IsraelHayom: Secular Muslim woman, born in Istanbul, converted and fell in love with Jerusalem
Artist Leah Gol presents an exhibition in Tel Aviv, painting her spiritual and emotional journey in vibrant and enchanting colors – from the art world in Turkey, through Indian spirituality, to Judaism. “There is a strong force that draws me here,” she says.
Artist Lea Gol’s living room in her Jerusalem home is also her studio. The evidence is scattered all over: brushes, paints, and artwork from all periods of her life. The ZOA House (Beit Ziyonei America) in Tel Aviv is currently displaying an exhibition of her paintings “Exposed to the Forces of Nature”: 23 large canvases, full of emotions, reflecting the spiritual journey she encountered, documenting her life history and femininity, and also magically touching stories of Jewish tradition. Two men, one with wings, struggle in a surrealistic landscape full of color – a symbol of the struggle between Jacob and the angel, between good and evil; or the painting of “Eshet Chayil” – “I drew the seven Sefirot, and it is quite clear,” Gol claims, mentioning the Kabbalistic term in passing. “There are also many different codes in the colors I chose: crimson and light blue are the colors of the Temple. I generally do not need to explain the painting; people understand on their own, but I enjoy hearing what they have to say about my paintings. Sometimes we see the same things, and sometimes I discover new things through what I hear from them.”
This is her first exhibition in Israel, but certainly not the first in her life – she has held dozens of exhibitions in Turkey. “Painting and art are an inseparable part of who I am. This is the world I was born into. My mother studied art at the Academy of Art in Istanbul, and I grew up in a house of artists. My mother’s uncle was a famous director who won international awards, and after spending a long time in the United States, he returned to Turkey and moved in with us, so I got to know this world from a close-up. When I was young, I wanted to be a ballerina, but pursuing this career wasn’t possible in Turkey. I started drawing, and I was good at it, so my parents took it seriously and I became an artist.
“I became very attached to surrealism. I had the privilege of studying with Erol Denec, a well-known Turkish artist who studied in Vienna with Ernst Fuchs, one of the founders of fantastic realism. When I first encountered Judaism, I combined it with this artistic style. You can see this in my paintings in the exhibition, the expression of my understanding of the Jewish texts through the paintbrush. I read amazing ideas in the Torah, in commentaries, and in Kabbalah (mysticism) and I wanted to share my excitement. What was the best way to do this? What was the best way to express myself? Through my canvas.”
Gol’s painting. Credit: Eric Sultan
From India to Judaism
Gol, 51 years old, beautiful, and tall, smiles brightly. She was born in Istanbul to Muslim parents. Although she had been drawing since childhood, after graduating high school she enrolled in a business administration course at a university in Istanbul. A few days after starting her studies, she realized it was not for her, and returned to art.
Already at a young age, Gol became a well-known personality among the city’s artists. She opened her own studio and was invited to all important events of Turkish artists. Then, following a serious accident, she began her journey to Judaism. It happened in 2000 when she was 27 years old. “I went with a friend to the opening event of an exhibition in Istanbul,” she says. “A huge truck drove into us, and our car overturned and rolled several times. We miraculously got out safe and uninjured. I started asking myself a lot of questions: Who saved me? Why was I saved?”.
Gol’s first step in her search for answers was reading spiritual writings. She then participated in a variety of workshops and classes, as well as extended meditation “retreats.” Next, Gol and her boyfriend decided to go to India. “There I felt something very strong,” she says. “In India, there is a strong energy that can be felt everywhere. Today I can say that it is impure energy, the exact opposite of the holy energy that can be felt here in Israel. But at the time I did not know this, because I had not yet met Judaism.”
Turkey is a Muslim country with a population exceeding 85 million people, and its Jewish community is small, with fewer than 15,000 people. Even so, Jews were not strangers to Gol. “The truth is that I grew up among Jews. I studied at a prestigious private school on the European side of Istanbul, and half of the students there were Jews. But they were Jews like I was a Muslim; slightly traditional, but also very secular.
“My birthday is on April 16 and often falls on Passover. My Jewish friends would come to the party, and apologize that they couldn’t eat the cake, but in the end, they couldn’t resist and took a bite. In any case, this is the community I knew. My friend at the time of the accident was also Jewish. But again, these are Jews who do not know the treasure of their Judaism.”
