical past and a promising future, in a language that easily reaches the hearts of people. Building a mosaic mural must have been to these children like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but it must certainly have been more exciting, its lessons more lasting, a bridge between the function of the playground and the children who use it.

With this talent and commitment, one would expect to see more of Abedi’s work commissioned by local Arab leaders. But when the Arab municipality of Nazareth wanted to build what is so far its most visible monument, they asked Gershon Knispel, an Israeli sculptor and a communist of German origin, to build it. The work, depicting Hagar (Isma‘il’s mother and Abraham’s concubine) was meant to draw progressive Israelis and Palestinians together. Instead, the Hagar memorial became a controversial issue among the Arabs of Galilee, while the general Israeli public remained indifferent. Most criticism centered around the exorbitant costs. A few suggested that its metallic monumentality amidst fallen stones, bushes and a couple of olive trees could only work as a metaphoric reminder of the European, Germanic presence in the heart of an pastoral Arab town.

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