My father z”l Shlomo (Solomon) Moriah was born in Marrakesh, Morocco in 1923. His artistic talent was revealed at an early age. After the death of his father, he helped support his mother and 7 siblings through his art. The family later moved to Casablanca where my father became known as an outstanding portraitist and landscape artist. His renown increased after a series of one-man exhibitions throughout Morocco and Europe.

After World War II my father settled in Paris where, while continuing to paint in the Bohemian post-war community, he felt a spiritual void in his life and began to delve more deeply into his Jewish roots. His association with the then-Chief Rabbi of France, Rav Yaakov Kaplan zal, led him to do research on the connections between the art and medicine of the time of the First Temple and the art and medicine of our times. At the Center for Jewish Students my father met an American art student from a secular Jewish family, Rosalie Epstein, my mother, who showed a keen interest in his research. Beginning a life-long collaboration, the couple, my parents, were married in Paris in 1957. Their intense study of Temple times naturally led to a desire to make aliyah and participate in the rebirth of the Jewish State after 2,000 years.

Arriving in Jerusalem in 1960 they officially changed their family name from Moryoussef to Moriah, symbolizing their deep attachment to the Holy City. I am the youngest of the five children who were born to them.

My father passed away at Chanukah in 1987 at the age of 64, leaving me with a feeling that it was my role to develop the artistic potential that he passed on to me.

Some of my father’s work