Thousands of hours of work, chipping of 12,000 scaled-down stones and one will
: set the course of my life in the Knesset.
This was the wish of the late Zvi Guzman, a Holocaust survivor who devoted four years of his life to building a scale model of the Knesset.
Zvi is one of the thousands of children who lost their entire family in the Holocaust and immigrated to Israel thanks to Reha Friar, the founder of the Aliyat Hanoar.
He arrived in Israel in 1939.
"My father was one of the defenders of the city of Holon before the War of Independence.
My father was an artist and sculptor at heart and created models of historical sites that serve as landmarks in the country’s history.
One of the marvelous models, the highlight of his many works, is the Knesset building.
This is a remarkably accurate model, a very special model due to the importance of this institution to the state. "
The model of the late Guzman,
Zvi began building the model of the Knesset in the early 1970s.
Since then he has devoted every spare hour to the craft.
"He devoted about four years to this model, with a special permit from the then Minister of Police, Shlomo Hillel, to go around all the wings of the building in order to copy it accurately," said Inda Novominsky, director of the Knesset archives.
In order to build the model, which is more than two meters long and more than a meter wide, Zvi needed more than 12,000 small stones, which he cut with his own hands from the rocks of Jerusalem.
The director of the archive said that in order to preserve Zvi's life project, the Knesset examined how the continuation of the natural weathering of the exhibit could be prevented, and for the purpose of its preservation, the guard, Alicia Diaz, was chosen.
Knesset Speaker MK Miki Levy, who was moved by the presentation given to Knesset by Anat and Uri, Zvi's children, told Israel Today: "Zvi defeated the Nazis. He has established a glorious family in Israel, "A new history of the visitors' center. Children and soldiers will learn who Zvi Guzman was, we will all remember him."
Zvi and his wife Malka left behind a large family of two children, five grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren, who will be invited for a special visit to the Mishkan upon completion of the preservation work on the model.
The late Guzman. Right: The model
Photo: Courtesy of the family
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