For Yael Gahnassia, Mayanot is far more than a gallery. It is a raison d’être, an achievement. It is an encounter between a woman and a city, a mutual discovery and above all a reunion. One fine day, in 1981, Yael decided to abandon her real estate business on the Champs Elysées in Paris, France and to start over, in Jerusalem. Her first formative encounter in Jerusalem was with Rabbi Léon Askenazi, known as Manitou, at his Mayanot Jewish Studies Center. From him she drew the strength and learning that would lead her back to her Jewish origins. "It was Manitou who made me understand that one of the reasons why the Jewish people was exiled for two thousand years was to bring back to our recovered land the culture that we had acquired in the Diaspora, to build and enrich this country," Yael relates. Her path was now clear to her: to reconcile art and spirituality, the truth of the rabbinic sages and of the artists.

This demanding trajectory led her to focus the attention of modern Israelis on the forgotten early painters of the Bezalel School, to prepare an edition of Abel Pann's Bible, and to encourage contemporary artists. These include Zvi Malnovitzer, who comes from an ultra-Orthodox community in Bnei Brak and who is considered today a leading Israeli painter. Recently, Yael has been attracted by photography and its creators whom she champions with the same enthusiasm and undiminished faith that she displayed when starting out.

For this, Yael Gahnassia knows that she can rely on her experience and the credibility that she acquired among art collectors. "Today, art galleries must compete with online sales rooms and e-commerce. Frequently, buyers believe that they will get better bargains if they bypass the gallery owner. They are mistaken. No online sales site, no auction will guarantee that you are purchasing an artist's best work. Sometimes, you also run the risk of buying a forgery. Above all, however, it is very difficult, even impossible, to rid yourself of a work that you purchased on impulse and that you regret buying shortly afterwards. In my gallery, this is not the case.

I have only the best creations of the artists that I select. When a client comes to me, he knows that I will never offer him a minor work. Over the past 25 years, I have forged special relationships with Mayanot's customers; they have become friends, who over the years have shared with me their attachment to the work and sometimes also to the collection that they purchased from the gallery. Relations of trust and loyalty. No sales room will ever give you that" Yael explains. Those services and personal contact are offered to collectors with the same high standard and quality level in Jerusalem gallery and at Mayanot gallery online as well.