”Gruti”, a riff on the Hebrew word gruta’ah (junk, scrap), is made of a can of juice, duct tape, bits of cloth, and plastic bottles. But for Bilhah Yinon, author of the books Gruti and Parparit, Gruti, and Me, Gruti is a guard dog and loyal friend she created to help connect us to nature and remind us to protect it. One could perhaps translate Gruti as “Scrappy”.
The book Gruti, which came out in 1993, is part of a long-standing vision of Bilhah’s, a vision in which members of the younger generation would be taught to protect nature, recycle, and create. Bilhah Yinon was an artist, an art teacher, and an educator, as well as a credentialed parental instructor at the Adler Institute. She lived in Netiv Ha’Asarah, a moshav (a cooperative agricultural community) located on the northern border of the Gaza Strip.
At age 56, she took an early retirement and set up a studio on the moshav. There she worked, taught, and produced art – primarily using the Mandala Method which serves as a form of meditative exercise and an artistic expression of universal human values, while also strengthening concentration and balance.
The studio is the only part of the home Bilhah shared with her partner Yaakov that remains standing today in Netiv Ha’Asarah. The events of October 7 cut their lives short – but they did not destroy the dreams, artworks, and love which Bilhah spread to her students, to her family, to her five children to whom she devoted her books, and to everyone who knew her.
Bilhah was designated as the last “missing person” of October 7. In early August 2024, the IDF confirmed that it had identified her body. That cursed morning, three terrorists infiltrated Netiv Ha’Asarah. Yaakov was murdered in the massacre and his body was identified.
Bilhah, meanwhile was designated as a “missing person” because there was no sign that she had been taken to Gaza and because no sign of her remains was found at first. Since the two were together, the family expected to hear the worst and even sat shivah for both of them the day after the massacre. Despite this, the ultimate confirmation of her death was painful, forcing the painful feelings and trauma back to the surface.
Her daughter Maayan Yinon spoke to us about Bilhah’s books which can be found at the National Library, as well as her mother’s worldview: “My father would always laugh at mom that she was a trash collector. She was really ahead of her time when it came to recycling. She would do amazing things,” Maayan told us. “I remember her artworks hanging up since I was a baby. It was part of the mindset of her and my father, who’s an agronomist. They had a connection to nature and the land, and she believed that the less you bought, the better.”
In the book Gruti, a lonely child decides to make himself a dog from scrap – who then becomes his friend. The child presents the dog to his parents, who aren’t big on the idea at first, but who later help their son collect more elements for his dog-doll. Gruti protects the child, the home, and the garden and reminds the family to protect nature.
In the book’s sequel Parparit, Gruti, and Me, the child and his good friend Gruti find a plastic bag in the street. They turn it into a butterfly doll called Parparit (“female butterfly” in Hebrew), who teaches them to be happy and dance. The two books contain a detailed description for children on how to make their own “Gruti” and “Parparit” with bottles, caps, bags, and more at the back of the book.
Maayan has the original Gruti doll from the book: “Originally, my mother and Maurizio the illustrator submitted the book’s text and illustrations to a scholarship fund and they won first prize. That’s how she published it. I remember her excitement when the books came, we were all excited. All the grandchildren were given a workshop on how to make their own Gruti and Parparit. At the party for my daughter’s fourth birthday, she and mom prepared a play for kindergarten based on the [Levin] Kipnis story, Shloshah Parparim [Three Butterflies]. Mom made three butterflies just like Parparit.”
Literature, creativity, and the art of reading storybooks were all a part of Bilhah’s everyday life. She very much missed her grandchildren who live in London. Every morning, she would get up to read them a story by Zoom, and the grandchildren would sit and listen to Grandma Bilhah.
Bilhah’s connection to her children and grandchildren, both in Israel and abroad, was exceptional, and she chose to communicate with them using her various senses as well as their own creativity:
“She believed that that we’re allowed to feel anything and that [the children] should express their inner creativity. Her house was almost entirely devoid of things you needed to ‘protect’ and you could always act freely, even if something fell down. There was a lot of creativity around – paper, markers and blocks. You could always find something to do which didn’t involve watching a screen. This was at the core of the atmosphere in that house,” Maayan said.
“There was a ‘rage corner’ in the yard. Whoever was really angry and needed to get out their anger – got to do it there. She would give the children plates and you could break or throw them in that corner which had many shattered fragments of all sorts of plates. I am sorry I didn’t understand then just how much she understood children and youth. It took me time to understand, but the grandchildren were simply privileged to have a grandmother and grandfather who were very sensitive to their needs and who really understood them. No judgment.”
Bilhah and Yaakov were special people, who were connected to the land and who had a great deal of humor and love in their hearts. Bilhah would come each time with a new creative idea and Yaakov would encourage her and support her and her desire to do what she wanted. She used various materials from everyday life in her works, even collecting stones from around the world to create art that was full of life.
In the books she managed to publish, Bilhah wrote happy stories about magical places. Through these stories, she succeeded in delivering deeper messages about love, friendship, and overcoming difficulties, while weaving together reality and imagination. Today they carry on the memory of their author, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists – a woman who left behind a legacy which continues to touch many hearts.
“I learned from mom about the importance of ‘communicating at eye level’ with children and adults, on the possibility of creating in almost any situation, that it’s worth it to paint together or do something simple, a pleasant jaunt together, it’s very important,” Maayan said. “It was important for her to accumulate good experiences together and teach that the nature around us is just as sensitive as we are and that it’s important to protect it.”
The family went through very difficult days upon learning of the certain death of Yinon, even though they already knew and assumed this was the case. Maayan, a body-mind therapist by profession, deals with the pain admirably:
“These are very challenging days. We feel great sadness and anger. But I want to stress – we have received love which accompanies us. First of all, the love of my parents is very much felt even now, and we also received love and support from many good people along the way. Every opportunity to talk about them, and any project done or planned in their memory provides hope and belief for me that we can establish a reality of gentleness, sensitivity, and beauty in this world even in terrible and difficult times.
“This is mom’s legacy. She would succeed in creating a magical, amazing, beautiful world within a complicated reality. She would find creative solutions for renewal amidst depression. So, if I choose to be here, then I must think how I want to feel. It’s true that it’s very hard right now. I don’t feel happiness, maybe for a few brief moments. But I do succeed in experiencing a sense of gratitude, for the family I had and have, and the parents I had.”
Lives Lost: The Works of the October 7 Fallen – A Special Project