Menachem had yet to paint the sky, which she intended to color a clear power blue. She changed her mind after the disaster. The sky, she decided, would be red scattered with daubs of glittering gold.

“Golden,” she said, sitting in a wheelchair in one of her family’s two Highland Park flower shops, “like those golden people that vanished, disappeared.”

Menachem’s painting, “The Red Space,” hanging the Holocaust Museum Houston as part of an exhibit honoring Israeli astronaut Col. Ilan Ramon, who was killed.

Menachem, 45, said she felt a strong personal connection with him. Both were children of Holocaust survivors, both children of Israel. And both overcame long odds. Ramon was Israel’s first astronaut.

Tel Aviv-born Menachem began her painting career after suffering a stroke six years ago that left her partially paralyzed. She had to teach herself to paint with her left hand.

Menachem said she tries to infuse her works with a sense of joy of survival.“I tried to represent the love and the passion and the desire and the courage,” she said. “Don’t give up ever and ever. Try. Only try.”

After finishing “The Red Space,” Menachem dedicated it to Ramon and began shopping it around to museums, including Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.

The Holocaust Museum Houston accepted it into its permanent collection last month and told her the work would hang in the exhibit dedicated to Ramon.

It hangs near Ramon’s personal items donated by his widow, Rona, said Collin Keel, museum spokesman.“It is as if you were standing at a bed of flowers looking into it,” Keel said.”

New Orleans
“ Yochy Menachem, the newest artist to be featured at William & Joseph Gallery, has been painting vibrant abstract oil pastel paintings since she was a teacher/educator in Israel. Yochy paints daily in addition to being an author and an owner of two successful flower shops. She feeds her passion for color, shape and beauty in all that she does.”

The honorable general consolate of Israel in the Midwest, Mr. Moshe Ram, Mrs. Ety Katzir-Kaslasey, Menachem, Adi, Rafi, and Yochy

After Ramon perished along with the six other crewmembers aboard the Columbia Space Shuttle early last year, the artist’s work became, instead, a memorial recently chosen by the Houston Holocaust Museum for its first-anniversary tribute to the astronaut. Entitled “Ilan Ramon: Remembering a Hero, Remembering a Friend,” the exhibit also features letters of condolence sent to the Ramon family, as well as replicas of several items carried by Col. Ramon into space, including a drawing by Peter Gainz, a young Holocaust victim. The display runs now through May 2, 2004.”

Mary Boony
a critic of Yochy's art "Yochy Menachem, the newest artist to be featured at William & Joseph Gallery, has been painting vibrant abstract oil pastel paintings since she was a teacher/educator in Israel. Yochy paints daily in addition to being an author and an owner of two successful flower shops. She feeds her passion for color, shape and beauty in all that she does"
-The William & Joseph Gallery

Molly Bergen
"Red is the first thing that will catch a viewer's eye; it's such a strong color Red is the color of passion. It represents love as well as fury. When used in great quantities it projects an image of deep emotion. Space is the absence of matter. Yochy's art, "Red Space" is alive."

TCW - April 2004
" The Red Space," a painting by Skokie resident Yochy Menachem, appeared in the Houston Holocaust Museum’s tribute to Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut. He died aboard the Columbia space shuttle and was the inspiration for Yochy’s painting.