The Jewish Community Foundation Orange County (JCFOC) hosts the Jewish Street Art Festival this summer, which will bring famed Jewish artists to Southern California to paint murals across Orange County.
Curated and presented by the Foundation’s Weissman Arts program, a project of the JCFOC, and partnering with institutions throughout Orange County, the 2025 Festival will bring together Jewish artists from around the U.S. and Israel to paint this spring and summer. Painting at select locations began in May and will culminate this fall, with a Jewish Street Art Experience: Live at the Merage Jewish Community Center (JCC) on Sunday, Aug. 24 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Founded by artist and designer Hillel Smith—who first brought the event to Jerusalem in 2019 and later launched decentralized versions across North America—the Jewish Street Art Festival comes to Orange County with the Jewish Community Foundation Orange County’s Weissman Arts Program, serving as cultural co-producer and leading community partnerships for the 2025 edition.
Curated and presented by the Foundation’s Weissman Arts program, a project of the JCFOC, and partnering with institutions throughout Orange County, the 2025 Festival will bring together Jewish artists from around the U.S. and Israel to paint this spring through the fall. This year’s return to an in-person format will feature 11 new murals by nine acclaimed artists, including Rabbi Yitzchok Moully, Mike Wirth, Louis Barak, Adam Podber, Alexander Golob, Hillel Smith, Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz. Smith, an artist and designer himself, has painted Jewish murals around the U.S., Israel, and Europe, and continues to expand the festival’s reach as co-producer for the Orange County rendition.
Smith is focused on “re-imagining the potential of Judaica by utilizing contemporary media to create new manifestations of traditional forms.” He has painted dynamic Jewish murals in Southern California, Atlanta, Ga., Virginia, Minnesota, Jerusalem, and at the Fendi headquarters in Rome, Italy. Seeing Hebrew as the visual glue that binds Jews together across time and space, he also teaches Jewish typographic history, using print as a lens for Jewish life and culture.
Artists that kicked off the festival were Rabbi Yitzchok Moully, Mike Wirth, Louis Barak, and Smith. They have already created six new murals in Santa Ana, Irvine, Huntington Beach, and elsewhere in Orange County (in May 2025).
Arriving this month (August) to continue the mural cycle will be Adam Podber and Alexander Golob. Together with Smith, who will be returning as the co-producer and festival founder, these artists will create several more murals, completing the 2025 Orange Country presentation of Jewish Street Art.
Later this fall, Israeli artists Dede Bandaid and Nitzan Mintz will complete the last two murals for our community.
The mission of the Foundation is to guarantee a Jewish tomorrow through the creation of a culture of legacy within the Orange County Jewish community and by empowering individuals to engage in effective, meaningful giving. By planning for the continuation of philanthropy into the future with permanent endowments combined with current giving, JCFOC seeks to ensure financial resources for the continued vitality of institutions that promote Jewish identity, support a high quality of Jewish life, and benefit the people of Orange County and Jewish communities around the world.
JCFOC established the Albert Weissman & Rhoda Yvette Weissman Endowment Fund, also known as the Weissman Arts program, through a generous legacy gift from the couple. In honoring their wishes, the Weissman Arts legacy program provides for arts and arts-related programming in Jewish Orange County.
For a full list of artists and mural locations, visit www.jcfoc.org. And, for more information on the festival’s culmination event at the end of summer, visit www.jewishstreetart.com/2025orangecounty.
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