Q: So how did you end up with us?
“It all happened because of India. After my trip, I decided that if this is the center, the root of spirituality, I must live there. When I know what I want, I go for it all the way. I told my mother that I wanted to leave everything and live in India, and she said that she understood that I was looking for the root, but suggested that before that, I sit down and read the holy books that we had at home.”
Gol’s mother kept books of the three fundamental monotheistic religions on a high shelf in their home: the Bible, the New Testament, and the Quran. She asked her daughter to read them before going on her adventure to India. Gol did as she asked, and this is how she discovered what she calls “the philosophy of Judaism.” “In those days I thought about Judaism, but had no idea how to lead a Jewish lifestyle, let alone a religious one,” she says with laughing eyes.
After reading Jewish texts, she found interest, began to study, understood more, and finally decided to convert. Fate took her to start in a very symbolic place: the Anne Frank House, which she had visited during a vacation in Amsterdam. A special feeling gripped her during the visit, and before leaving she signed the visitor’s book, where she wrote that she had finally decided to join the Jewish people.
“Me too, like Leah”
Conversion is impossible in Turkey. According to an old, but valid, Ottoman agreement between the Turkish state and the Jewish community, a Jewish court in Turkey is not allowed to convert to Judaism. The agreement is rooted in the sources of Judaism in the Ottoman Empire: in 1492, after the expulsion from Spain, Sultan Bayezid II invited the Jewish refugees to come to his country, and about 40,000 people responded to his call, settling mainly in Istanbul and Thessaloniki. According to Islam, a Muslim is, of course, forbidden to convert his religion, so already at the time of establishing the institutions of the Jewish community, the Ottomans strictly forbade the courts from holding any conversions. What does a Muslim woman who wants to convert do? She must travel to another country and find a court that is willing to accept her.
A Jewish friend of Gol told her about a court in Amsterdam that might convert her after she studied Judaism in that community for six months. Gol was in the middle of working on a collection of paintings, and decided to finish it, put it in an exhibition, and then go to the Netherlands. Her parents did not object to the idea, and she prepared for the trip.
At the end of March 2005, the exhibition opened, and Gol was about to leave, but then her plans changed after a meeting with Leon, a Turkish Jew she had already met earlier. After his father’s death, Leon began to “strengthen his own religious convictions,” and she could ask him all her questions about Judaism. He was very impressed by the girl who was craving the Torah and decided to propose. His rabbi, the Chabad emissary in Istanbul, Rabbi Mendy Hitrik, connected her with Chabad Rabbi Michael Brody, who ran a conversion center in Atlanta, Georgia. Gol went there and converted in a relatively short process since she had already begun her studies long before that.
On her return to Istanbul, she married Leon, and almost immediately became a prominent figure in the city’s Jewish community. She gave lessons on the Parasha (the weekly Torah reading), studied the laws of family purity, and taught new brides. She and Leon had four children – twins Vanessa and Allegra, daughter Daniella, and son Avraham. The couple’s home was open to everyone, and they invited many to their Shabbat meals, including a Jewish tourist who missed his flight, an assimilating Turkish Jew, and curious non-Jews who wanted to experience a Jewish Sabbath. About a year ago, she says, she started hosting tourists, and not necessarily Jews, at Shabbat dinners in her current apartment, in Jerusalem.
Q: Your life in Istanbul was full: of family, friends, and community. What made you leave everything and come to Israel?
“When I converted, there was a good reason for choosing the name ‘Leah.’ She is a biblical character that I admire. A strong, noble woman, her life was not easy at all, but she managed to raise her head and live through it all with faith. When I took her name, I felt like I got a part of her inside me as well. I also see myself as a woman who follows through with all her decisions.”
“When I lived in Turkey, I felt at some stage that everything was good and beautiful on the outside, but everything was stuck on the inside. I had difficulties in my personal relationship, and I no longer enjoyed the classes I taught, because I saw that their impact was more intellectual than practical. I also realized that our children were missing out on a social life because they were religious. The community was secular, and all events took place on Saturdays. I asked God to show me the way. That’s how I realized that the truth is here in Israel. I felt the strong holiness of the Land of Israel, especially in Jerusalem. There is a strong force that draws me here. Immigrants from Turkey who have come to Israel in the last 15 years generally live in Ra’anana, Tel Aviv, or Ashkelon. I was drawn to Jerusalem.” In the next sentence, her face lights up, and suddenly the artist in her is speaking: “I am in love with the light of Jerusalem, reflected on the stone buildings.”
