It is said that laughter is the shortest distance between two people. Wherever Maureen went, she used humor as an opening, a way to break down barriers and build a trusting environment. She used various imaginative techniques to help children integrate the values of loving-kindness, compassion, enthusiasm, truth, respect and gratitude through humor, art, and the education of the heart. In this way, the children were motivated to transcend their own fears and pain to create a vision of peace, tolerance and hope.
Enjoy this beautiful virtual tour
of many of the paintings in the show!
Click below to watch.
The exhibition is stunningly beautiful, poignant, and timely. It balances messages of courage, tragedy, and hope. It lifts the spirit of everyone who sees it. The show has recently been updated with paintings from Ethiopian children in Kiriyat Malachi, and Jewish, Arab, and Armenian children in Jaffa.
Peace through Humor has been exhibited in the Israeli Parliament (Knesset), 182 cities in the USA and Canada and throughout Europe including Cyprus, Turkey, Finland, Estonia, Slovenia, Austria, Switzerland, France, Germany, Hungary, Spain, Georgia, Slovakia and Serbia, through the auspices of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It has been seen by more than 20 million people worldwide.
The show is presently on display at 'Yeshiva Chochmei Lublin' in Lublin. The original show is currently at Yemin Orde Children's Village in the Carmel Mountains, near Atlit, in Israel.
Visions of Peace
From the Hands of Children
This inspiring exhibition represents the hope of the children of Israel for peace. They dream that their vision of Peace through Humor will open the hearts and uplift the spirits of everyone and travel around the world creating friendship, compassion, understanding and love.
From the autumn of 1995 to the summer of 2016, Maureen Kushner, a creative art educator from New York City, worked in Israel on a project called The Art and Soul of Peace through Humor at the invitation of the Ministry of Education. Maureen traveled all over Israel, from the Northern Galilee to the Southern Negev, working with Jewish, Arab, Bedouin and Druze children, as well as Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, teaching creativity while creating murals and paintings on the theme of war and peace.
Please contact us here for more information and to learn how you can bring Peace through Humor to your location.