Beautiful in your space.
Meaningful in your life.

PERETZ SCHMUKLER

ARTIST • RABBI

One of my earliest memories as a very young child is lying on the kitchen floor in Montreal with a pencil and a paper shopping bag my mother handed me. Long before I could properly write, I was already drawing.

Today I create paintings inspired by Torah, Chassidus, Jewish life, nature, beauty, and the belief that our surroundings shape how we think and feel. My goal is not simply to decorate a wall, but to create artwork that uplifts a space and quietly reminds people of meaning, hope, gratitude, and purpose.

Over the years I have worked as an artist, teacher, animator, multimedia designer, lecturer, and rabbi. I have taught students, created educational exhibits, worked during the early years of the commercial internet, produced and hand animated, frame by frame musical programs for children, and spent decades exploring how ideas can be communicated through words, music, images, and stories.

After my battle with cancer RL, I returned to painting with a renewed appreciation for life, family, faith, and the power that uplifting art can have in a person's environment.

Everything I create is my attempt to contribute something positive, meaningful, and uplifting to the world.

Welcome to PERETZ.CA.

More About Peretz

The Personal Story Behind the Artist

Early Years

I was born and raised in Montreal, Canada.

For as long as I can remember, I have been creating.

One of my earliest memories is lying on the kitchen floor with a pencil and an old-fashioned paper shopping bag, given to me by my mother תחי׳. I started drawing before I could properly write and perhaps before I could properly speak. Creativity was never something I consciously chose. It was simply part of who I was.

I grew up in a home where learning, faith, and creativity lived comfortably together. My father שליט׳א is a rabbi and sofer. Although painting was not a major part of his life, I still remember a few rare occasions when I saw him late at night sitting at the dining room table with paints and brushes. Those moments stayed with me.

My mother, father, and siblings encouraged curiosity, creativity, and freedom of expression, and I remain grateful for that environment.

Around the age of eleven, I received one of my earliest public recognitions when I won a children's art competition organized through Montreal's Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts for designing a Rosh Hashanah greeting card. Students from Jewish schools across Montreal participated. It was one of those childhood moments that quietly reinforced the idea that creativity was something worth pursuing.

As a child, while other children sold lemonade on the sidewalk, I sold my drawings. My older sister Devorah helped keep track of the sales. I've been told that some of those early drawings still exist in people's homes today.

Growing Up in Chabad

From a young age, I became involved in creating artwork for community projects, especially the annual Lag B'Omer parades in Montreal. After full days of learning, we would spend long nights in large warehouses in Montreal's industrial district painting signs, banners, educational displays, floats, and parade artwork.

One of the people who left a lasting impression on me was Reb Volf Greenglass, a true great Torah scholar, chassid, and Kabbalist OBM. During the weeks leading up to the parade, he would come to the warehouse where we worked. What impressed me was that he did not simply stop by to observe. He would remove his hat and jacket, pick up a brush, paint alongside us for a while, encourage us, and then return to his other holy work to study and pray.

Seeing a person of his stature physically participate in the work taught me that talents are gifts meant to be used in the service of a higher purpose.

Throughout my childhood, my father regularly brought me and my siblings Shlita from Montreal to New York to be present at major Chassidic occasions with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Although we did not live in Crown Heights, these visits had a profound impact on me.

I attended farbrengens, received Tanya, other books, honey cake, and dollars, and wine from the Rebbe, participated in children's gatherings, attended small-group yechidus settings, and witnessed many moments that helped shape my understanding of true holiness, purpose, and Jewish life.

One memory stands out vividly. On one occasion I sat beneath the Rebbe's table together with other children and remember the Rebbe lifting the tablecloth and handing cake to us. It is a simple memory, but one that remains with me to this day.

In 1985, during a live telephone hookup with the Rebbe, I sketched a small portrait of a man named Mr. Rosler OBM who was seated in front of me. Over thirty years later he returned that same drawing to me, that he had carried folded in a small envelope in his wallet with him all those years to show me one day my talent as a child and to encourage me to paint. I subsequently painted a color painting of him and brought it to him as a personal gift and appreciation for his encouragement that, without exaggeration, was very meaningful for me in pursuing my livelihood as a professional classical artist.

Around 1987, I created a black-and-white portrait of the Rebbe that became my first widely distributed published artwork. Prints were sold throughout the community. About a year later, after helping a store owner put on tefillin, I discovered one of those prints hanging in his office. Seeing my work unexpectedly appear in the world was both surprising and encouraging.

