By Cindy Mindell

When West Hartford native Jeff Pawlak returned to the University of Maryland in 2012 from his junior year abroad at Tel Aviv University, he discovered people talking about a different Israel from the one he had experienced firsthand.

“Sure, the reporters called it ‘Israel,’ but the words they used had nothing in common with the place where I just was,” he recalls. “‘War-torn?’ ‘Apartheid?’ ‘Militant?’ Where did this all come from? The Israel that I knew was cosmopolitan, diverse, and tolerant. The media’s perverse obsession with the negative in Israel made no sense to me. It was almost like they had an image that they wanted to project, as opposed to reporting on what was really going on. People who didn’t know better were learning to associate Israel with bombs, rockets, and stabbings, instead of beaches, olives, and hummus – not just in the United States, but also on a global level.”

Pawlak brainstormed with his roommate, Eric Harris, on a business model that could change hearts and minds about Israel. In 2014, a year after they graduated, the two launched Israel Framed, an e-commerce website dedicated to selling the art of Israel.

“Sunrise and Snow and Jerusalem” by Iris Cohenian

While not particularly knowledgeable about the subject, they built their initial portfolio around photography, inspired by Iris Cohenian, an Israeli photographer and Pawlak family friend who served as a consultant. They then expanded the collection to include other works on paper.

“Our goal is to reframe the discourse toward a more positive and realistic outlook on the Jewish state,” Pawlak says. “While it is impossible to deny that there are intense political problems facing Israel, we hope to build a spirit of realistic optimism and connect people through art.”

The Israel Framed collection represents works by an eclectic sampling of artists – religious and secular Israelis spanning the Ashkenazi and Sephardic spectrum, Americans, Dutch, and South Africans who spent time living in Israel.

“Amid their diversity, however, is a common love for Israel and a desire to show it off to the world,” says Pawlak, who now lives in Arlington, Va.

Initially marketed to Jewish communities, the artwork soon drew interest at trade shows and online from other ethnic and religious groups as well. For Pawlak, the wide-ranging attention serves the objective behind the business.

“The best evidence of changing hearts and minds comes from the trade shows we’ve attended, where we get direct feedback from people on the art,” he says. “We find that a lot

of people are very surprised that some of the work is actually from Israel, since they’ve only encountered negative images of the country. We are confident that if more people were exposed to the beauty of Israel, they would recognize the positive sides as well.”

For more information visit IsraelFramed.com.

CAP: “Women of Valor” by Iris Cohenian