The rose beyond the thorns
In 2018, they applied to the Jewish Agency for immigration. “I came to visit, checking out schools, seeing apartments. I sent the children to a summer camp in Israel, so they could get to know Israel close up.”
Gol initially hoped that she and Leon would be able to overcome the difficulties in their relationship, but during their preparations for Aliyah, things got even worse, and they divorced. This only strengthened her desire to come to Israel and start a new life. Leon decided to stay in Turkey, and after two years of attempted persuasion, he agreed that his children immigrate to Israel without him. During this time, both of Gol’s parents passed away.
Gol and her children arrived in Israel in August 2021. They received their Israeli identity cards (te’udot zehut) and settled in Jerusalem. When she came here, Gol was ready to start from scratch. “Aliyah (immigration) is a unique challenge, a tortuous path. It’s no coincidence that we are talking in English right now. It is not easy to learn a foreign language, and learning Hebrew was, in any case, a secondary task on my to-do list. First of all, I had to take care of all my children’s urgent needs and make sure they acclimated well. I am glad that they were welcomed in their schools, Horev and Dugma. I’m lucky that Sarah and Yosef Cohen, who moved to Jerusalem a few years ago, were here for me. They helped me with everything. They even found this apartment for me. The difficulties are real, but I say that if we want to pick a rose, there is a high chance that on the way we will also prick our fingers on thorns. Doesn’t the rose justify the thorns?
“I will add an anecdote that shows how challenging it is to be an immigrant. On Oct. 7, it took me a long time to comprehend what was happening. There were sirens, but we went to the synagogue to celebrate Simchat Torah. I did not understand how serious the situation was. A few weeks ago, we went on vacation to the southern city of Eilat, and we were at the marina when they intercepted a hostile aircraft. We saw the interception, and I was sure that these were fireworks. It was difficult to get used to the Israeli reality without having any family history of serving in the Israel Defense Forces. I never heard my father, or my grandfather, talk about Israeli wars. So, I am learning something new every day.”
The exhibition “Exposed to the Forces of Nature”, which is being held at ZOA House (Beit Ziyonei America) in Tel Aviv from May 6 to June 16, came to life by chance, or as Gol prefers to describe it: Yad Hashem (the Hand of God). “Life in general, and aliyah in particular, is a game of confidence: to what extent am I willing to let go and see that God’s Hand is helping me. Over the years my friends gave me many telephone numbers, and contacts that could help me to present myself as an artist. I couldn’t use them at the time, but I continued to paint and put together this whole exhibition. One day the apartment owner’s cousin came here, saw the paintings, and sent photographs of them to her neighbor, who runs the ZOA House. This is how the idea of the exhibition came about. It was supposed to be short and open immediately after the Jewish High Holidays but was postponed several times because of the war in Gaza. It has only now been opened, for a period of six weeks.”
An impressive painting of the Istanbul shores looking from the sea, the Bosphorus straits, and the mosques behind them, their columns and domes hanging on the wall of her home. She did not paint this picture, Gol reveals, but rather her mother. In her voice, you can hear her longing for her native surroundings. If you ask her, she has not cut her ties with the life and culture in Turkey, and her “blood” is still Turkish.
But, she explains to me and her face expresses deep pain, the beautiful, good country she grew up in no longer exists. She believes that the Atatürk Reforms, initiated by the founder of modern Turkey, are going to disappear. Turkey is moving away from the progressive and secular country it used to be. Most of Gol’s non-Jewish friends, who are not Erdoğan supporters, have already purchased homes for themselves outside of Turkey, ready for the day when the situation becomes unbearable.
As strange as it may sound, Leah’s Jewish friends actually believe that the situation will improve. But she doesn’t think like them. “I am happy that my parents did not live long enough to see what Turkey has become today,” says Gol. “I am very proud that my children, despite the fear they experienced when the war broke out, never asked to return to Turkey. This is my greatest success.”