Music, Yeshiva, and Shlichus

Music has also been a meaningful part of my life. In 1989 I had the privilege of serving as drummer for Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach at a concert in S-Agathe, Quebec. Over the years I have played at weddings, children's rallies, community celebrations, and many other gatherings filled with music, joy, and Jewish life.

While studying in Morristown, I created and directed a traveling Chanukah and Purim theatrical production. I designed props, scenery, stage effects, recruited performers and musicians, coordinated productions, and performed as the drummer. We traveled to schools and community venues, bringing educational entertainment to children and families.

After my studies, I was sent by the Lubavitcher Rebbe as one of twelve rabbinical students on a two-year mission to Venezuela. There I studied, taught, organized together with my fellow Rabbinical students, educational activities, and worked within the local Jewish community.

After returning, I resumed my studies at 770 Eastern Parkway, the central Lubavitch Yeshiva. During this period I continued my Torah studies and later received rabbinical ordination from the Chief Rabbi of Montreal, the beloved, great and humble Gaon, Rabbi Pinchas Hirschsprung OBM.

After returning, I was repeatedly sent together with another rabbinical student to communities throughout South America and the Caribbean to help strengthen Jewish life through education, outreach, and community programs.

The Jewish Expo

From 1992 to 1993 I was given a leadership role as the leading artist in the creation of The Jewish Expo, a large traveling educational exhibition. While many people contributed to the project, I spent much of my time helping bring the exhibits to life—creating artwork, building displays, guiding volunteers, solving practical design challenges, and helping transform educational ideas into visual experiences.

Teaching, Multimedia, and the Early Internet

For many years after our marriage BH, much of my energy was devoted to teaching, community work, and helping young people.

In 1998 and 1999 I attended the Academy of Design in Montreal, where I studied digital art, animation, and multimedia.

Shortly afterwards I was hired by Idealab in Pasadena, California, during the early years of the commercial internet. There I worked on projects including Ice.com, creating branding, digital artwork, online advertising, product presentation graphics, and website design.

During my deep immersion in the development of commercial websites and online businesses while living in Pasadena, California, I was approached by a technology headhunter job recruiter with an opportunity to help develop and design a rapidly growing online gambling venture. The financial rewards would have been significant and potentially life-changing. Nevertheless, I declined. I felt strongly that if I was going to devote my creativity and energy to something, it should contribute something positive, educational, or meaningful.

That decision reinforced a pattern that has guided much of my life.

After returning to Montreal, I continued teaching while pursuing multimedia and educational work. I taught animation, multimedia, and interactive media at TAV College's technology program while also working with challenged teenagers and continuing my own learning and creative development.

Animation and Educational Media

My interest in using educational media eventually led me to the creation of The Mitzvah Team, and later The Kneidles, two animated musical projects created with strong encouragement from Reb Volf OBM.

My goal was to educate and engage the minds of Jewish children through FUN entertaining storytelling and music, to teach Halacha and Minhag and communicate positive values.

For many years, most of my creative efforts focused on teaching in the classroom, working as a teacher and coach for troubled youth, creating multimedia, animation, educational projects, and raising our family. Traditional canvas painting surprisingly occupied absolutely none of my time at all.

Returning to Painting

Then something unexpected happened.

On the 12th of Tammuz, I had a vivid dream in which I walked into a store filled with paintings. As I looked around, I realized every painting was mine. One image stood out in particular: a highly detailed ballpoint-pen portrait of the Previous Rebbe bearing my signature!

The dream affected me deeply because I had never imagined myself pursuing traditional painting in that way at all, especially as I was responsible to provide a livelihood for my family.

Later that day I asked my children which of my talents they felt I was underusing. To my surprise, one after another they answered: painting and drawing.

I took their response seriously.

I began with a ballpoint portrait of the Previous Rebbe as it appeared in my dream, then pencil portraits, and eventually painting in full color. The first paintings were terrible. The colors became muddy, and the results were frustrating.

But I continued learning, studying color theory, and experimenting. At the same time I was immersed in the Chassidic teachings of Ayin Beis by the Rebbe Rashab.

The combination of color theory and Chassidic thought eventually helped shape the visual language that became my current style.

Another memorable moment occurred while walking to 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn. I struck up a conversation with a modern tourist and his wife from Israel, and as we spoke about what we each did for a living, I mentioned that I was an artist.

He replied that art is a very difficult way to earn a living unless an artist reaches a level of quality worthy of building a career around. As an example, he mentioned a painting called Rebbe Bright Side by an artist named Peretz.

