Israeli President Reuven Rivlin opened on Monday at his official residence in Jerusalem an exhibition of cartoons of Israeli presidents over the years, as part of his 81st birthday celebrations.
The exhibition, titled “Basic Law/Laugh: President of the State – Israeli presidents in cartoons,” features 24 cartoons of Israeli presidents over the years.
“Through the cartoons in the exhibition, we can feel the historic period in which they appeared – including how Presidents Chaim Weizmann and Reuven Rivlin dealt with challenging election results, and President Yitzhak Navon and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat on the way to peace,” the President’s Residence stated.
“Taken together, the cartoons are a wide-ranging diverse album of creativity. Some of them describe key events in Israel’s history, including those which are relevant today, as the wheel of history revolves. Others are portraits, drawn in recognition of a president.”
“In this way, the exhibition tells two stories – firstly the history of Israel, reflected beyond the institution of the presidency and the presidents themselves, and secondly, the story of the works and their creators. We see in the second theme that we have been blessed as a people and as a society with artists who have helped us understand the here and now, social and political, with great talent.”
“Enjoying cartoons is something everyone can do. They are a spark of wit amongst the mountains of information. They are a splash of color in a sea of text. The incisive, light-hearted perspective they give to the Israeli reality, which can sometimes be tough and challenging, allows to see other shades of color in the day-to-day life of the society.”
As Rivlin said at the end of his remarks at the opening of the “Crossing the Rubicon” exhibition in 2015, “through all the chaos, it is important to laugh a little at ourselves, at the impossibility of our situation.”
“Laughter is also part of how we deal with our reality,” the President’s Residence emphasized.