Painter Barbara Hines is presenting her first solo exhibition in Israel at a museum that also holds a personal significance: it was where she had her first date with the man who became her husband. “Jerusalem in My Soul” runs through January 15 at the Moshe Castel Museum of Art in Ma’aleh Adumim, where the newly married couple are preparing a home.
Hines visited the museum with Ma’aleh Adumim resident Natan Ophir in May 2025, after asking whether they could meet at a local art museum. There she encountered the work of Moshe Castel, whose technique combined crushed basalt from Israel with sand and glue. Although she had not previously known his work, Hines had spent a decade in America painting Jerusalem with pigments containing finely powdered soil brought or sent from the city.
Born in Germany and raised in a Christian household in Australia, Hines later practiced Buddhism. She graduated from the University of Sydney and studied at the New York School of Interior Design and Pratt Institute. After marrying international real estate developer Gerald Hines, she lived with him and their children, Serena and Trevor, in Houston, Aspen, London and southern France.
A turning point came in London, when Trevor, then 14, investigated Christianity’s roots and announced that he wanted to become Jewish. Hines supported his interest, made the family kitchen kosher and began studying Shabbat and Jewish holidays. When Trevor told his maternal grandmother about his plans to convert, she revealed that her own mother and grandmother had been Jewish. Hines learned that she and her children were Jewish, too.
Hines said she had not known that her parents survived World War II in Germany as Jews. They concealed their Jewish identity after moving to Australia because they wanted to protect their family. With her husband’s support and guidance from Chabad rabbis, Hines and her children gradually embraced that heritage. Her developing religious knowledge also influenced her art, drawing her toward Jerusalem after years of painting light, color and landscapes. She said she has now practiced Orthodox Judaism for 25 years.
Her connection to Israel began with a visit at 22, while she was teaching in Germany after university. Following Gerald’s death in 2020, she moved to Florida, but repeated visits to Israel eventually led her to buy an apartment in Jerusalem. Relatives of her daughter’s Israeli husband welcomed her and introduced her to Ophir, a rabbi who holds a doctorate in Jewish philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Hines and Ophir married last spring and settled in her German Colony apartment. They intend to divide their time between Jerusalem and Ma’aleh Adumim once their new apartment is complete. Its building overlooks the Judean Hills near the Castel Museum. Ophir has a dozen grandchildren in Ma’aleh Adumim and another dozen in nearby Judean Desert communities.
Hines signs her paintings with her initials, B’H, which also stand for baruch Hashem, meaning blessed is God. She sees the signature as an expression of gratitude and hopes the soil incorporated into her canvases helps them inspire viewers. Her move has also brought paintings made abroad to Israel, including works previously displayed at Houston’s Aishel House, where she left framed art-quality reproductions in their place.
