34 | MARCH 14 • 2024 

This is her first time drawing 
a tragedy, she says, and she tries 
to make it as smooth as possible. 
She does pencil sketches and then 
heads to the sand table, which has a 
camera above it, and starts to shoot. 
She has an editor that edits it and 
adds voiceover and music and sends 
it to the staff.
“I’m the last person that works 
on it. First, they collect the stories, 
they edit it and they record it, and 
when it’s finished, they send it to me 
and I draw,
” she explains. “I get the 
recording of the actor that tells the 
story, and then I listen to it all day 
long and I feel a part of it, and then 
images come to my mind.
”
First, she draws it by pencil in 
her notebook, listening to the story 
again and again. “Finally, I do what 
I feel in my heart. It’s a kind of 
emotional art, very emotional,
” she 
says. “It’s not so easy, because when 
I heard the stories, I was so upset 
and so emotional. It takes me time 
to stand beside the glass table and to 
draw on sand.
” 
The project is even more personal 
for Yahav, she says, given that her 
husband was a prisoner of war in 
Syria in the 1973 war. She was told 
that he died and sat shivah, then he 
came back and was with her for 40 
years before his passing a decade 
ago. 
“
All the feelings of all the 
families that are waiting for the 
hostages, they don’t know if they 
are alive or dead; I know it very well 
myself because I had this terrible 
experience when I was young,
” she 
says. “We were a young couple. I 
was pregnant with my son, and this 
way I feel them so much, because I 
was there with all the terrible things 
that happened.
” 
She says she hopes that as many 
people as possible around the world 
can learn from the project. “If even 
one person in the world will watch 
it and think about what’s happened 
… for me, one person is the whole 

Dana Dvorin speaks 
with Nelly Tager, a 
famous Israeli actress 
who’s involved in Rays 
of Light.

continued from page 33

continued on page 36

WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP
ON THE COVER

