Warriors: A Series

Zivia Lubetkin

Zivia Lubetkin (1914–1978) was a Polish Jewish resistance leader and a central commander in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Born in Byteń, she joined Zionist youth movements and helped found the Jewish Fighting Organization. Lubetkin was the only woman on the organization’s high command, helping plan and lead the 1943 armed revolt against Nazi forces. After escaping through Warsaw’s sewers, she continued her resistance work in Poland and later immigrated to Israel with her husband, fellow uprising fighter Yitzhak Zuckerman. There they co-founded Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta’ot and testified together at the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Her powerful legacy continued through her family, including a granddaughter who was among the first female fighter pilots in the Israeli Air Force.

Collage, acrylic paint, colored pencil.
2026

Gusta Davidson

Gusta Davidson Draenger (1917–1943) was a Jewish resistance fighter in Nazi-occupied Kraków and a member of the Akiva (Zionist youth movement). Using the underground name “Justyna,” she helped organize resistance by smuggling weapons, forging documents, and aiding partisan fighters. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1943, she was imprisoned in Montelupich Prison. There she secretly wrote a memoir on scraps of toilet paper while fellow prisoners shielded her. The pages were smuggled out piece by piece by Jewish inmate-guards forced to work in the prison and later published as Justyna's Narrative, the only surviving firsthand account of the Jewish underground in Kraków. After briefly escaping and rejoining the resistance, she and her husband, Shimshon Draenger, were captured and executed later that year.

Collage, colored pencil.
2026

Daniel Edri

Daniel Edri (2001–2025) was a young reservist in the Israel Defense Forces whose life ended after he struggled with the trauma he witnessed during the war that followed the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel. After months of reserve duty recovering fallen soldiers and confronting battlefield devastation, he returned home carrying profound psychological wounds. His suicide drew attention to the growing mental-health crisis affecting many Israeli soldiers, reservists, and civilians. In this painting, he is surrounded by a field of red anemones (Kalanit)—the spring flower of the Gaza Envelope and a symbol of all those lost on October 7.

Acrylic paint, colored pencil.
2026