Jerusalem Graffiti Mystery

The streets of Jerusalem are no strangers to graffiti. Usually the nature of the scrawling is easy to discern: black spray painted letters spelling out the Hebrew equivalent of "Meat=Murder," or the occasional pro-feminist sentiment. But I have to say, it takes it to a whole new level when your friends are transformed into a stencil fit for spray-painting on walls in Jerusalem.

That's right...if those kids in the image at left look familiar, it's because they are the graffiti representations of my friends and PICZ co-founders Ariel Beery and Aharon Horwitz. The tag continues to go up at various sites in Jerusalem--as of press time, it was spotted in Nachlaot and in the town center, with new sites being reported all the time. And by the way, Aharon and Ariel have NO IDEA who's responsible. They've already interrogated the usual suspects: the PICZers who are still remaining in Israel, and select Jerusalem hipsters and have come up with nothing.

I took a class in college that had a section about graffiti tags, and traditionally they were either boastful of the tagger's prowess in creating a public display or a denigration of the work of another tagger (essentially blog flame wars, sprayed on walls instead of on the internet). So naturally, I have questions: is this supposed to be an homage to the two young thinkers? Or is it some sort of viral criticism of their work? All I can do is parse what is there--two Alephs, to signify their initials, and blue on white, to invoke Israel. And that sounds like homage. But since when do people create a tag featuring other people that is a positive endorsement? This would be a great viral promo for the next Creative Zionism institute, scheduled for this summer, if the guys were responsible. But they weren't.

This, my friends, is a Jerusalem graffiti mystery. I deputize you all: find out who is responsible and what their point is. Post your findings and speculations, and we'll solve this one together.

Comments

[Oyster]

Perhaps the alephs are not initials, but a reference to Georg Cantor's Aleph notation for levels of infinity. I take this to mean that the positive potential of PICZ is Aleph 2, or, an uncountable infinity of possibilities. :-p

[Aharon]

That's deep, Oyster! I just hope it doesn't stand for anything too apocalyptic. I'm playing sleuth over here and all the leads are cold.....the time frame of the picture is at least a couple weeks old, cause I shaved that beard off, and no longer look like an Amish Hamasnik.

[Harry]

They looks so in love....

[wink]

Is there a pattern to the locations of these tags? Has anyone drawn up a map to predict where "they" will strike next? I'm just saying...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AHARON! Feel better.

[Aharon]

wink, you studied in california...what do you know about graffiti? :-)

[Evi]

weird - that is weird. My friend who lives in Katimon knows someone who does graffiti - I'll show her the picture and see if her friend the graffiti artist knows anything.