This painting is part of my first series: This is not an offering.
Dinah was the daughter of Jacob and Leah, likely around 12 or 13 years old. If we place her within the traditional biblical timeline, she would have lived around the 18th to 17th century BCE.
Growing up mostly among her brothers, she was probably lonely and sought companionship with the girls of Shechem. During a visit to Shechem, Dinah was abducted and raped by Shechem, the son of Hamor. Shechem expressed a desire to marry Dinah and asked his father to negotiate with Jacob.
Jacob and his sons agreed to the marriage on the condition that all the men of Shechem undergo circumcision.
While the men were recovering, unbeknownst to Jacob, Dinah’s brothers Simeon and Levi took violent revenge on the city, killing the men and laying claim to the surviving women, children, properties and livestock.
Some rabbinical sources claim that as a result of the rape, Dinah had a daughter named Osnath, who was abandoned and then adopted and raised by Potiphera and his wife (of Egypt).
Osnath later married Joseph, her biological uncle.
"This is not an offering" is a series of paintings that reimagines the women of the Tanach, not as passive figures or symbols of virtue, but as humans who ask to be seen on their own terms, beyond the limits of traditional narratives and inherited interpretations.
