PJCC Art Gallery
Welcome to the PJCC Art Gallery, the Bay Area’s premier home for Jewish artists and Jewish-themed exhibitions. Here, we celebrate creativity, culture, and community through diverse and thought-provoking shows.
Current Exhibition
September 26 – December 30, 2025
Artist-in-Residence special event programming November 4-6, 2025.
Click here to view the schedule.
She’erit: What Remains Shall Speak the Truth
By Chama Mechtaly
This exhibition is made possible by the Koret Taube Initiative on Jewish Peoplehood.
Artist Statement
She’erit, שְׁאֵרִית, is the Hebrew word for “remnant.” It evokes what survives erasure, what endures exile, what persists across generations despite the forces of assimilation and antisemitism. This exhibition travels through Morocco, Israel, and the United Arab Emirates to gather pieces of memory, identity, and culture, sewing them together to tell a story of Jewish persistence.
Each work, whether painted, carved, or filmed, is both a testament and a tool for survival and continuity. They are not passive reflections of loss, but active protests: refusals to disappear, to be flattened, to be silenced. They speak from and through the feminine, the hands and faces of women who preserve history through thread and bread, rosewater and Moorish tiles.
Rooted in the intersecting spiritual and cultural lineages of Amazigh and Sephardi heritage, the exhibition transforms devastation into art, not to beautify pain, but to dignify indigenous inheritance against the erasures of colonial Islamist ideology. This is a reclamation of narrative, of space, of voice, and breath.
In a time obsessed with binaries and performative activism, She’erit invites you to pause, to dwell in complexity, and to piece together a story that resists flattening. This is not just an exhibition. It is the phenomenological testimony of a woman—diasporic yet Indigenous, transnational yet deeply rooted—and through her, it becomes the story of a people who
refuse to be silenced.
About the Artist
Chama Mechtaly is a Moroccan-born artist, founder, cultural strategist, and peacebuilder whose work exists at the intersection of art, identity, and policy.
With Amazigh, Jewish, and Muslim backgrounds, her practice navigates the complexities of belonging in spaces that often demand indigenous erasure.
Through mixed media, installations, and public storytelling, Chama turns silencing into testimony. She has exhibited internationally, including at the Jerusalem Biennale in 2019 and 2021. Her first participation was hidden, as she sent her work quietly under threat of censorship. Chama’s art was repeatedly censored in Morocco, and unfortunately, after October 7th, it was also censored in Boston though she has always stood for peace-building. Through the Abraham Accords, Chama co-produced and co-curated Maktoub, a celebration of Arab-Jewish reconciliation in Jerusalem, an initiative celebrated by the UK minister of state James Cleverly. She is now leading art diplomacy initiatives for the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace and Regional Integration.
As Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Emma Lazarus Institute, Chama champions cultural deradicalization and integration in the Middle East, using art as well as public and cultural diplomacy as tools for building sustainable bridges. Her work confronts the intersection of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and progressive gaslighting, while celebrating the resilience of Indigenous people.
Since October 7th, she has watched her community reel, not only from horror and heartbreak, but from a second violence: being told Jewish grief doesn’t matter, Jewish lives don’t count, Jewish identity is too complicated to hold space for. This exhibition says otherwise.
Event Schedule
Join us at PJCC for a series of special event programming with artist-in-residence, Chama Mechtaly on November 4-6.
Questions? Contact Jewish Life at jewishlife@pjcc.org.
Chama Mechtaly Art Exhibit
Friday, September 26, 2025 – Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Food For Thought: The Enemies of Peace are the Enemies of Art
Tuesday, November 4, 2025 ● 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Get Up & Go: Textiles Art Workshop
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 ● 1:00pm – 2:00pm
Jewish Indigeneity: Belonging and the Battle Against Erasure
Wednesday, November 5, 2025 ● 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Chai Society Lunch: The Feminine Reclaimed – Art, Identity & Resistance
Thursday, November 6, 2025 ● 12:00pm – 1:30pm
Chama Mechtaly | Gallery Tour and Meet the Artist
Thursday, November 6, 2025 ● 1:30pm – 3:00pm
The New Middle East: Investing in Deradicalization, Protecting Civilization
Thursday, November 6, 2025 ● 7:30pm – 9:00pm
Recent Exhibitions
2025 PJCC Community Art Show
July 9 – September 16, 2025
Inspired by our guiding principle of “Welcoming All,” the Peninsula Jewish Community Center presented our second Juried Community Art Show. After a competitive selection process, we were pleased to feature 89 works of art—available for purchase—created by 75 Bay Area artists.
The PJCC Community Art Show was made possible by the many talented artists who have shared their work and the generous support of the Eva Chernov Lokey Endowment for Programs.
Artists on Antisemitism III
January 9 – March 25, 2025
In collaboration with the Jewish Art Salon and 81 Leonard Gallery, this exhibition presents a survey of Jewish artists’ responses to the global surge in antisemitism. The showcased works reflect diverse perspectives, balancing reflections on traumatic histories with expressions of courage and optimism. This is the third iteration of the exhibition, following its initial presentations in New York in 2024.
Curated by Kimberly Gordon, Hannah Rothbard, Nancy Pantirer, Yona Verwer, and Judith Joseph. Presented in partnership with the Osher Marin JCC and JCCSF
ONE NATION
October 2024 – January 2025
This powerful exhibition offered a provocative exploration of America through the lens of contemporary artists, prompting essential dialogue about our nation’s past, present, and future. It invited viewers to reflect on the state of our nation and our hopes for a just future.
The PJCC is immensely grateful to our visionary donors.
The PJCC is proud to be a part of the Koret Initiative on Jewish Peoplehood. We are honored to present this program through the Taube Center for Jewish Peoplehood at the PJCC. Programs at the PJCC are made possible in part through generous support from our donors. To learn more or make a contribution, visit pjcc.org/donate.
Upcoming Programs
Chama Mechtaly Art Exhibit
Friday, September 26, 2025 – Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Bennewitz Quartet
Saturday, October 18, 2025 ● 8:00pm – 9:00pm
Israeli Dancing with Bronwyn Eisenberg
Sunday, October 19, 2025 ● 3:00pm – 5:30pm