SAN DIEGO, Calif. —Talya Strauss remembers one Sukkot when "our family was living in Abutor, Israel, and the sukkah was on the hill looking out over the Old City of Jerusalem."

After returning to the United States, Talya, 22, and her sister Avra, 25, decided to paint some murals that could "capture that feeling," leading eventually to their decision to start The Sukkah Gallery, a part-time, Web-based business that can be accessed at www.thesukkahgallery.com.

"Most of the murals are inspired by places, colors and music that we have been inspired by," she said. "We wanted to capture the feeling of being on the Land, of sitting in your sukkah and looking out.

"Sukkot is a harvest holiday; immediately after Sukkot we start the prayers for rain. Today, most practicing Jews live in cities where their sukkah is surrounded by buildings and streets. We wanted to transport the people in the sukkah to a time and place beyond their normal location."

Their mother, Leah Strauss, is an educational specialist who has worked with challenged students at Soille San Diego Hebrew Day School. Avra and Talya attended not only Soille but also Beth Israel Day School, Chabad Hebrew Academy and the San Diego Jewish Academy.

Talya also studied in public school, at an Israeli high school for the arts, at a yeshiva in Sfat, at a yeshiva in Jerusalem, at UC Berkeley and at UC Santa Cruz. Avra attended Bar-Ilan University in Tel Aviv, the Bezalel Institute of Art and Design in Jerusalem, UCSD and Brandeis University.

Their murals typically measure 8-by-6 feet and are executed "on heavy-duty canvas similar to that used for army tents," Talya said. "The canvases are then primed with a special primer to prevent mold, improve the adhesiveness of the paint and make the material waterproof. The murals are then painted with latex paint designed to withstand the sun and the rain."

Priced between $800 and $1,400, the murals can be exhibited in homes before and after Sukkot or can be rolled up and stored in a tube until the next special celebration under the stars.

Asked how the idea developed for their part-time business, Talya answered that the practice of painting murals for sukkahs is really an old one. "It is traditional that people bring their most precious objects from their home into their sukkah," she said. "There are many people today who paint beautiful murals in their sukkah.

"We were always impressed by the wooden paneled sukkah in the museum of Jerusalem," she continued. "So, we knew that murals in sukkahs was an old idea. But when we looked at what kind of decorations were being sold for Sukkot, it seemed to consist mainly of small packets of laminated images. We saw that there were so many sukkahs with blank walls— it seemed to be a
perfect place for a mural.

"Avra had already been painting murals professionally (for the California Conservation Corps, restaurants and private homes), so we therefore decided to work together to create a series of murals for Sukkot.

"It is true that Sukkot is in many ways about simplicity. We in no way feel that a sukkah needs a mural, but rather that sometimes a painting can beautify one's environment."