When the Youth Outreach Center staff saw the extraordinarily talented Salamon Taka’s portrait of the President of Israel, Shimon Peres, which he drew and presented to the President during a visit to the teen’s Beit Shemesh school, they had a brilliant idea: “We want him to paint a mural in the new Igersheim Center,” they decided. Approaching the youngster at the Ceremony itself, after the President himself honored and complimented the boy, Salamon was further honored by the request, even approaching the feeling of the honor he received by the compliments from President Peres himself: “Of course I will paint it.”

It took Salamon two months of labor to transform a wall of a Center into a traditional Ethiopian village. And the compliments continued: “It was wonderful to have guests from abroad tell me how beautiful it is. But for me the most special thing is when the elders say it truly reminds them of their village.”  

One day Salamon will be a well-known and respected Israeli artist: he has already been offered a place to attend Bezalel Academy of the Arts in Jerusalem after his army service, and currently is participating in a weekly program there. But when he is famous, the beautiful wall of the Igersheim Center could be no more valuable than it already is today, a true gem valued and appreciated by all who have the opportunity to view it.