The helmets turning war into art in Israel

Seagal Hagege lived in California, just 20 minutes from Disneyland, before she made Aliyah. It was just after Covid, and she’d found out she was pregnant with her fourth child, when the family arrived in Israel on October 7, 2020.

Exactly three years later, they were at their local synagogue, housed inside a Netanya high school, for Simchat Torah. It wasn’t shut down during the Hamas attacks because the authorities didn’t know a service was happening. The community spent hours unaware of what was unfolding in the south.

Aliyah hadn’t been easy. Settling the kids in school was tough, and Seagal had even considered returning to the US. But October 7 changed that. At a local blood drive the next day, a message came through: could she help get 50 pairs of boots for IDF soldiers? She raised the funds, delivered them, then found out 90 pairs had been taken. “The supplier over-delivered, but how do you take boots back from soldiers?” she thought.

Within minutes of going live on Facebook, she’d raised the rest. From that moment, Seagal who is now a concierge with the Ari Fuld project, began receiving daily requests from commanders for everything from boots to glasses. “People give what they can. I top it off and deliver it.”

When she started replacing old helmets with new, she had an idea and asked artist friends to turn the old ones into art. Each helmet tells a story. One from the Yom Kippur war by Sylvia Harar is paper-mâchéd in blue and white with red accents. Another, by Ayala, is covered in rose petals made from love letters sent between family and soldiers in 1960.

Seagal’s favourite is by Dr H, known for his graffiti-style who surprised her by painting lemons. “I thought it was about turning lemons into lemonade, but it was the lemon tree in his mother’s front yard, a symbol of home, family and safety is what kept him grounded when he went to fight.”

Some of the artists hadn’t touched a brush since October 7. For them, painting the helmets became therapy. On Yom Hazikaron, the helmets were displayed at the community centre in gratitude to the IDF and as a tribute to the victims. It is still in Netanya. Transporting it is tricky. But Dr H has just opened a gallery, so the helmets may go there and after that Seagal would like to take the collection abroad to raise awareness and funds. “If someone can help make that happen, I’m ready,” she says.

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