Talking to Baruch Saktsier is like a journey through a number of stations. First stop is the almost forgotten Eastern European Yidish world, which so profoundly became an indispensable part of Baruch’s identity; then communist Russia and finally to Israel, where Baruch has been living since 1972.

Baruch grew up as an only child. His father was a well known Yidish writer, Motl Saktsier, and his mother was a successful actress in the Yidish Theater in Kishiniov, Moldova. Speaking to Baruch now, he says that he is an anti-Yidishist, meaning that he is against Yidish language. To him it is a language of people without a home - a hodge podge of languages. Yet this was the language spoken in Baruch’s home. Baruch grew up on books by Shalom Alehem, whose tragicomic characters deeply penetrated Baruch’s own identity. Just how significant this writer has been to Baruch, we can see in the sculpture that Baruch created in honor of the Yidish writer and which to this day is one of his own favorite works.

Reminiscing over his parents and his childhood, Baruch sheds the years and becomes the impish, little boy who instead of going to school played hooky and secretly stayed home to sculpt out of clay, who would frown when his dad would “help” him with his sculpture, and who wanted to become a pantomime as well as a sculptor. Aware of the stiff competition to the Repin Academy of Art, in St. Petersburg, which every applicant faced, Baruch realized that being a Jew from Moldova was not going to help his chances. Nonetheless young Baruch was determined more than ever to leave Kisheniov and come to St. Petersburg in order to absorb the beauty and the culture this city. Baruch’s talent was impressive and even being Jewish in communist Russia did not stop him from being admitted.

There were positive and negative aspects to studying at the Repin Academy, as Baruch sees it. The main positive was the wide range of art movements that were covered. This gave the artist the education and the tools and in turn created versatile and competent professionals. “I do not like when artists use abstract form of art as an excuse for the actual lack of training, as a gimmick for covering their inability. I am open to any artistic style as long as it is not a gimmick and comes from ability rather than inability,” Baruch explains. The main negative that he sees with his education was in the narrow range of topics which the artists were allowed to pursue. The stifling communist propaganda penetrated all aspects of life in the Soviet Union, including the Academy.

Upon graduating, Baruch returned to Maldova. Talk of repatriating to Israel, along with his elderly parents and his wife, was already a hot topic in the family. While this decision was taking a more definite course, Baruch had created a monument to the Fallen Soldier, which to this day stands in the center of the city where he grew up.

What identifies Baruch as an artist? What moves him to create? How does he want others to view his art? To the first question, Baruch says, “I am not a Jewish artist. I am a person of international views and therefore I feel like I am an international artist; I want to be available to all people, regardless of their faith.” Then thinking a little more he adds “but there will always be that “Jewishness” in me and no matter what this will never disappear, nor do I strive for that.”
Baruch explains that what moves him the most is humanity – humanity in its physical form, in its intellect, in its emotions. “I try to experience what the object that I am sculpting experiences. If I am sculpting a dancer, I become infiltrated with the lightness of her form, if I am sculpting Moses receiving the Tables of the Covenant I try to imagine what he must have felt like, all alone in the mountains, suddenly hearing the fluttering of the spirit of God, seeing God but not really seeing him. I need to feel it personally and yet I am sure that on our basic human level our emotions are universal.” Although Baruch often uses subjects that have often been created in art he always gives his own personal interpretation, his own point of view.



In 1977 Baruch Saktsier became the winner of the Janusz Korczak memorial competition. The monument became part of the permanent exhibit at the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.



In Baruch’s art we can feel the emotion, the depth and the potency that Baruch the Artist, the Jew, the Man tries to convey.



Exibitions


1969: Graduated from the Repin Academy of Art, St. Petersburg, Russia


Lives and works in Israel since 1972.


1960-1972: Participated in various exhibitions.


1970: The city of Kishenyov, Moldova erected the sculptor’s, monument dedicated to the Fallen Soldiers of World War II.


1977: Winner of the Janusz Korczak memorial competition.


1978: “Korczak and his Children” monument is on permanent exhibit at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem


1980: Present- Personal exhibitions throughout Israel and abroad.