Neither he nor his wife realized they were speaking to that artist.

When I told them who I was, they were genuinely shocked. I was deeply encouraged to further pursue art as a main livelihood. Ironically, shortly after that encounter is when I started my battle with cancer.

Illness and Recovery, Perspective

In recent years I faced one of the greatest challenges of my life: cancer.

The illness itself occupied roughly two difficult years, followed by several years of recovery.

One part of that story I can never overlook is the support of my family and the greater Jewish community in Monsey, Brooklyn, and Lakewood, NJ. In particular, my older brother Mayer devoted extraordinary effort, research, time, and personal sacrifice to helping me pursue healing and recovery.

His dedication carried me through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and I remain deeply grateful for his selfless commitment.

The experience profoundly impacted my perspective on life and its purpose.

One gentleman battling cancer kept one of my paintings nearby and looked at it every day for strength and encouragement.

Today

Today I BH live and work out of my home studio, where I live with my wife and children Shlita in Jackson, New Jersey.

I continue to paint, teach, study, write, create music, and develop new projects. Friends and neighbors occasionally gather in my home for learning and informal farbrengens with occasional musical evenings with kumzitz singing, instruments, conversation, and friendship.

People sometimes ask me whether I see myself primarily as an artist, teacher, or rabbi.

The truth is that I have never viewed those pursuits as separate.

To me they are simply different tools for accomplishing the same purpose.

The greatest lesson I have learned from Torah, Chassidus, and life itself is that fulfillment comes from becoming a channel.

A channel for truth.

A channel to see HaShem's beauty in creation.

A channel for uplift and encouragement.

A channel for the wisdom of Torah and its inner teachings.

A channel for the light and life of HaShem, the Creator of everything, Baruch Hu.

Whether through a painting, a song, a vort, a shiur, a conversation, an animation, or a simple act of kindness, my goal remains the same: to communicate something meaningful that helps us reconnect with a higher purpose, hope, goodness, and a deeper connection with HaShem Yisborach.

I am grateful for every opportunity to be such a channel.

If my artwork, teachings, music, or story speaks to you in some way, I would be delighted to hear from you.

— Peretz Schmukler

PERETZ.CA

Animation, Education, and The Kneidles.

The Backstory..

My interest in animation did not begin in a classroom. It began when I was a child.

One afternoon in first or second grade, I went home with a classmate after school. His family allowed television and, as part of their regular routine, they watched the afternoon cartoon programs.

I was fascinated.

The moving characters, stories, music, humor, and animation completely captured my imagination. I loved every minute of it.

When I returned home, I excitedly told my mother that we needed one of those television boxes in our house too so I could watch those wonderful programs every day.

My mother listened and then gave me an answer I never forgot.

She explained that although much of what was shown on television was entertaining, much of it was also silly, violent, or simply not worthwhile. Then she told me something that stayed with me for the rest of my life.

She said that when Moshiach comes, the world will be filled with goodness and even tools like television would be used for positive purposes. Entertainment would still be enjoyable, but it would also be uplifting, educational, meaningful, and beneficial.

As a child, I never forgot that conversation.

Years later, when I studied animation, multimedia, and interactive media, I often thought about it. I was excited as I sensed that this was my opportunity to realize that wish and hope that I had as a child, and that I was in a unique opportunity to do my part and create that reality.

At the same time, I was teaching children and working with young people. I saw firsthand how strongly media influences the mind. I also noticed that much of the content available to Jewish children was either unavailable, limited, poorly produced, or simply unable to compete with the quality and excitement of mainstream entertainment.

Later, as my own children grew, I felt that challenge even more personally. I wanted them to have access to educational media that was fun, engaging, professionally produced, and aligned with positive values.

Those experiences eventually led to the creation of The Mitzvah Team and later The Kneidles.

My goal was never simply to entertain.

My goal was to use music, storytelling, humor, characters, and animation to communicate mitzvos, halacha, good habits, positive character traits, Jewish values, and a love for Yiddishkeit in a way children would genuinely enjoy.

I discussed the idea for the educational animated musical entertainment for Jewish children and received strong encouragement from my Mashpia and mentor, Reb Volf Greenglass OBM, who believed that creative talents should be used in the service of HaShem.

Looking back, I realize that these projects were not only animation projects. They were an attempt to create the kind of educational and uplifting media that I wished existed when I was a child.

Thanks for visiting. If my artwork, teachings, music, or story speak to you in some way, you’re welcome to reach out to me using the form at the bottom of this page and join the conversation.

Peretz